Star Wars Star Wars Discussion Thread - LET THE PAST D-! Oh, wait, nevermind

[gral]

Maybe Daala? She kinda became a joke fairly quickly.

She became a joke, IMO, because of too high expectations. In the book she first appears, you'd think she's Thrawn-lite given her backstory. Instead, we get an average tactician that faces the main characters. Of course she becomes a joke, after being that underwhelming.

 

[Deleted member 88]

Daala got her rank by sleeping with Tarkin, and then hiding for 23 years in the Maw.

Coming back at the last hour to give the anti Jacen forces some much needed manpower and firepower.

And for some brain dead reason, they made her chief of state. Vengeful bitter imperial that she was.

 

[gral]

Daala got her rank by sleeping with Tarkin, and then hiding for 23 years in the Maw.

But she came to Tarkin's attention by beating the crap of everyone(including the Academy instructors, IIRC) in simulated battles, while hiding her identity. Tarkin was interested enough to seek out who was this budding genius, found out it was a female cadet, and through the magic of man pheromones, got her to sleep with him. And what we get is a, at best, mediocre tactician.

 

[Deleted member 88]

Daala had the humility to admit she was failing though and handed command to Pellaeon.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

Daala had the humility to admit she was failing though and handed command to Pellaeon.

Only after getting an SSD which had partial stealth capabilities killed though.

 

[Bear Ribs]

So who's more incompetent, Daala or Hux?

I'm trending slightly towards Hux because Daala at least had limited resources and a united New Republic where Hux... had nigh-infinite ships and lost to like twenty people.

 

[Hlaalu Agent]

Only after getting an SSD which had partial stealth capabilities killed though.

And who else has even had an iota of grace? I mean that is far better than killing your subordinates, and better than flying into a tantrum and destroying materiel.

So who's more incompetent, Daala or Hux?

I'm trending slightly towards Hux because Daala at least had limited resources and a united New Republic where Hux... had nigh-infinite ships and lost to like twenty people.

Who had insane plot armor.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Who had insane plot armor.

Throwing out meta ideas like plot armor severely limits the discussion. We can't talk about the characters anymore, only the writers and their metagame. Han Solo isn't handsome or clever, he's just written that way and played by a handsome actor.

Besides I'm not convinced that at the meta level, Rey, Finn, and Poe have better plot armor than post-ROTJ Han, Luke, and Leia.

 

[Deleted member 88]

Daala wasn’t entirely ineffective. She did put the warlords in the ground. Her attack on the Jedi praxeum would have worked if not for Dorsk 83, and she wasn’t like that bad of a chief of state. She uh tried to get the Jedi to take responsibility for their mistakes.

 

[Hlaalu Agent]

Throwing out meta ideas like plot armor severely limits the discussion. We can't talk about the characters anymore, only the writers and their metagame. Han Solo isn't handsome or clever, he's just written that way and played by a handsome actor.

Besides I'm not convinced that at the meta level, Rey, Finn, and Poe have better plot armor than post-ROTJ Han, Luke, and Leia.

No, trying to prevent an idea from being advanced is limiting the discussion. And of course we can talk about characters, I am making an explicit point that it is unfair to compare them precisely because of such shenanigans and that we should consider how actually competent they are regardless of such meta. Just because someone looses by author fiat, doesn't make the character not competent. We should judge them by their actions, and not because of plot contrivances.

 

[Husky_Khan]

So who's more incompetent, Daala or Hux?

I'm trending slightly towards Hux because Daala at least had limited resources and a united New Republic where Hux... had nigh-infinite ships and lost to like twenty people.

Daala just lost a Super Star Destroyer.

Hux lost an entire fleet.

Daala delegated authority to a capable subordinate.

Hux betrayed the First Order just because he didn't like Kylo Ren.

Daala later became the head of the galaxy.

Hux was impromptly executed when deduced to be a traitor.

 

[Hlaalu Agent]

Daala just lost a Super Star Destroyer.

Hux lost an entire fleet.

Daala delegated authority to a capable subordinate.

Hux betrayed the First Order just because he didn't like Kylo Ren.

Daala later became the head of the galaxy.

Hux was impromptly executed when deduced to be a traitor.

Sounds pretty cut and dry to me. Hux is a bumbling boob.

 

[Husky_Khan]

With that said I do think Hux was a fine character in the first movie. Hux contempt for Kylo Ren and his gloriously passionate speech on Blow Up the Republic Day and his machinations that put him on the same level as Kylo.

He was a nice change up in the new film. Even though it was a feint ANH rehash he was a unique divergence from the formula.

Then TLJ neutered him.

 

[Guncannon]

Hux was the most wasted of potential for the villains IMO. You had a guy with Tarkin-esque authority (as far as we knew for TFA) who was a RIVAL to the Vader-esque character instead on good terms like the original duo. And unlike Tarkin, Hux showed his passionate colors, especially with that speech on Starkiller. Then TLJ ruins the credibility established in the previous film by making him the red headed step child of the First Order.

And to throw away an established actor like Domhnall Gleeson to a gag role....wtf.

 

[Typhonis]

that explains a few things.

 

[Skallagrim]

With that said I do think Hux was a fine character in the first movie. Hux contempt for Kylo Ren and his gloriously passionate speech on Blow Up the Republic Day and his machinations that put him on the same level as Kylo.

He was a nice change up in the new film. Even though it was a feint ANH rehash he was a unique divergence from the formula.

It would've been very interesting as they had developed Hux into a consummate schemer, who excels at the political games, and derives his power from that skill. (Would've been easy to contrast that with Kylo, who has combat skills and the Force, but who could've been portrayed as politically clueless and disliked by a lot of the other officers.)

 

[Typhonis]

They could have had Finn be the disturbance in the Force.

 

[Skallagrim]

They could have had Finn be the disturbance in the Force.

I've done a bit of digging into the ideas that existed for TFA along the way, and it really seems that the basic notion of of the Force "awakening" and growing stronger was present in Lucas's original draft. (What's more, he talked about the idea much further back, when the OT was still being made. And whatever one might say of George Lucas: the man never throws away an idea.)

This whole concept completely fell by the way-side, only boiling down to a one-line reference to that "dyad" idea in TRoS, but it appears to have been way more central to the whole sequel story at some point. Could very well be that a character like Finn suddenly finding the Force awakening inside him was the way the story was going to go.

 

[Harlock]

Needed more Richard E Grant. He was clearly air dropped in to be a competent, ruthless though not especially threatening villain when it became apparent no one else could do the job

Good actor, could easily have played the Tarkin role, even has that drawn cold expression. He does at least get some things right and makes life harder for the good guys which is more than most of his peers, a man who actually uses his head once or twice.

Perfectly decent secondary villain who really should have been as prominent as Tarkin was. Given he is an obvious copy

 

[prinCZess]

This whole concept completely fell by the way-side, only boiling down to a one-line reference to that "dyad" idea in TRoS, but it appears to have been way more central to the whole sequel story at some point. Could very well be that a character like Finn suddenly finding the Force awakening inside him was the way the story was going to go.

A Stormtrooper--or just a general 'peon' serving the new evil force in the universe that awakens to the Force--perhaps even as a early-comer and herald to a widespread...universalization? Or at least a greater spread of active ability to use or 'recognize' Force powers and existence to people would make an interesting central conceit for the story to take as a progression (and actually would make the 'orphan boy using force powers' at the end of the second sequel-movie a more powerful 'teaser' moment, especially if it was combined with everyone else using them somehow). Lucas, to my knowledge, was never of the edgy, 'gray jedi is best jedi and all things must be balance-y like in Eastern philosophy' perspective that cropped up in the EU, and having the grand, overarching somewhat-fakeout of the 'balance' Skywalker is supposed to bring the Force being it's active spread to virtually everyone or a much larger segment of the universe so they can venture forth and be Big Damn Heroes themselves about the galaxy would be...kind of a cool take on things?

At that point it's just me haring-off into creativity-land of course. Point being--there would have been interesting places to go with the Force growing stronger/awakening (and Finn's character in particular with that).
Missed opportunities, seems like.
...But, I suppose it all makes for fanfiction fodder to look on the bright side...Wait...Is that a bright side?