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Unusual Sequel Trilogy Radical Redux Ideas Thread — Page 66

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They also could’ve done a backstory for Snoke in TLJ in the “second lesson” scene: make minor tweaks to some of Luke’s dialogue, suggest that Luke had met Snoke and they re-formed the Jedi Order, Snoke saw the power within Ben and so he corrupted him and betrayed Luke.

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Or… that was all unnecessary? The Emperor wasn’t explained in the original trilogy, I don’t understand the need for Snoke to have been explained. Why would any of the characters in the story care? They understand all that they need to know: he’s an evil threat.

Writing should focus on story and character first, I don’t even know if I’d put filling out Wookieepedia pages as secondary…

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It was a new universe, and we didn’t know the past of the universe, so it makes sense for Palpatine to not have a backstory in the original trilogy. However, now in the Disney trilogy, it is a very developed universe, and Snoke has to fit into that universe in order for him to be believable and make sense.

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The entire point of the way the original trilogy was developed is that we’re dropping into an existing universe. Snoke rising to power in the 30 year gap in time, especially since he came from the Unknown Regions, fits in well enough without having to give him a backstory. There’s nothing about him that doesn’t fit, we just don’t see every detail of how he fits.

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One scene explains where Snoke was during the OT, where he got his power/money, why he dresses in an ostentatious glittering robe (he’s a wealthy crimelord, not a sith lord), where he got obsessed with the Solo family, and thematically wraps up his role in the cycle of revenge.

This isn’t the MCU. You shouldn’t have to watch spinoff material to understand everything.

That said, that idea does sound kinda nice.

They also could’ve done a backstory for Snoke in TLJ in the “second lesson” scene: make minor tweaks to some of Luke’s dialogue, suggest that Luke had met Snoke and they re-formed the Jedi Order, Snoke saw the power within Ben and so he corrupted him and betrayed Luke.

That one too.

Really, Snoke’s backstory isn’t that important. It’d be nice to have, though.

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JakeRyan17 said:

Writing should focus on story and character first, I don’t even know if I’d put filling out Wookieepedia pages as secondary…

That’s really what it comes down to, isn’t it? The fandom’s obsession with lore for lore’s sake.

Lore is only interesting or cool or valuable in service of a story. Neutering Snoke just for the sake of some technical backstory is a horrible idea.

Reading R + L ≠ J theories

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Having not followed this thread for the last 50 pages or so, I am quite certain that there was already a call to eliminate most of ep8 and change snoke to palpatine in ep7. Work the sequel trilogy into a two movie experience. Is anyone aware of someone working on that?

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BleuAsh said:

Having not followed this thread for the last 50 pages or so, I am quite certain that there was already a call to eliminate most of ep8 and change snoke to palpatine in ep7. Work the sequel trilogy into a two movie experience. Is anyone aware of someone working on that?

Seems like an odd call… cutting out all of the character development? Yikes.

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Those scenes, and the circumstances surrounding them, still are the lynchpin of the character arcs. At the very least, Rey and Kylo need to unite momentarily just to break apart after. The reason she’s there, and what they unite against, can’t easily be cut out.

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The entire point of the way the original trilogy was developed is that we’re dropping into an existing universe.

Yes. What does this have to do with anything?

Snoke rising to power in the 30 year gap in time, especially since he came from the Unknown Regions, fits in well enough without having to give him a backstory.

How did Snoke did Snoke come to be? Why did he create the First Order? How did he manage to get the resources to create the First Order? How did it get so powerful? How didn’t the New Republic notice the growing extremist organization that wanted to destroy them? How did Snoke contact old Empire generals and make them come to him? Why didn’t the New Republic destroy them the moment they heard of their existence?

It does not fit, in any way.

There’s nothing about him that doesn’t fit, we just don’t see every detail of how he fits.

Nothing about him fits.

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You could ask all of those questions about the Empire and the Emperor in the original trilogy, and until the prequels came you didn’t have answers.

Again, he’s not less fitting than Emperor Palpatine. We still don’t understand how Grand Moffat’s Tarkin came into power, or how he outranks Vader.

We don’t need to know any of that information. We have characters asking those same questions you’re asking, Leia was suggested to have created the Resistance because The New Republic didn’t take action or the threat of the First Order seriously. We could also ask why the Galactic Senate allowed the Emperor to disband them, and give power to the regional governors. How did the Hutts gain control of certain systems? Why didn’t the Old Republic take action to prevent the Hutts and other crime syndicates from rising to power?

Fill out all of the Wookieepedia pages! That’s all that matters! 🙄

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Well, I think the difference between Snoke and Palpatine is that Palpatine didn’t exactly need a reason for existing. He was powerful with the dark side, he was the emperor of the galaxy, that was all we needed to know.

But Snoke, on the other hand, definitely needed a reason for existing. Palpatine was supposed to be the last Sith, and it was never even hinted that there might be other Sith more powerful than him. So when Snoke gets introduced, it just feels like the writers pulling a new threat out of their behinds. If you’re gonna undo the destruction of the Sith and have a guy even more powerful than Palpatine pop out of nowhere, you better have a good reason for it. I don’t want a long-winded technical explanation, just something that could cause this new enemy’s existence to make sense.

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I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX

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Snoke wasn’t a Sith, and doesn’t call himself one. He’s never labelled, just as Palpatine was never labelled in the original trilogy. He’s more clearly established as powerful in the dark side, he was established to be in charge of a fascist movement. That’s all we really need to know.

It’s made clear that Snoke and the First Order came from the unknown regions, so that explains how our heroes didn’t know about him 30 years prior.

I agree they pulled this villain out of their ass, I just don’t feel they did anything differently compared to the original trilogy and they didn’t need to go into his backstory (especially with how unsatisfactorily they revealed him to be Palpatine’s modified clone puppet?)

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To be fair, the problem goes beyond just Snoke. The whole ST (particularly TFA and TROS) seems to be made by people with no sense of object permanence, whose understanding of the previous story began and ended with the base objects present during the runtimes of episodes 4-6. The Emperor and the Death Star were just table-setting in the originals to show the overwhelming power of the dominant government in the universe, so they are here as well despite being the ostensible underdogs. You want thousands of Star Destroyers? The originals had that, so why not? Stormtroopers are soulless cannon fodder too, except that one of our main characters is a Stormtrooper. No problem making Rey related to a powerfully evil Force user, except that her nobody status is her one unique character trait. And on it goes. The ST has a toddler’s understanding of storytelling.

Anyway, if you want to make Snoke compelling you have to strip him of his Force powers. Make him a person who has power through his ability to project the air of a Force user and his emotional manipulation of Kylo Ren, otherwise he’s just another Palpatine.

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Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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I agree with all of that, which is why I liked him being killed off to set up Kylo as the big bad. I think that’s the strongest take with the character. Kylo is too manipulative on his own for a non-Force User to have manipulated and controlled him for so long, though I find such a villain interesting.

I just don’t see Snoke’s lack of backstory or the colour of his robes as the issue. He was a carbon copy of the emperor, so we can’t pretend that giving him the same lack of backstory hurts the narrative other than being derivative… but that’s a MUCH larger issue with Abrams’ films, how derivative they are to the original trilogy.

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Anakin Starkiller said:

One scene explains where Snoke was during the OT, where he got his power/money, why he dresses in an ostentatious glittering robe (he’s a wealthy crimelord, not a sith lord), where he got obsessed with the Solo family, and thematically wraps up his role in the cycle of revenge.

This isn’t the MCU. You shouldn’t have to watch spinoff material to understand everything.

That said, that idea does sound kinda nice.

Didn’t say it was the IDEAL solution to use the spinoff. Only that it would’ve worked with the immense negative backlash TLJ got.

Snoke was utterly pointless and damaged the 9 movie narrative. If you want a villain to undo the climax of the previous 6 film storyline, you need more than…the nothing explanation we got. “He just IS that powerful” doesn’t work when there is a pre-established universe. With the other villains, i.e. Jabba, the worldbuilding was still ongoing. He’s a crimelord, this universe has crime, that’s easy to understand. Ep 4 established there was “the Empire” and since this was a blank slate, that’s fine. There was no question about where the empire came from, because it was fresh and new. It simply WAS there, and the narrative worked with it. Ep 1 had the Republic. It didn’t need to establish where it came from, there was a government that existed and that’s fine, the audiences understand that, too.

But with the First Order and Snoke, it was NOT a blank slate. There was 70 years of backstory and established narratives and worldbuilding. Just saying “It’s just there, and he’s just a powerful leader” did not work with the previous storyline, as it undid what had come before.

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Except, again looking at Star Wars/A New Hope, they mention an Old Republic. What happened to that Old Republic? Why is there a senate to be dissolved if this Republic has been gone for so long? Is the Empire new? How’s it gain so much power so quickly?

Snoke doesn’t undo anything of the original trilogy. Palpatine not being defeated does, but a new threat coming from the Unknown Regions does not.

It’s not any more or less established in universe, your need for every answer coming from a 30 year gap is not the same as a flaw in storytelling.

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thebluefrog said:

Anakin Starkiller said:

I still think Palpatine being the ultimate evil of the ST was the way to go.

They had the perfect opportunity in one small scene to fix all the complaints about Snoke AND also fit the storyline: SOLO. Instead of Maul being the criminal empire leader cameo, just have a younger (unscarred, too) Snoke.

One scene explains where Snoke was during the OT, where he got his power/money, why he dresses in an ostentatious glittering robe (he’s a wealthy crimelord, not a sith lord), where he got obsessed with the Solo family, and thematically wraps up his role in the cycle of revenge.

I actually really like this idea.

The Clone Wars: Refocused | Andor: Movie Omnibus

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I much prefer Maul continuing his rise to power from Clone Wars. So curious about the 5 or 6 years between Solo and Rebels season 2.

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This does remind me of the often brought-up complaints regarding the First Order’s scale and resources. I’ve heard this constantly since TFA came out, but I also wish the First Order was more ragtag, like the Rebels used to be.

Since we can’t really do that in a fan edit, I do think a TFA edit could say that a part of the New Republic split off and reunited with the Imperial Remnant, giving them the resources they needed to challenge the Republic. But I think this would contradict Leia saying that the other senators don’t take the First Order threat seriously (as well as Poe’s surprise at how advanced the Finalizer was).

An idea many brought up over the years was the idea of Starkiller base being like the Star Forge. It would explain how the First Order were able to build a fleet ready for a full-scale war, without the New Republic realizing the scale of the threat. It would also solve the narrative problem of Death Star 3.0…

But… when you get to TLJ, you run into the problem of how Finn’s story arc implies the wealthy arms dealers of the galaxy had been profiting off both sides of the war. It doesn’t necessarily contradict it, but it would be confusing to show the First Order having the capability of building their own fleet in TFA, but then imply that they are buying their ships from arms dealers in TLJ. I guess you could argue that the First Order would have to start buying from arms dealers after the destruction of Starkiller Base…

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I dunno. Messy as if it, Abrams kinda tied the dumb mimicry of the original trilogy too deeply into The Force Awakens. There’s just not enough room to explain a Star Forge in existing scenes, and it feels too complex an idea for the Crawl.

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Random idea I don’t plan on using: Palpatine lies to Rey and Kylo about being Rey’s grandfather to manipulate her desperate desire for family. It’s revealed in the final confrontation that he made it all up.

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Anakin Starkiller said:

Random idea I don’t plan on using: Palpatine lies to Rey and Kylo about being Rey’s grandfather to manipulate her desperate desire for family. It’s revealed in the final confrontation that he made it all up.

Anything that undoes the silly inherited powers is good in my book.

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JakeRyan17 said:

Except, again looking at Star Wars/A New Hope, they mention an Old Republic. What happened to that Old Republic? Why is there a senate to be dissolved if this Republic has been gone for so long? Is the Empire new? How’s it gain so much power so quickly?

Snoke doesn’t undo anything of the original trilogy. Palpatine not being defeated does, but a new threat coming from the Unknown Regions does not.

It’s not any more or less established in universe, your need for every answer coming from a 30 year gap is not the same as a flaw in storytelling.

For me, it comes down to how unlike a first installment, typically sequels continue the story of their predecessors. You can start midway through a backstory for a first movie, but a sequel? It’s just confusing and makes the first movie feel redundant. Imagine in Episode V’s crawl opened with the New Republic many years after the defeat of the Empire. It wouldn’t make any sense and would make ANH feel pointless in retrospect.

I’m not opposed to Snoke appearing, but it’s so upsetting to watch all of the OT, watch the ending celebration, and be hyped to see a New Republic victorious… and that never happens. We just reset to a Resistance / Empire dynamic again. It feels like there’s a trilogy missing to bridge this gap.

(That said this isn’t something we can fix in fanedits… the best we can do is try to explain who Snoke exactly is to give it some semblance of cohesiveness).

Maul- A Star Wars Story