some critics thought it was bold killing him off without much explanation , but Lucas killed off Maul quickly in episode I and everyone complained , and they both died being sliced
shareBecause the movies were building Snoke. His very existence is strange and warrants explanation.
Maul was just muscle as far as we were concerned and there wasn't much to wonder about him. We know he's Palpatine's underling.
I was okay with both.
Snoke getting killed was exciting because it completely changed the game (well, should have). That power vacuum should have been the start of an amazing plot arc in the sequel trilogy. Unfortunately, nothing actually happened, so the shift ultimately fell flat.
As for Darth Maul, I have always thought he was one of the most overrated characters of all-time. I don't get why people like him. They made him look like the devil and gave him a double-bladed lightsabre and people went nuts over him. He doesn't really have a personality; he's just a video game level boss.
Honestly I feel the series started off with a rocky foundation with the Force Awakens. I mean look it was not bad but it was painfully safe and by the numbers. Finn was the most interesting character it had going for it. They unfortunately did nothing with him.
Snoke getting killed I was not a fan of. The reason is because why bother building him up in mystery if you are never going to answer the questions you presented?
As for Darth Maul I can not say I fully agree. I mean why was everyone obsessed with Boba Fett? It was his appearance nothing more. He looked cool. It was not because of his motivations or personality they liked his design. I think the appeal of Darth maul is his weapon and how he utilizes it. Honestly as much as people dump on the Phantom Menace that was actually a legitimately well choregraphed and filmed fight scene and a good set piece. No shaky cam, no quick cuts, camera pulled back far enough to get a clear view of the fight. We had never scene acrobatic moves like that in the previous movies. Overdone? Sure but it was no doubt fun to see. Also the little subtleties. When the force field stops the fight and you see Darth Maul pacing back and forth and Qui-Gon closing his eyes. Both mediating but in their own way. Jedi meditation vs Sith meditation. I mean I do not think he is obviously in the ranks of Vader or Sidious but I can see his appeal personally. I don't know maybe that is just me.
My nutshell on The Force Awakens is that it was fun, but didn't have a lot of substance, it lacked original ideas (just Xeroxing Episode IV's plot with cosmetic changes), and it handled the "gap" poorly. To that last point: Han couldn't have lost the Falcon, let alone his relationship with Leia (and son!), Luke wouldn't have abandoned everybody, and the First Order can't just be there after decades. That stuff might happen, but it's too momentous, and if it was going to happen, it needed to happen on-screen; hand-waving the ending of Return of the Jedi was frustrating and cheap.
All that said, TFA was fun, looked good, and did at least feel like a Star Wars film (probably because of how much pilfering they did!) It was fun to see Han and Chewie again. Mark Hamill managed to pack a TONNE of feeling into seven seconds of screentime (if that), and I really liked Finn as a character.
I agree with you entirely: Finn was their best guy. He was an ex-stormtrooper and a bit of a coward. We haven't seen either of those in a Star Wars film before. I'm also just a sucker for coward characters (Rincewind, for example) and really love how they play against tropes. Plus, they have fun arcs, and when they do actually get around to performing a feat of heroism, it's very touching and means more than if it were performed by, say, James Bond.
I also agree that they should answer the questions they built up, and Abrams' "mystery boxes" aren't a good idea. That was compounded by most of what Johnson did with TLJ. Snoke's death was interesting to me because it was totally unexpected and should have been used to create a power vacuum with Imperial leaders (including Kylo) trying to scrabble together the pieces. My preference would have been for Kylo and Rey to join together as their own faction, rejecting the First Order AND Resistance and trying to obtain some kind of godhood for themselves. Would've been cool. They could have run into the Knights of Ren in the third and, through them, learned more about Snoke and sewn up those. Instead, they had Snoke's death do nothing. Very frustrating.
Well, my "nutshell" ran me out of space. My bit on Maul will be in a separate post.
You're right about Boba Fett being no better than Maul and coasting on cool. I think the difference for me is that people didn't say, "Darth Maul is cool," they often seemed to think he was a great character. Boba Fett is a taciturn hardcase with cool armour, so his coolness is palpable, but I wouldn't say he's a great character. Then with Maul, I felt like his "cool" was almost all gimmicks and marketing. Before the movie came out, people were excited for Maul, but why? He just looks like a demon and has an extra blade. I thought those were obvious "look how cool!" traps from Lucas & Co., and I was surprised people fell for it.
To me, Darth Maul feels like a playground invention. Like a kid saying, "My guy is the coolest. His hair is red and spiky, and he wears black armour, and he has a gun that shoots rockets and lasers." Add to that zero personality and my response to Maul was, somewhere between, "So what?" and "Why was he even in the movie?" Despite having very little character development himself, I liked Count Dooku more. I think it was because he had a neat backstory (ex-Jedi) that connected with the themes (Ghost of Anakin Future), and because Sir Christopher Lee infused him with some personality. He also just seemed like the creators of the film weren't trying too hard.
Sorry, that's harsher than I intend it. I don't hate Maul. I'm more just apathetic and then surprised that other people thought he was amazing.
To the lightsabre fight at the end of TPM: Yes, it's a good fight. As much as I do rip on the prequels for having overly-balletic sabre duels, it is fun to watch. I prefer it to the finale duel in the prequels, actually, which I felt went WAY over the top in basically every way (and to an extreme) whereas the TPM duel feels overdone, but not by much. The best part is the music, where Williams knocked it out of the park so hard it's impossible not to get pumped for the show.
However, I will also say this: the criticisms of the too-sterile choreography are true, especially after Obi-Wan should have lost control.
I love your idea that seething *is* Sith meditation. That's neat, and a concept that could be explored in a Star Wars film (not just that, but all the weird, dark things that Sith get up to).
Also, I had it pointed out to me - at some point - that the Jedi use super-speed early in The Phantom Menace, but Obi-wan can't make it through the force fields, and I can't unsee that, and it makes it hard to suspend my disbelief for the last bit of the fight.
That power vacuum should have been the start of an amazing plot arc in the sequel trilogy.
Better planning would have made it work better, yes, and if we're talking about fixing the sequel trilogy, I certainly would start with TFA, not TLJ, since the whole setup was bunked.
However, if we're talking about the Snoke-slaying moment, I found it exciting because of the possibilities it opened up...only to have those possibilities annihilated after the ensuing sword fight. The thrill of "Anything could happen!" was dispelled into the vapour of "She's still good; he's still bad. Oh. Okay."
And, of course, some of the problem there is Rise of Skywalker also fumbling the ball and failing the capitalize on what Snoke's death could mean by instead doing one of the dumbest "Yoink" plot twists in cinema history.
Any planning would have made it work better!
I haven't seen ROS and don't intend to. The end of TLJ killed it for me.
A bit like the Snoke thing being a flop in terms of set up, the fact that they left them with the rebellion being a handful of people in the back of the Millennium Falcon was just daft.
It meant that no matter what they did in terms of an evil threat set up - for the third film in what was supposed to be a trilogy - they'd have to do the same for the rebels as well.
The exposition required just to get that film started must be really embarrassing...
I think the paradox of the sequels was that they were simultaneously over-planned and under-planned. They put way too much thought into what would make the most Star Wars money without focusing on the story. My personal theory is that they basically tried to please the fans too much. I know that's weird, given how little love most fans have for the series, but hear me out:
TFA was committee-built to avoid the backlash the prequels caught. It was a "return to form," touting its "practical effects". The plot is lifted from the original Star Wars, there are no midichlorians or any other hated prequel lore mentioned, tech is identical to the original trilogy (X-wings, e.g.), and fights are violent and rough - the opposite of the sterile prequels. With a woman and a black man as the leads, the committee covered their demographic bases and didn't care about the story. It succeeded: fans loved it on first viewing (mostly). But then came the dissent: too derivative, too "safe"...
TLJ comes next, responding to that backlash. "Subverts expectations." That phrase kept coming back like a boomerang clocking us in the head no matter how many times we threw it away. This was so deliberately anti-play-it-safe that it was off-putting.
Which brings us to ROS, which you haven't seen. I might spoil some stuff, but I have a feeling you won't care.
ROS retconned TLJ, basically. It backpeddalled on Rey's parents being nobodies, it explained who Snoke was, it brought in the Knights of Ren - all of it. They even cut Rose's role down to a bit player after fans hated on her. There's a throwaway line dismissing the "Holdo Maneuver" as untenable. Ironically, all this retconning plus needing to throw in a finishing plot meant they had no room to tell a good story and it just founders around.
To me, the story of the prequels is this cyclical resetting based on whims and trying to anticipate what people want. In typically executive fashion, they missed what we really want: a great story.
I wouldn't disagree with that.
I'm pretty sure the whole Rey "nobody" thing was an attempt to fit in with real life, sjw type feedback at the time.
Too much of the whole sequel trilogy was thrown away on the "Who's Rey?" thing. They should have just revealed it at the end of TFA and just moved on with the story. But they didn't. And a lot of online / social media discussion revolved around it.
"Why does she have to be related to anyone?", "Why can't she just be a strong woman in her own right?", "She can only have these powers because of a man?", etc...
That's pretty much what shaped Rian Johnson's take on it. Unfortunately the whole mythos of Star Wars is Arthurian in nature. Be it Luke Skywalker, destined for greatness, or Anakin, who Lucas literally wrote as the chosen one.
Just because the character was female, that shouldn't have changed - in fact ironically truly being non sexist, Rey should have been written in exactly the same way. But Johnson got that wrong and in order to write something explanatory, JJ had to flop back the other way in the last one.
So like you said, all done on whims and resetting based on feedback to each individual episode, rather than writing a coherent trilogy...
I feel like either storyline would have worked, but yes, they needed to pick one and stick to it. Ironically, I think Johnson had a lot of great, fresh ideas. Having a "nobody" at the centre of Star Wars would have been neat, and I like the idea that the Force could come to those who are unexpected and unworthy in the eyes of the elite. I like that he wanted to challenge the idea of the flyboy as the ultimate warrior. But his ideas were poorly executed and stuffed in the middle of a story that wasn't set up for that.
You're probably right about the origins of Rey's (lack of) parentage. Again, it's a committee decision trying to please people and check off a demographic box. Story and character come first, otherwise it's just a mess.
Great writeup, I especially like "built by a committee" as a characteristic of TFA. Indeed it felt they desperately wanted to create something that has the same effect on audiences in 2015 the original Star Wars had in 1977.
But of course we have already seen the 1977 Star Wars. And it holds up today, still as a fun action sci-fi. So they wanted to make a fun action sci-fi, playing (mainly) the iconography up to eleven.
"TIE fighters! See? They are cool! But hey, don't walk out of the theater just yet, we also have... the Falcon! And surely you'll love this next segment with... a Death Star! Only it's bigger! And doesn't make sense!" etc.
Ultimately TFA was a facsimile, a sad pantomime, a going through the motions rehash of the OT, and it is an interesting introspective look into what "great Star Wars" was to the execs in 2015.
Special order 937: Priority One: Let's have nostalgic visuals and witty dialogue - all other considerations secondary. Plot expendable.
My biggest gripes with TFA at the time it was released were the way the ending of ROTJ was destroyed - only to manufacture a situation all too similar to the beginning of the OT - and how they couldn't do anything with the classic characters. Luke being away on an island is out of character. Han being back as a smuggler is out of character. Leia appearing for a grand total of maybe 3 minutes in the movie is a huge waste of potential.
Then the trilogy went on and in a true "out with the old, in with the new!" fashion, they killed all the OT characters because they did not know how to use them to tell the story effectively. But "telling a story effectively" was never the goal of any of the writers or directors...
Filmmaking at Disney became reactionary and profit-oriented. It's so sad to see how TFA soullessly imitated ANH, when back in 1977 Lucas was bold and creative, exactly the opposite of what Disney is now. TFA paraded Leia, Luke and Han around as lifeless husks just to make some quick bucks.
Thank you.
The committee-built observation was one of my first after seeing TFA. I liked it, but it felt "paint by numbers," and sterile. It made me appreciate (in this one aspect) the prequels, which aimed at some kind of original story and creativity. The execution sucked, but that's a whole other rant. Weirdly, prequel fans really hate TLJ, but I think that flaw - trying hard and failing - is the same for each.
You've nailed it precisely. It was a parade of cool nostalgia. I'm not saying it wasn't fun, but it 2 hours of fanservice isn't a good film. I agree with you on the worst part: the hard-fought ending to Return of the Jedi was cheaply handwaved away off-screen. The worst of that was that the heroes of the OT didn't get to restore order, either. They were made dupes and fools. Han was a deadbeat dad who reversed his character arc to be a pirate. Luke went against his whole character to mope and hide. And Leia, who gets the most love within the films, still is shown to be an utter failure on a galactic scale. The First Order flourished on her watch.
This is one of my complaints against Rogue One, as well. Much loved by most of the fans, I thought it was ho-hum action schlock (albeit expensive action schlock) with characters I didn't care for. But worst of all? It made Leia the foolish bumbling second baton-runner in a relay race that she *immediately* fumbles. In A New Hope, I could envision her as this diplomat-spy, working five angles at once to orchestrate the extraction of those plans. Caught by Vader's power, not her incompetence. Rogue One goes, "Nah, she's just one of many cowardly would-be Rebels who didn't get off their butts until, uh, Jynn Erso came to town." Bummer.
And Leia, who gets the most love within the films, still is shown to be an utter failure on a galactic scale.
When I got to this sentence in your comment, I immediately thought what TFA missed was a plotline to show Leia's kickass diplomacy / negotiation skills. I mean by that time in the chronology, she is a seasoned veteran in representing the New Republic, which... apparently doesn't even really exist in the universe anymore, they are again "rebels", the minority, standing against a near Empire-level threat, with no situations to negotiate at all! I mean WTF?
And then you pointed out that this same aspect, showing or at least hinting at Leia's diplomatic capabilities is one aspect that was missing in Rogue One. And thanks for that, because honestly, I have many issues with that film, but I have never thought of that. Like yours, my biggest one is also the lack of remarkable characters, and lack of chemistry between them. I mean some of the cast did not even say two sentences to each other! The way to build a ragtag bunch of characters on a mission is to allow their personality to flourish and let them play off of each other in dialogue. But there was hardly any dialogue about their differences, their worldviews, their goals... we never learned how they function together as a team. Maybe Jynn Erso and that Andor guy, they had some moments like these, but we simply did not get to know the others.
And then - yes, the consequences of the plot were not properly thought out. Leia is someone who just receives the tapes and does not play any part in actually getting them. A better setup for the movie would have been that Leia orchestrates the plan, reaches out to Jynn / Andor, guides them a few times, and is conflicted throughout her appearances, because at one point she knows she is sending this team to a suicide mission essentially. But R1 made Leia's character extremely passive, and I just added that to my long list of issues with that movie.
One of the things that annoys me the most of the current wave of representation-based story decisions is that we wind up with stuff like Leia in TFA. They make a big deal out of calling her "General" instead of "Princess" but she barely does anything. She has a lover's tiff with Han and hugs Rey. That's it. Back when she was "Princess" Leia, she shot her way out of a detention block, was part of the command team with the Death Star fight of Yavin IV, smuggled plans, gave orders and tactical briefings on Hoth, helped keep the Falcon flying, strangled Jabba, and outgunned stormtroopers on Endor - both on speeder bikes and in the final fight.
Even in the other two sequels she barely does anything. Goes into a coma (TLJ) and trains Rey in the Force (ROS) - that's it.
So, we get "representation" in terms of "women aren't just princesses," but it's all surface. I really feel like Leia was done dirty by the sequels, but especially Rogue One.
You're right: my biggest issues are still the lack of interesting characters (I like the sarcastic droid, that's about it) and the lack of engagement with the plot. I know others feel differently, but that's really why I don't like Rogue One. But Leia comes off really bad. She's inactive until the Rogue One squad kicks off the Rebellion (boo), then she just grabs the plans in full view of Vader and hyperspaces out. What was the plan exactly? Why is she telling lame stories about diplomatic missions? She now looks like she has a lack of initiative, a lack of the fiery power Leia had, a lack of involvement in the plan and execution, and to top it off, she's a bad liar!
Leia should have been in Rogue One a LOT more. They should have gotten an actor who resembled Carrie Fisher (don't CGI it, or at most do some Looper-type effects to make the actor look like Carrie) and she should have been planning and manoeuvring in a clandestine spy/diplomat way to find out about the plans. She then gets the Rogue One team to do the mission. Oh, and she should get caught when Vader Force-tortures a weak member of the team, not when he sees her steal the plans.
"To me, the story of the prequels is this cyclical resetting based on whims and trying to anticipate what people want. In typically executive fashion, they missed what we really want: a great story."
After TFA, I was still somewhat hopeful towards TLJ. They played TFA safe, but surely they'll offer something new and good... my god how wrong I was.
Rian Johnson doubled down on Luke being on an island, claiming he isolated himself from the Force and other bullshit like that. Well, that is something he would never do, and that directly follows from his OT personality. It became very clear for me early on that this movie will not treat the original cast with respect either. Luke reacting to Han's death in less than half a second. Leia being out of commission for a huge part of this movie.
Also the new things Johnson added to the Star Wars universe were just so unimaginative. A casino? Stables of exploited wild animals? Parking fees??? Come on... It was bad enough when Lucas in Episode II added a 50's diner into the Star Wars universe, and I won't defend that even though I know the reason was to create a "detective film" atmosphere for Obi-Wan. That failed. But here I don't think there was an artistic reason for these by Johnson, other than "we need to separate these characters from the bunch and have them something... erm... fun to do." So parking fees are now part of Star Wars. Great.
At the first glance of the very first line in the RoS opening crawl made it seem like a Monty Python movie. Palpy is back? Everything from TLJ is retconned? Get outta here! RoS is disastrous from start to finish, and the whole film is packed with unintentionally hilarious moments, like when Rey and Kylo resurrect each other with kisses, passing the lifeforce to one another. Man, I really feel for Daisy and Adam, they would've deserved so much better...
Us, the fans would have also deserved much better instead of a pathetic tug of war between two directors...
Honestly, TFA was fun, and like you, I thought they'd open up in the second film. Nope. I knew the movie was doomed with the shoulder-toss. Hamill's final look in TFA did so much with so little. Then the toss. Ugh.
I wanted Luke to have realized that the Force is bigger than petty wars (I wanted this for Yoda in the prequels, too...) He's become too much monk - too enlightened. He could have taught Rey let go her obsession with legends and fame. In turn, she could have reminded him that it's still important to be with the people who love you in the physical world. He shouldn't have been so predictably killed off, too. More tragic: Hamill utterly nailed every moment of TLJ. I wish he had had a better script.
TLJ is one of the most frustrating films in the franchise to me, because it does try and it has moments that are so beautiful. R2 activates the Leia hologram. Beautiful. Luke tells Rey that the Force is bigger than the Jedi. Beautiful (and kinda close to what I was hoping for). Rey in the cave was great. But it always found ways to smash that beauty and just wreck it.
There is no better microcosm of this than the throne fight, which should have been the catalyst for some of the most exciting storytelling of all time (I dearly wanted Rey and Kylo to form their own "Grey Jedi" only for Rey to find out that a small amount of Dark is still too much). Instead, we get ten-minutes of character development, fighting, and Snoke-slaying plot twists, and has nothing change. First Order leadership: unchanged. Kylo: Dark; Rey: Light. If you have no point for the scene, why is it there!?
Leia out of action made no sense (unless it was Fisher's health). She should have had Holdo’s role. Leia telling Poe off would have torn the viewers up because we like both of those characters, so it actually becomes good drama. Then again, maybe we didn’t need to see Leia being that dumb.
Johnson’s contributions could have been brilliant. If the arms dealers were pulling strings for centuries, making all the wars happen to increase profits, that might have been cool. But it’s not paid off. Casinoworld was just straight-up bizarre, though.
Yeah, ROS was just a mess, and mostly because it just retconned everything. Fans were polarized by TLJ. So what? You still have to build the story. I didn’t like that they basically changed “Finn and Poe” into “Finn and Rose,” but screw it, she’s here now, give her something fun to do.
I liked some stuff in ROS, but too little. The retconning was stupid and Palpetine being back made the handwaved ROTJ ending even worse. Oh, so Vader’s sacrifice, Luke’s journey, and the OG Rebels’ entire fight were 100% meaningless. The the First Order are even stronger once overthrown (who are they? Obi-wan?) Han and Luke undid all their character development, and to top it off, they didn’t even kill the Emperor? Got it. Thanks.
Agreed with all of this - I was also torn about many of the scenes, mainly visually. I liked most of the shot compositions, the effects, the aesthetic of all. There were some scenes, like Luke's shoulder sweeping motion that would have deserved a much better movie around it. There are some moments that were really well done, but ultimately meaningless. Like setting up the underwater X-Wing just to say "haha! fooled you, he did not use it, he wasn't really there!" and then later "haha! fooled you - even though he was not really there, he still dies!".
It was just awful that meaningless scenes were designed with so much effort. I truly feel for the actors (especially Hamill!) and everyone who was involved in making of TLJ but had no say in shaping the plot and the characters.
The the First Order are even stronger once overthrown (who are they? Obi-wan?)
I re-read the last paragraph several times, but I still don't understant how Obi-Wan figures into it. Could you elaborate?
Oh, my goodness, the movie is so well-shot. One of the single best images in Star Wars has to be Holdo's ship lancing through the enemy fleet in almost black-and-white photograph and total silence. It's so well shot, the peace and the violence in one slash. The aesthetics on the island where Luke and Rey train - including the water and rain - it's so good. That it's hung on such a frustrating story makes me sad. This also breeds more frustration in me because so few people who dislike the prequels will acknowledge when they got something right. That's not fair. Rian Johnson's clearly a talented dude, and just because he fumbled on this film doesn't mean we need to hate Brick and Knives Out.
"Strike me down, and I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
The Empire had what seemed like several fleets, their near-complete superweapon, and their leadership all annihilated soundly at the battle of Endor and the Second Death Star. After celebrations across the renewed Republic, and twenty-thirty years of rule, the First Order somehow manages to flourish to the point of outgunning the "Resistance" (should they be the "Government" at this point?) and reconstructing a whole planet into a superweapon. This planet is so close to the Republic's capital system that a beam weapon can make it from one to the other without allowing the Republic evacuation time. Okay, some of that is surely visuals-over-science, but still.
So, with Obi-wan's statement about becoming more powerful post-mortem and the First Order's magic ascent to the most formidable faction in the galaxy is what I was referring to with that last paragraph.
I think in TFA we should have seen the New Republic as a somewhat competently working political system. That would have included Leia's diplomacy skills among many other aspects we did not get to see. And that is such a shame, such a missed opportunity.
About the rise of the First Order they blatantly gave no explanation - at all! The parallel with the Obi-Wan statement is way more interesting than anything these writers could have come up with, even if they wanted to explain it...
Why do you assume a new Republic would be a competently working political system?
There are strong, logical reasons to assume this.
First: Leia is one of the leaders of the New Republic and the OT always showed her to be a competent leader, including being a capable politician as well as military leader.
Second: the rest of the Rebels have other competent leaders.
Third: there are celebrations across the galaxy when the Emperor falls. This means that the galaxy felt liberated, and would likely follow the liberators.
Put those facts together and we can see that the most likely result of a rout of Imperial forces is that the new leaders would be a positive influence. Instead, they are portrayed as having a central system, but still being inferior to the First Order's might (they are called the "Resistance," after all) which is odd.
Leia is a freedom fighter. Not really a political leader. I can imagine it would be hard for the daughter of darth vader to have a successful political career.
We know zero about the other Rebel leaders political competence. (unless you watch and read a ton of supplementals)
The galaxy feeling liberated doesn't prevent them from making mistakes.
The Republic turned into the Empire. So it's unwise to assume that all its former members were keen to return to the old days of the republic and preferred to go separately. And that's not just counting the actual separatists. Then there would have been those who wanted to continue with the Empire. They aren't likely to want to join a new republic. And on top of that you the new republicans wanted to demilitarise and return to a decentralise security network. This is what makes the new republic the target of the ex-imperials and the peripheral systems that are not part of the new republic and which coalesce as the First Order.
Leia is shown as a senator-spy in A New Hope, so we can assume that she has political ability. If we were told that she was just a figurehead and not good at it, fine, but we're not, so based on her character, I would assume competence.
Mon Mothma has held the Rebels together despite impossible odds (presumably these were never told to Han) so we can infer that she's reasonably good at it.
Nobody knows Leia is Vader's daughter, other than Luke and Han, so that information could be suppressed.
They might have made mistakes, but we should see them do that. It's cheap to have it happen off-screen before TFA even starts. Furthermore, we're never actually told what happened. It's like the galaxy was in a freeze state from RotJ to TFA.
The ending of Return of the Jedi implies a happy ending. The inversion of that - off-screen, out of the story told to us - rubs me the wrong way and feels like a cheap way to reset the board, as it were.
I don't disagree with your final paragraph, although I would quibble with some of it. Palpatine ruled by fear and aggression, so it's unlikely that most rulers were happy under his authority. We don't see it a lot, but if Vader's actions on Cloud City are any indication, we know this is not a friendly place.
Furthermore, while I think your last paragraph presents some good reasons why it would be difficult to fill the power-void left by Palpatine's death, I also think that it would lead to a post-Caesar triumverate situation with multiple leaders in uneasy truces. But TFA doesn't show us the logical results of that, it shows us that nothing has changed - in 30 years.
Finally, while the New Republic might have wanted to disarm, they would not have done so before they felt safe, and in a power clash post-Palpatine, that would not be the time to hang up their blasters.
"Somewhat competent" was the exact phrasing.
My point was it would have been interesting to see how it operates. There would be flaws I am sure of that, but actually they could have crafted a good story around that...
Agreed. The New Republic should have been far more established. I think the most interesting route would have been to see three or four factions in an uneasy peace - each of which rose up in the wake of Palpatine's demise.
The New Republic, headed by Mon Mothma and Princess Leia would be one. Something like The First Order could be another, although they'd have to be small; we saw galaxy-wide celebrations of Palpatine's death, so I don't think his torch-bearers would be popular. Third could be maybe some kind of "Outer Rim Coalition" - planets like Tatooine that are sick of being told what to do by a central bureaucracy that doesn't give a fig about them. If they wanted a fourth, I'd go with something like a Droid Faction, or even an extra-galactic group. Throw Luke's new Jedi into the mix, and it's a political minefield that would have been way more fun than a re-hash of "Rebels vs. Imperials".
They didn't even flip it. They could have had the "Big" guys be the New Republic and the Rebels are now Palpatine's supporters, which could make us question whether or not power corrupts. But they didn't do anything...
Four factions? A great idea, and that is something I would have wanted to see.
Although, this setup is I think a tad more complex than the runtime of... even the whole trilogy. We would need a series. A series helmed by David Simon or Aaron Sorkin - those guys know how to make politics interesting!
"Outer Rim Coalition" - hah, the leader of that faction can only be... Malcolm Reynolds. Right? :-)
Yeah, that might be too much story.
I'm not familiar with David Simon, but I'm a big fan of The West Wing, and yes, Sorkin should have come on-board with the prequels to do a script polish, focusing on the politics. He should not have been the only writer, however, or the adventure aspects and the "all ages" style would have been lost.
I would be okay with a Mal parallel showing up in the Outer Rim Coalition.