Well the problem is that there is no story after RoTJ. RoTJ was the ending - definitively. So all you can do is what has already been done ad nauseam - just posit a ‘new threat’ and dust off some TIE fighters. Snoke was useless because, in the end, no one cared. He had no connection to anything. Palpatine’s ‘return’ was silly, unexplained, illogical, and ruined the ending of a 6 film saga.
At least with Mothma you get someone with emotional weight - a beloved (despite her screen time) character whose betrayal of Han and Leia would actually mean something. And the idea that she was in the Rebel briefing room basically laying a trap on behalf of her boss because he’d promised her power (or to spare her world or whatever) is infinitely more satisfying than ‘a new threat has emerged from beyond the outer rim…’Beloved to only really more heavily invested fans, from one scene in one movie basically I think.
I think you’re underestimating the nostalgic potential of minor characters. People are still whining about Boba Fett’s ignoble demise in RoTJ despite his minor status in TESB. There was major speculation about him in the early 80s - one magazine (Starlog?) did a massive article explaining how he was actually Luke’s father and had previously owned the Millennium Falcon!
Lucas included Mothma in ROTS. Okay, so she didn’t make the edit, but he thought she was worthy connective tissue to the OT. Rogue One agreed and placed her on Yavin in her traditional outfit. I think it would be so easy to exploit the feel-good factor of her presence (like I suggested in another reply - have her appear early in ep 7 in RoTJ-esque garb with Leia gushingly saying “Mon, so delightful to see you, we’ve missed you so much”)…
I think it’d kinda come out of nowhere really within the mainline movies, for me. And as for Han and Leia, they’re older characters. What does this mean for the newer characters? Beyond Kylo.
The fact that it would impact the older characters is the whole point. That’s what would tug at the heart-strings. All the newer characters need is a new villain, a new threat, and a reason to fight. And like I said, having Mothma be the family friend who corrupts Ben Solo is much more emotionally charged than “some new evil guy corrupted Ben Solo”. I mentioned in another reply that perhaps Ben could have been educated in the Bothan system and stayed with the Mothmas.
To return to the OP’s point, the whole “somehow Palpatine returned” is ridiculous at so many levels. Palpatine’s death was crucial to the saga, so it undermines the PT and OT. Secondly, it strikes me as an odd thing for Poe and Rey and co. to be reacting emotionally to. Palpatine would just be a kind of evil legend to them - bad for sure but not necessarily carrying an immediate, visceral emotional weight. So that whole quote was playing for Leia, Chewie and us (fans) anyway. So swap “somehow Palpatine returned” for Leia saying to all assembled…
…“it was her. It was Mothma all along. She was in league with Palpatine. She killed the Bothan spies and led us into the trap on Endor. This is her revenge. That is where the First Order is striking from…the Bothan System!” (or something)…
If it was to spare her world, then I don’t see what she’d care about after Palpatine dies and empire falls. I maintain my stance, why would Palpatine offer anyone this, and why would he not use Mothma lead the empire to the rebels instead, and why would anyone buy what he says if he offers them a seat at his side?
Star Wars thrives on vague motivations, so we wouldn’t need some elaborate backstory (Matthew Stover would write one later anyway!). All we’d really need is the revelation that Mothma was working with Palpatine in secret, that he had promised her power of some kind, that she had killed the Bothan spies herself and delivered the false Death Star message on Palpatine’s behalf etc etc. When the rebels defeated the Empire, she was denied her ambitions.
Kylo had no backstory really, until Rian destroyed Luke Skywalker in order to give him one. In the Mothma version Kylo is betrayed by an adored friend, someone masquerading as an ally whilst filling his eager mind with distortions regarding his ‘true’ grandfather and using him for his power. Again, seeing Mothma as the nice robed lady on the Mon Calamari ship and realising she would later turn Leia’s son against her is way more interesting to me than ‘random Palpatine wannabe appeared out of nowhere for no reason and turned Kylo bad’.
A friend that has about as much weight as, as far as the movies gave, “a voice in his head” basically. Why would he trust her over his family? Why does she matter this much to Kylo? Why would his granddad Vader matter to him this way? These are more my questions.
Fair enough, but I would add - what exactly did Snoke add to the saga? What did resurrected Palpatine add to the saga? More pointedly, what did they take from the saga? The Mothma idea, to me, is a way to continue the story with all the good elements of the sequels intact without undermining the 6 films in any way. And it even adds a nice little twist to RoTJ.
I’m not defending Snoke or Palpatine (in this avenue, as in a post TLJ story I think he works more than Kylo to me) as a villain. I’m just not for this.
All fair enough - I’m not arguing with you per se…I just love nerding out over Star Wars!