Having Thrawn would’ve made the ST disconnect from the PT and OT, unlike Palpatine. Stopping Palps’ return is a natural progression that lines up with the previous two trilogies and ties the saga together. Imagine if Voldemort was killed off in Book 5 and Snape took his role for the final two. There would be no consistent overarching villain. They wouldn’t feel like legitimate series finales to the other 5.
Then they shouldn’t have made a Sequel Trilogy. The saga already had an ending. It was called RotJ. If the only way they could think of to make the ST feel connected to the first 6 movies was to bring Palpatine back, then they just shouldn’t have bothered, since they had nothing to contribute.
Except it DOES contribute. The PT is about his rise. The OT is about his fall. The ST is about stopping him from reclaiming the galaxy before it’s too late.
And no, Palps’ return does not ruin the OT. Anakin only did it to save Luke, and you’re somehow fine with it in Civil War, Logan and Infinity War.
Oh. You’re a r/moviescirclejerk user. That explains a lot.
I haven’t watched any of those three movies. I’m not a Marvel guy. But what you’re using here is Whataboutism. Just because the same issue might be present in those other movies doesn’t excuse the issue in the Sequel Trilogy. Other films having the same problem doesn’t make it okay.
Do you people not understand that everything is temporary? You really think the victory of the OT only matters if it lasts forever?
From Anakin’s perspective, yes, he was killing Palpatine to save Luke. But from a broader saga perspective, it marked the destruction of the Sith and the restoration of the Jedi. Changing that moment to being just a little inconvenient speed bump in Palpatine’s plans was stupid and undercutting of the original story.
No, it wasn’t. It allowed the new generation of heroes to prepare and defeat Palpatine once and for all, and allowed the Skywalkers’ legacy to live on. It also allowed more opportunities for character development.
And no, TFA is not a rehash of ANH. Yes, it takes similar elements, but that’s because it was necessary for the characters and story. For example, Starkiller is a way of showing that the FO is more advanced than the Empire.
Why are they so much more advanced? How did they get that way?
Do you not realize the Empire is capable of building planet-destroyers? They took the next step by strip-mining Starkiller and putting a cannon into it.
Why does the Republic not consider them a threat?
Except they do. Hence why they support the Resistance. It’s just that they refused to militarize because they became the Empire because they militarized in AotC. Remember, they had no military before AotC. They inferred that demilitarizing would make sure they never become another Empire.
And no, nothing that they recycled was “necessary” to the story. JJ made clear in the commentary and interviews for TFA that he wanted to bring all these familiar elements back (desert planet, new Death Star, Cantina, Stormtroopers, Rebels, old ship designs) because they were familiar to the audience, and would be registered by viewers as quintessential “Star Wars” imagery. It had nothing to do with the story or characters.
Except they do play a role. Jakku is a desert planet to visualize the hell Rey’s going through. Any story with any Imperial remnants were always going to have stormtroopers. The Resistance had no reason to improve the X-Wings.
Kylo killing Han is different from Vader killing Kenobi - whereas Vader killed Kenobi specifically because he was a Jedi, Kylo killed Han because he didn’t want to be conflicted anymore but it didn’t work and traumatized him >even more.
I will agree with you that the two deaths are different, since Obi-Wan’s death was far better. Han’s death was pointless and disrespectful. Having Han fail to save his son, then just get stabbed and falling (as a CGI corpse) down a bottomless pit was terrible. The screenwriters definitely intended the deaths to parallel each other, though. There’s no point denying that. Particularly in their placement in the story and in the way they affected the protagonist witnessing the death.
Except Han’s death WASN’T pointless. It was the thing that scarred Kylo for life and led up to his redemption in TROS. It was one of the things that allowed Rey to defeat him, alongside his injury.
The fact that Palpatine canonically saw Vader’s betrayal coming and was prepared for it is ridiculous on its own.
By that logic, the Holdo maneuver is perfectly explained by the shield things or whatever in TLJ’s novelization. We’re judging the movies on their own merits.
Of course, any explanation for Palpatine’s return is better than the absolute nonsensical drivel the movie gives us. TRoS doesn’t even try or care. As bad as the canon explanation is, I’d rather take a bad explanation over no explanation. I’m doing the movie a favor by including out-of-movie sources that try to prop the movie up, since it really can’t stand on its own merits.
Except the movie DOES explain his return. He simply transferred his consciousness into a clone. It’s implied by “I have died before”, and the fact alone that he survived IMPLIES he’s discovered the secret to cheating death that only one has achieved.
That’s a little less compelling than the way you describe it.
Ah, yes, making sure that the personification of the metaphor for the current generation being affected by and facing the same struggles and battles as the previous one is gone once and for all is not compelling. Ah, yes, the new generation facing the same threats as before and defeating them in their own way or with the right lessons learned or whatever shit happens is not compelling.
Except what reason do we have to believe that Palpatine is gone for good this time? At least Dark Empire, for all its issues, bothered to explain how the heroes were able to prevent Palpatine’s return in future stories, ensuring that he could never come back to life. After TRoS, though, what is there to stop Palpatine from just possessing a new body somewhere else? Is he going to be like Sigma from Mega Man X and just keep coming back over and over again until it becomes comical?
Rey didn’t kill Palpatine in hatred. That’s the point. She even says as much earlier: “All you want for me is to hate. But I won’t. Not even you.”
You’re missing the point. Palpatine’s spirit is still out there. They just destroyed his body again, like in RotJ. So what give TRoS’s ending any more finality than RotJ’s ending?
How do you know Palps’ spirit is out there? The only reason he managed to survive ROTJ was by transferring his spirit into a clone. He had no other by the time of TROS.