They’ve also completely rebooted the Empire vs rebels scenario, with the Resistance now even being called rebels. Snoke was the only character with some history beyond the FO, and might have provided motivations that separates the FO from the Empire, but that’s all gone by the wayside. There are now only new faces part of an organisation without much of a history or an identity. It’s this sense of history and hidden layers that made Star Wars appealing to me, but now all the history and layers have been peeled away.
Thing is, it’s not Snoke’s First Order anymore, it’s Kylo’s. And yeah, the history’s been stripped away, but, again, that’s the point. It’s not about Vader or the Empire anymore. This is his and I’m excited to see where else he takes it.
It’s not about Vader or the Emperor. It’s about a sense of history, and motivations. With the OT there was the history of the old Republic, Vader, the Jedi. With the PT there was the history of the Sith, the rule if two. The FO has no history or identity. It’s just a bunch of faceless goons emulating the Empire, led by Kylo and Hux, neither of whom have any motivations aside from wanting to be evil.
There was no more motivation behind the Empire than that. There was a sense of history, sure - they were once the Old Republic. Well the First Order rose from the ashes of the Empire. I don’t know if you can really count the Sith in the PT because that was never even vaguely explained (which, to me, is fine). Kylo’s motivations in TFA and TLJ are obvious and make perfect sense for the character. I do hope he thinks bigger in IX though.
Yeah, but it’s more than that. The Empire consisted of many worlds, including the later named central system of Coruscant, home of the mysterious Emperor. The Alliance consisted of many worlds, with senators secretly conspiring to help them. It was a vast galaxy of peoples and allegiences. As I said there were many hidden layers in both space and time.
The FO is just a bunch of space ships, and a number of faceless enemies led by two youngsters. They don’t even have a home world, which as far as we know was SKB.
Yeah, Coruscant isn’t a part of the OT. If you want a more in depth and nuanced look at the makeup of the FO, it’s out there. Same goes for the Resistance.
I don’t care about some sort of EU. It should be in the films. ANH speaks of the Emperor, the Imperial Senate, hidden layers. Coruscant didn’t need to be named, because we knew the Emperor and Senate needed to be seated somewhere. In TESB we meet the mysterious Emperor, dark side master of Vader, hidden layers. TESB opened up the possibility of a whole new backstory of Luke’s father, and the rise of the Empire. There are many more examples of places and stuff mentioned happening off-screen suggesting a much larger universe, and history. TLJ has none of that. What you see is what you get, and it even manages to remove or invalidate the mysteries and hidden layers provided by TFA, or seemingly provided by TLJ itself. The New Republic is gone. Snoke is gone. The mystery surrounding Rey is gone. The mystery of the first Jedi Temple is reduced to scenery. It burns the old Jedi texts for crying out loud, as a statement that the ancient history of the Jedi is boring. Kylo’s motivations for struggling with the dark side, and his parents is gone. He was allready on his way to being bad, and Luke sent him over the edge. He might as well have been any random student, because overall the fact that he’s Han and Leia’s son is pretty irrelevant to the story or his further development as a character.