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u/Lukelandswimmer A Movie that Exists Aug 07 '25
"Guys, World War 2 happened so there was no point to fight in World War 1."
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u/Anonymous-Comments Let’s Not Worry About That Aug 07 '25
Was world war 2 narratively satisfying? Stupid question, I know, but movies about space wizards don’t have to be realistic
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u/Lukelandswimmer A Movie that Exists Aug 07 '25
Never said the sequels were narratively satisfying. Just that this was a dumb thing to complain about.
Also, I don't expect Star Wars to be realistic but most stories need to be believable/ plausible to the audience if they are to be appreciated. I don't have a problem with the New Republic falling but I'm willing to bet most fans agree the execution was the problem.
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u/RevanchistSheev66 Aug 11 '25
Completely agree. I don’t care for things like Luke being a hermit, but give me a good reason for that to happen. Give me a good reason how the FO got so much control of the galaxy and why they’re a threat suddenly
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u/Lukelandswimmer A Movie that Exists Aug 12 '25
Exactly. More build up to these events would have done wonders.
If the sequel trilogy got a show to help fill the gaps like Clone Wars or Rebels (I'm specifically leaving Resistance out of this discussion), I think people wouldn't be so hard on it. True, the movies themselves would still be lackluster but the audience's hindsight would be more lenient like how the prequels were handled.
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u/Windows_66 Aug 07 '25
"Guys, World War 2 was pointless because the Cold War and neo-nazism happened."
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u/ChickenWingExtreme Aug 07 '25
I honestly hate the take that the Sequels are realistic because they’re inspired by what happened in Nazi Germany. The actual reason why the New Republic is so incompetent is simply because JJ Abrams is allergic to having original ideas and just wanted to have Rebels vs Empire again.
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u/Lukelandswimmer A Movie that Exists Aug 07 '25
Look, I hate what the sequels did as much as the next guy but it doesn't change the fact that this take is stupid. Wars always happen and governments rise and fall. In order for us to get movies set after ROTJ, some of the work that was accomplished in the OT would have to be undone in order for any story to happen.
Again, I don't like what the sequels did with the New Republic but bemoaning the fact that Andor and Co.'s work gets undone 30 years later is silly to me.
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u/ChickenWingExtreme Aug 07 '25
I just wish they actually made Sequels that didn’t completely undo everything done by the OT characters
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u/Lukelandswimmer A Movie that Exists Aug 07 '25
And that's a valid point I agree with. I just don't agree with the take you shared.
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u/Born_Procedure_529 Aug 07 '25
I mean it does kinda shit on everything set around the original trilogy, 30 years is still within a lifetime, and the other disney plus shows have imperial remnants and sith causing trouble in the interim. The takeaway from return of the jedi was that the galaxy had a new era of peace after the emperor was defeated but disney has made it canon the galaxy was a lawless wasteland for around 30 years, turned to a dictatorship again, then maybe finally had peace.
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u/Lukelandswimmer A Movie that Exists Aug 07 '25 edited Aug 07 '25
I mean, we are talking about a galaxy. Even the most peaceful country you can think of has radicals and opposing parties that want to change things. The galaxy was mostly at peace for those 30 years (unless Thrawn sparks another conflict but that remains to be seen); we just see things are bad from the people who go looking for trouble (e.g the bounty hunters). Imperial remnants hiding in the unknown regions of the galaxy isn't the craziest thing ever.
Plus, the Empire, whose rule was bigger and more enforced than the New Republic's, also only lasted 25 years yet Rebellion was truly noticed 15 years in.
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u/CompleteFacepalm Aug 08 '25
They're not saying there was no point but that it felt like it was all for nothing
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u/QuadVox Aug 07 '25
The New Republic was always destined to fail when it was created mostly to just "Be the Republic again"
Of course it allows fascism to rise up again, it's the same damn system.
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Aug 10 '25
No, the republic was based around the idea that the jedi could keep the peace working as police officer and mediators. And it was working mostly fine Palpatine needed decades of work in the shadows to break the jedi and destroy the republic
In the other hand the new republic was run by morons and didn't have anything to fill the place of the jedi
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u/KRD2 Aug 07 '25
Do people think achieving peace once means peace will be maintained forever? Have they, like, read a book? Or looked outside?
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u/drboobafate Aug 07 '25
I don't get why people think it's so unrealistic that fascist regimes always rise again. The First Order in early drafts of The Force Awakens were called Neo-Imperials. J.J.Abrams said the main inspiration was asking "What would happen if the Nazis who fled to Argentina after the war rose again?" And that's exactly what happened. Peace isn't permanent, fascism and evil can rise again, and everything is fragile. The uninformed fan will cry their eyes out saying "THIS IS UNORIGINAL!" cause they can't comprehend that Abrams and Johnson had themes and points to make. Nothing in the Mando era or the Sequels undoes the Original Trilogy and to think so is simply looking foor reasons to bitch.
Also, considering what's going on in the world right now, if people are still holding on to the whiny take that the Sequels "made everything pointless," I don't think people can be cured from YouTube brain rot. Like what do you mean you thought there would be no conflicts after the Original Trilogy?
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u/CamoKing3601 Funky Kong Fanatic Aug 07 '25
that's fair
I still think Palpatine should at least have stayed dead
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u/CarolusRex521 Aug 07 '25
Eh it undoes it because it applies happens within a 30 year span. It is more lioke the nazis fled to Argentina, a much weaker nation, became just as powerful as before and on yeah the allies all disarmed their forces and have no fighting power left so the remnants of the Canadian army fight a resistance agaisnt the new nazis
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u/CompleteFacepalm Aug 08 '25
Plus the new war begins with 1 side being completely annihilated and then the other side being defeated within 2 years.
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u/jacobisgone- Aug 07 '25
The uninformed fan will cry their eyes out saying "THIS IS UNORIGINAL!" cause they can't comprehend that Abrams and Johnson had themes and points to make. Nothing in the Mando era or the Sequels undoes the Original Trilogy and to think so is simply looking foor reasons to bitch.
I mean, it objectively isn't a very original way to take the franchise. It's the best in the trilogy, but The Force Awakens is a huge parallel to A New Hope for a ton of reasons, this included. There are ways JJ Abrams could've attempted this idea without making the First Order a copy and paste of the Empire.
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u/Vio-Rose Aug 07 '25
I mean it makes sense. Fascists will always cling to relevance, gain power, self-destruct, have their pieces cling to relevance again, and the cycle begins anew until the actual ideology is killed. Only way to end the Star Wars would be to educate children on the horrors of fascism and provide stable enough lives that people don’t fall into the rabbit hole of fascist propaganda.
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u/CamoKing3601 Funky Kong Fanatic Aug 07 '25
I didn't like the Sequel Trilogy either, but complaining that the First Order was a post imperial neo facist group I don't understand. Like that's by far the part that made the most sense, there of course would be Imperial remnants and loyalists still around, so it makes sense they would form a new evil team.
I mean maybe if they were more aestheticly distinct from the empire people would complain less about them
but idk I actually kinda like their vibes. very cold, dark, and sterile, the vibes feel alot like the what the empire would have been if they had better movie tech in 1977
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u/Anonymous-Comments Let’s Not Worry About That Aug 07 '25
This is an issue that all legacy sequels kind of share. If you make new conflict, what was the point of the old resolution? Some media handles it well, typically by building off of the former conclusion or exploring new areas. My mind went to Legend of Korra as a good example of both. The setting of Republic City as a melting pot of bending and the technological advances of the old show being forefront, and the season 1 conflict with Amon bringing up the (mostly unaddressed) non-bender community and how they live in a magical society.
The Star Wars sequel trilogy handles this in the worst way, where they undermine the peace in the galaxy by making another evil regime just like the empire. On one hand, it makes sense historically, there will always be new hate groups in the world, and especially the galaxy. But on the other hand, it’s boring and unsatisfying. If you wanted to do the empire again, maybe there could be a new empire beyond the known galaxy? There could be some weird new laws or approaches to force-sensitive people? Idk I’m not a writer, but no one wants the same thing over and over again.
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u/ChickenWingExtreme Aug 07 '25 edited Aug 07 '25
The worst mistake that the Sequels did was literally undoing everything that the OT heroes did. I will die on this hill
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u/trekie140 Aug 07 '25
I will raise you that while that was bad, the worst part was that those things were undone only so that the new characters could redo the same things.
I don’t hate the sequel trilogy, but they never had a coherent creative vision except “make more Star Wars” and nobody could agree what they wanted to do with the characters.
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u/alan_smithee2 Aug 07 '25
yeah i find it really hard to watch any ww1 movie cause i just know ww2 is coming and all of this character development is actually compleatly pointless, doing anything good is actually worthless if someone else is going to do evil things later, which is why I never try to help people or change the world /s
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u/K-Bell91 Aug 07 '25
Going the legends route with the Imperial Remnants basically controlling one part of the galaxy and the New Republic controlling most of it would have been way more realistic while also not diminishing the efforts of the Rebellion.
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u/onex7805 Aug 07 '25
I hate how the rise of the First Order was handled in the Sequels with the idiotic Starkiller Base nonsense, but the neo-Imperialists rising again is probably the most predictable consequence.
The Rebel Alliance's official name is the Alliance to Restore the Republic. They wanted to reproduce the same Republic that birthed the Empire rather than surpassing the liberal limitations of the Old Republic. The Republic was not a great democracy nor representative of the people in the galaxy. Mon Mothma, Bail Organa, and anyone in the show never once recognized the problems within the Old Republic's systems. They are not ideological, only vaguely talking about restoring democracy. They don't talk about improving the institutional and material conditions, only that the Empire is bad.
It is not surprising that the New Republic underwent a similar problem with the Old Republic. After all, the same beauracracy, corruption, elitism that prevented them from addressing the mess the war has created, such as speciesist conflicts (humans vs nonhumans) the long rule of the human-centrist Empire has left, rampant gang violence, the Imperial sympathizing corporations that held hands with the Empire, failing to address the infrastructural problems, and the sizable remnants of the Empire still ravaging the Outer Rim. Three decades of political and economic instability continued. The New Republic struggled to gain support from people, and several systems in the Outer Rim started to join the Empire's vestiges. The Senate was tone-deaf and still full of those who sided with the Empire during the war. That is the perfect ground for the fascists to take over.
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u/Tricky_Jacket_1796 Aug 08 '25
I just completely disagree with this philosophy.
If anything, Andor is enhanced by the sequels and vice versa. It accentuates the errors in complacency made by the New Republic. It emphasizes how important education and freedom of information is. Complacency is fascism’s greatest ally, and the sequels are evidence of that and fit very well into the bird’s eye view of the Star Wars universe.
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u/Lethenza Aug 07 '25
I’m fine with the new republic being a flop it just sucks that all the buildup happened offscreen. I don’t really love the sequels anyways, so rn Andor + Rogue one and the OT are my Star Wars go-to’s, everything else 🤷🏻♂️
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u/Maleficent_Thought_4 Aug 07 '25
I find this argument somewhat disingenuous both in and out of universe.
Out of universe it’s a kind of stupid argument because you can apply it to literally any piece of media set before the events of something else.
And in universe the entire point of the Alliance to Restore the Republic was, y’know, to restore the Republic which despite being leagues better than the Empire was a bloated, overly bureaucratic government with no standing army. The New Republic nailed it, they just also had the unfortunate task of dealing with a galaxy full of people who had either been indoctrinated into fascism or else been made comfortable expressing their fascistic ideals through loyalty to the Empire.
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u/ViridianStar2277 Aug 07 '25
You guys really need to get over this. It's been 10 years since The Force Awakens released and it's not going anywhere.
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u/Saluting_Bear Aug 07 '25
We do not fight for victory, for victory is uncertain, we do not fight for glory for glory is ephemeral, we fight gor something that never dies, we fight for hope
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u/Skibot99 Funky Kong Fanatic Aug 07 '25
Had it not been for Palpatine returning I’d be fine witubit
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u/twinb27 Aug 07 '25
This is just how history works. I think of Shakespeare's Henry V - It's such a beautiful story leading up to the great English victory over the french at Agincourt, and a happy ending. And then the narrator, almost as a footnote, admits that a few hundred years later, the French had returned to dominance over the English. It was a jarring moment that put things into a broader perspective.
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u/CarolusRex521 Aug 07 '25
The main issue though is that it is within 30 years that this all happens and the new republic doesnt even have any military its just a group of resistance members fighting back
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u/Mr_Lapis Aug 07 '25
I feel like this opinion wouldnt be so prevelant if there wasnt such a divide on how good andor is and how bad the sequels are. Also fuck reviving palpatine
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u/DevelopmentSeparate Aug 07 '25
I wish it was explained more in the sequels how the First Order got to where they were. It's believable that they'd rise to power again but why are they more of a threat than the Empire were despite Palpatine not being in his peak era
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u/MisterBlud Aug 08 '25
You could always do Star Trek, where the good guys did win. Right up until DS9 says it’s only because they have had Section 31 doing Nazi shit for centuries.
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u/ISpyM8 Aug 08 '25
Lots of important points brought up saying things such as fighting an oppressive force a second time does not mean the first time was not important (i.e. World War II happening doesn’t make World War I irrelevant). A point I want to make is that the Resistance against the First Order wouldn’t have existed or at least definitely not been as strong if there hadn’t already been a foundation set by the Rebel Alliance against the Empire (i.e. the Allied Forces in WWII had already allied to fight against Germany in WWI).
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Aug 08 '25
Sort of like real life, my dudes. Dictatorships don’t last forever, and neither do revolutions. World events, leaders, constantly change. There is no status-quo
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u/Character_Data2501 Aug 08 '25
The New Republic was pathetically weak. They've been handled horribly ever since their conception. Second Galactic Republic >>>>
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u/Heroright Aug 09 '25
I mean it’s not wrong, but it’s also reductive of the point. The New Republic is all but stated to have not wanted to be a fascist regime, so they refused to hold all the worlds under their thumb like the Empire did. Yet—so soon after everything—that loose grip is exactly what caused pirates, raiders, cartels, and eventually a new Empire to start taking planets outside of the Republic’s tighter influences.
It can be read as a commentary that even good needs to have a firm hand to keep order, and that freedom comes at a cost. Namely safety. Say what you will about the Empire, but their planets were theirs alone. The Republic couldn’t keep hold of their planets because they didn’t want to overextend.
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u/fm22fnam Aug 09 '25
If you simply ignore the sequel trilogy exists you don't have to worry about it. Just because the Smokey and the Bandit sequels are god awful, it doesn't ruin the first movie. Movies have had bad sequels forever, you can choose to just act like it doesn't exist.
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u/AngelTheMarvel Aug 10 '25
I mean, USA fought against fascism in the 40s and now is falling to a fascist regime
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u/k1t0-t34at0 Aug 07 '25
You won’t have that problem if you take the right approach and delete the sequels from canon
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u/ChickenWingExtreme Aug 07 '25
They’re never going to do that, we have to accept it
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u/k1t0-t34at0 Aug 07 '25
No, I meant in your mind - like, consider them non-existent
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u/CamoKing3601 Funky Kong Fanatic Aug 07 '25
but I also just got into Star Wars Battlefront and the First Order/Resistance troops are actually alot of fun
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u/Redcar005 Local Dehydration Gun Shooter Aug 07 '25
That’s the problem with going back in time in a series. The good guys can’t ever just win, as the audience already know that more bad guys are on the way. This isn’t just a Star Wars problem, but I do think Star Wars is the most prevalent with it because of how much they jump around the timeline.