The Problem With the First Order

I don't really understand what the First Order is supposed to be. On one level, they appear to just be some sort of terrorist cult. Watching TFA, I didn't get the impression that the First Order was a very big organization; whereas the Empire had an entire fleet of star destroyers, the first order seemed to only have a handful. Enough to make them a menace, but not really an existential threat to the New Republic. But they somehow have a budget that allows for creating a multi-planet destroying superlaser. It's like if ISIL had their own Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. It doesn't make any sense. Futhermore, I'm not sure how exactly the First Order are supposed to still be considered a major threat in The Last Jedi because their big superweapon, the thing that made them so dangerous, has already been destroyed.

Therefore the sequel has no way to raise the stakes except by potentially introducing YET ANOTHER planet-destroying superweapon. To be fair, the original trilogy did this with the Death Star II in Return of the Jedi, at least there it was plausible because Sheev Palpatine had access to an entire galaxy's worth of resources to harvest in order to create a replacement death star. The First Order doesn't have that kind of budget, or at least they shouldn't. So either the writers will create yet another plot-hole, or they'll have the First Order conveniently stumble upon some pre-built planet-destroying superweapon.

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It's just a crap pm version of the empire with space nazis.

J J Abrams should commit fucking suicide

oh just shut the fuck up. its clearly establishes they are as big and strong as the empire

now how about you triggered cuck go back to bitching about how rey is a mary sue or whatever else has you triggered you retarded trumpcuck

>its clearly establishes they are as big and strong as the empire

No, it doesn't.

>now how about you triggered cuck go back to bitching about how rey is a mary sue or whatever else has you triggered you retarded trumpcuck

Kill yourself.

What's so fucking hard to understand? The Empire was a fucking GALATIC Emprie. They had entire planets dedicated to ship production. All that shit doesn't just go away. The leader of the FO is obscenely wealthy and it's safe to assume many systems are still loyal to the old ways.

They don't explain shit. Everybody just gave them a pass because the average Star Wars viewer is at least familiar with the Empire.

1/10 trying too hard user

theres nothing to understand except star wars is dumb

if you want a proper use of "galactic" scale just read Foundation

And how about the fact that there’s a “resistance” fighting the first order instead of just the new republic military?

OP, it’s pretty obvious the lore is specifically set up in a way so that JJ Abrams can rehash the original trilogy

>I DONUT UNDSTAN STAH WAWS

Snokes has multiple casinos where he launders money to be able to purchase star destroyers. I'm not even joking. I wish I would.

HEHEHH PEW PEW LAZER SWORD WOW SKIEWAFER IS MY DADDY BGUHHH

Disney doesn't care how little sense it makes
They only care about having the same story over and over so that high profits are guaranteed

>STAH WAHS IS AKSHULLY A PHILYOSOPHICAL DESSEKSHUN OF MODREN SOCITY BECAUS NAZEE HITLER DRUMFPP REDIT SPIDERMAN

I'm fine with them being space nazis. What I'm not okay with is how they seem to be a very small organization while still somehow having a budget large enough to allow for the construction of Starkiller Base.

>it clearly establishes they are as big and strong as the empire

If true, then guess what? That's yet another plothole. There is no reason why the First Order should be as big or strong as the Empire. The Empire covered literally the entire fucking galaxy, except for a few pockets of resistance scattered throughout.

the problem is that the First Order is a stupid name for a political organization. should be more edgy like "The Supremacy"

stop over analysing a popcorn flick thats for 5-14 year olds .

why is this board so obsessed with this shit

Cba to read that but I read the first line and the Terrorist thing is what I thought the First Order should have been with the Republic being the dominant force.

I remember Abrams saying he based them loosely on the idea of the Nazis scattering off to Argentina and trying to rebuild the Reich after the collapse of Nazi Germany. Well he did a shit job then if he thinks they would have instantly become equally as powerful. They should have established them as a constant threat thats been growing and their recent terrorist actions against the Republic call for a war that kicks off the new trilogy.

It would have tied in nicer with real world events too with Terrorism being the big problem of our time and would have given this soulless husk of a film a morsel of individuality among the other films.

Disney Star Wars isn't canon. It's just commercial tripe for idiots.

Heaven forbid somebody try to discuss movies on a movie discussion board.

I'd rather just call them the Imperial Remnant. "First Order" sounds like shit.

I think thats what they are called in the old EU? But yeah me too

>The Empire was a fucking GALATIC Emprie. They had entire planets dedicated to ship production.
And they all needed resources and money.Not to mention many of these fell to the rebels.
>All that shit doesn't just go away
Actually,it goes.Supernovas,meteors,those bats from ESB,pirate raids,resistance fighters and scavengers are constant threats and will ruin any factory left unattended.
> The leader of the FO is obscenely wealthy and
How could a random asshole with a casino become richer than an entire galaxy?
Total revenue of Casinos in USA - 58 Billion(2011)
Total taxes value in USA(2011) - 2.3 Trillion.
> it's safe to assume many systems are still loyal to the old ways.
The Empire that lasted only 23 years?

the biggest bummer in SW is that stormtroopers are fucking blind, they never manage to hit anyone with their lasers... how the hell these goofy shits dominated the galaxy? its so retarded

I'd rather just call them the galactic empire.most nations irl don't change name after defeat.
last time i checked this board was called Sup Forums,not /cave/ or /hole/

That's what Disney wants you to think OP.
>The first order really is this Human centric totalitarian government with a huge superweapon full of ebil whait mails
>But in reality they're just Space North Korea and now their nukes are gone.
>In the next movie all the other empires, republics, and dictatorships built from the old empire are going to war because nobody fucking likes TFO and it's become a massive land grab for their systems.
>We're going to see some fucking major space battles with actual creative designs while giving Finn the training arc he needs to stop being a bumbling oaf, Kylo's fall to rock bottom and start of a redemption arc, and Rey crashing the Jedi with no survivors as she casts off her plot armor and joins the Dark Side.
Oh who am I kidding. Even my captcha says "FOR SALE"

It never made sense, the Empire was destroyed by a bunch of koalas

>space nazi
>nigger as a soldier
what the fuck disney? nazis wouldnt let a nigger to be soldier

It's a brain bug.
>stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/BrainBugs.html
In ANH they missed on purpose to allow the rebels to escape to their main base.Then it became a meme and no stormie could shoot straight.

While it's pretty ambiguous in the movie, apparently they go into more about them in the books and shit (and maybe battlefront 2 story?). They are basically partially remenants of the empire. Also the books I guess say that they are funded by powerful upperclass among the new republic. I'm guessing The Last Jedi will go more into it. The movie does not have to explain these things to you though It's not really that relevant to the plot.

If I recall correctly the opening scene of TFA was going to be Liea in the Senate and it would explain all this stuff.

Then JJ came in a threw out all of Lucasfilm's original and interesting ideas.

coll text, thanks user

Yeah the resistance made no sense as a name. Could have called them Alliance, New Republic, Alliance Republic or something. Instead they deposed the emperor and did almost nothing for 30 years while the first order still had like 2/3rds of the Empire?

Are we to believe that the First Order is the Empire with a minor black eye and they only changed the name because none of the surviving generals wanted to become the next Emperor?

Or are we in some kind of Post-Alexander civil war where there are like ten factions fighting succession wars?

>I'd rather just call them the galactic empire.
Personally it would have made the most sense if somebody, force user or not declared themselves the heir and Emperor. But maybe it was sufficiently decapitated with beta generals who mostly avoided getting strangled and they picked a different name because there was no one willing to be Emperor.

I can't believe nobody wanted to be Emperor.

Foundation is great but it annoys me how trantor, the capital of the galactic empire, covered entirely in cities and performing no role other than bureaucracy, only has a population of 40 billion.

Pretty big oversight on asimovs part

I just started getting annoyed as the "exactly as planned" shit with the Seldon holograms. Although they dialed it back a little with the Mule disruption and the AI-unification finale.

My interpretation is that the empire never properly collapsed after the events of Jedi. Power simply shifted instead, sort of like how when the Soviet Union fell apart and most of the country became Russia, that sort of thing. Sheev's old followers may have been scattered and in disarray for a number of years but they were still as active as ever, and the First Order is likely an attempt by them to regroup and consolidate power once again.

They're evil because they are white.

He's good because he black.

It's congenital (aka nu racism, anti white, anti male.)

>Therefore the sequel has no way to raise the stakes except by potentially introducing YET ANOTHER planet-destroying superweapon
I think this is where the answer is. You don't need to "raise the stakes". That isn't a requirement of a sequel. Will they? Yeah, probably, and it won't be great.

But you don't need to. TESB is an obvious example of a great sequel where the stakes aren't raised. You go from planet-killer to Vader hunting Luke. If they're clever they'll do something similar, and if they're REALLY clever they'll do it without ripping off TESB note-for-note.

Real question is if they have the balls to kill Luke in anything other than a spaceship explosion.

They are also based in the Unknown Regions where there is plenty of free resources.

>stormtroopers
>white
They're supposed to be clones of that mexican guy from episode 2, another thing Disney fucked up on.

>I have to explain this again
The Empire stopped using clones between episode 3 and 4. They were too expensive and Jango's DNA was starting to degrade towards the end of the Clone Wars.

That makes even less sense.

>2nd Deathstar Blows up
>Big chunk of the remaining Imperial Fleet high tails it for Deep Periphery
>Genetic manipulation for 300 years and ritual combat
>attack the waring factions of the Inner Sphere in a blitzkrieg campaign with their Ubermen of geneticly perfect infantrymen, battlemech pilots and aerospace fighter pilots all supported by genetic ubermen scientists and engineers with superior technology
sarna.net/wiki/Clans

Oh wait, wrong Universe.

>Clone Wars
Is that any good? The show seems fairly polarizing with some fans saying it's terrible and others saying it's better than any of the movies. I remember loving the first Clone Wars series as a kid, (the one that had 5 minute episodes) but I've never really bothered with the newer show.

First two seasons are meh with a few good episodes. All the other seasons are awesome.

It really makes Anakin's turn make more sense and makes the clones feel like actual humans rather than the plot devices they are in the movies.

It also has the best CG animation we will ever see on TV.

The movie is shit though.

>Mexican guy
It's pretty clear he had Pacific-Islander looks, specifically Maori. Though he does look really different compared to 10 years ago.

The CGI Clone Wars show was George Lucas' last contribution to the franchise before Disney bought it. It was a passion project for him, the quality in general is pretty high because he wasn't even trying to make a profit on it. The show redeems many of the issues that plagued the prequel saga. For example, Anakin's break with Jedi Council is made a lot more understandable. Whereas in the Prequel Trilogy it seemed like Anakin was just being a whiny bitch, the show makes a point of showing that the Jedi Council really made some serious mistakes dealing with Anakin. There is an episode where Obi-wan has to fake his own death as part of an investigation, but Yoda never tells Anakin about it so Anakin thinks that Obi-wan is really dead and his very torn up about it. And of course, when Anakin learns the truth, he's very angry that he was intentionally left out of the loop. This is just one of several examples.

Because the are written to be the bad guys and that is all it takes to make a shitty movie.

>There is an episode where Obi-wan has to fake his own death as part of an investigation, but Yoda never tells Anakin about it
That's actually really fucked up if you think about it. Obi-wan was more or less an older brother to Anakin, who doesn't seem to have many close friends to begin with. It definitely brings into question the morality of the Jedi order if their leader is going to be doing sneaky shit like that, and I can see why Anakin started to develop trust issues in the second and third movies.

The Clone Wars is the last best thing with the Star Wars name on it. Period.
It makes Anakin more understandable.
Obi-Wan's history with the Jedi isn't quite so clean cut.
Jedi aren't as clean cut either.
The force isn't as divided as simply good or bad.
Darth Maul becomes a character instead of a plot device.
Grievous' behavior is a little more justified. He's still a bitch in ways but he's a legitimate threat.
Planets aren't always on one side or another.
10/10 voice acting on all accounts.
10/10 animation and modeling
ORANGE. BUTT. CHEEKS.
Clone Trooper arcs are kino.
Season six was kind of weak and anything involving droids is usually bland and forgettable though.

Starkiller Base isn't really that unbelievable.
>On an already existing planet vs building a new planet
>Built into a chunk of a planet vs the huge amounts of infrastructure the Death Star would need
>Based on the impact we see in TFA, the impact lazer isn't larger than the Death Star lazer, only difference is that they evolved already existing technology to split the projectile, which isn't that far fetched

Knowing that this sort of thing has been done before, how unbelievable is it really that this planet (which was 100% unoccupied before the First Order) had the weapon secretly installed on it?
Does the Resistance actively patrol every planet everywhere like the Empire?

Terraforming the planet into a base is okay but having a weapon that can destroy entire star systems was just stupid.

>have to hollow out 80% of a planet to make it work
That is four times more difficult than simply building the 20% of the planet that remained. And somehow it ate stars? How were they going to fire it more than once? (Twice? Binary star?) Could it move? If they could move it from star to star to eat (its way fucking bigger!) why was it so easy for the Rebels to find?

Why?
How can you absolutely mean that developing a splitting beam is more unbelievable than the other insanely abstract elements of this franchise?

>80%
Yeah, try again, kid

There is another plotline where Anakin's padawan gets framed for a major crime and the Jedi Council decides to throw her out of the organization before she even goes to trial. Anakin gets about as angry as somebody can get in a kid-friendly show. Video is obviously a spoiler, so don't watch it your the sort of person who gets made about that kind of thing.

youtube.com/watch?v=2tMQyJCKLcw

My main problem with it is that it's so unoriginal and clear that no thought went into it except "let's make a Death Star but bigger and more dangerous".

On reflection maybe they melted a small moon that was the 20% of a planet and then blew it up like a glass christmass ornament. But still.

It is unbelievable. Even if its buildable it's just not practical. What if someone just wanders by? "Oh shit, there's a giant planet sized superweapon over here, better report this to the republic."

Why even make something so big? Why not just use the funds to make a Death Star army or something more practical? It's just stupid and ruins the entire lore. JJ went way too far in a few places.

>cut planet in half, slide the two halves apart
>put giant empty hole in the middle with a huge radius, planet is only a thin crust over the firing chamber of the weapon
No. Plus it has a breathable atmosphere and apparently pine trees, maybe they're space pine trees that grow really fast.

It's not believable that this heavily weakened version of the Empire would have the ability to build something like this. Even during the Era of Palpatine, when the Empire had access to the resources of an entire Galaxy, a project like this would have taken a very long time. We know this because it is clearly established in the original trilogy that both iterations of the Death Star took a while to build.

first deathstar took like ~16-18 years to build, same age as Luke/Leia. Carrie Fisher was 16 in ANH. Second one wasn't completed although it might have been started before the first was destroyed.

Luke and Leia are supposed to be 20 years old (according to Disney) and Carrie was 19 when filming ANH.

>space nazis
never noticed that until reading your post. It must have been too subtle. I'll have to rewatch. Very, very powerful if true...

If that's true, then Starkiller base should have taken well over a century to complete. It's mere existence is an abyssal plothole that will can't be fixed without major retcons which Disney probably isn't willing to do. Star Wars is now permanently broken.

Snoke has an 80 kilometre long space ship and you think they are a small time force and not big?

ok brainlet.

>they should of established them as a constant threat thats been growing
so literally what they are doing now?
you know there is more than just the TFA movie...

>Then JJ came in and threw out all of lucasfilms original ideas
yeah good don't want qny jar jar characters

>implying the emperor didnt have contingency plans after his death

When was that established?

Was it so hard for JJ to give Carrie Fisher a line where she says, "The First Order controls more than a third of the old Empire, to them the Empire never fell."

How difficult is that? It makes sense, Maybe Starkiller is another one of Palpatine's super weapons that he was super quiet about and he's been building it since TPM. Instead everything is out of nowhere.

ANH being the first in the series didn't explain much either, but it presented it in a way that it was just another episode in a serial and reasons were valid enough.

>I'm not sure how exactly the First Order are supposed to still be considered a major threat in The Last Jedi because their big superweapon, the thing that made them so dangerous, has already been destroyed.
Nevermind the fact that they made a superweapon that can only be fired twice

>mexican
fuck this board is brain dead brazilians i swear

The only reason to hate JarJar is that they let him off the ship to go buy the replacement hyperdrive.

While TFA undeniably "borrows" a fuckton of elements, this kind if argument stays sort of irrelevant

Exactly
The only thing validating Starkiller Base is "why not just do x?"
They obviously must have thought about every possible alternative, which have ended in conclusions making SK base the best option
Creating several Death Star copies requires the same materials that the Death Star needed, which is HIGHLY traceable
Since this is on a different scale and model, it's easier to stay off the radar, even if they need more materials
Only explanation left is that the position of this planet must've been optimal

What's the problem with the positioning of the lazer and having breathable air?
We quite obviously see the planet dying itself as a consequence of the one-time use

>Drilling big holes and using whatever advanced tech there must exist is somehow unbelievable
>Very similar thing has been done before, therefore it must a take longer time!
Yes, FO is weaker, but it's not like the Resistance formed every planet that existed under Empire rule to just one single faction, right? That wouldn't make sense, and isn't democratic

Does this look like a lot people to you? Well maybe, but it in the context of Star Wars it is a pittance. It gives the impression that the First Order is actually a very small organization, especially compared to the Galactic Empire that preceded it.

yeah know what else isn't beleivable? koalas killing the most powerful galactic empire

how did the koalas emplace so many log traps in so little time? Especially logs that are heavy enough to crush an ATST?

>be OT star wars
>make death star
>get destroyed
>making sequel
shit guys, what now?
>rebuild death star
>already more than hal way complete in span of like a year
this is fine.

>be new trilogy set 30-40 years after death star
>kyber crystal technology has been advanced over time and they can be used to shoot lasers that will bend/home in on targeted locations.
>use new tech + old idea of the death star
>over cours of 40 years build a cannon into a planet using this new technology

yeah, you know. you guys are right, they should have just rebuilt the death star again it would of been so much better than seeing technology advancents after a 40 yr period hahaha

Should have shown the droid construction workers.

>one singular base out of many is the entire force of the new order

you realise that star wars is set in space? that infinitely expanding vacuum?

what, are you saying you needed some montage shot of generals speaking at every first order base in the galaxy, because you're too much of a baby you need everything spelled out for you?

Uhhh

You don't seem to understand the central point here. If it took around 20 years to build the original Death Star, and Starkiller Base is more than twice as large as the Death Star, then there is no way that this behemoth should be completed in the relevant timeframe. It completely breaks the Star Wars timeline simply by existing.

According to Wookieepedia, Starkiller Base has a diameter of 660 kilometers. In comparison, the Death Star I had a diameter of 160 kilometers and the Death Star II had a diameter of 200 kilometers. Now keep in mind that the Death Stars were constructed during Palpatine's reign, when the Empire controlled basically the entire galaxy and they had essentially unlimited resources to work with. Even with all that, they still took around 20 years to build.

Now remember that First Order doesn't have all that. They don't have the nearly limitless resources that Sheev Palpatine had at his disposal. They're a tiny fringe group. There is no fucking way that they would be able to build something like this in the relevant timeframe. It's impossible without breaking the pre-established rules of the universe.

And that's the part of the Original Trilogy that is universally hated. What's your point?

A montage showing that the First Order controlled other worlds would have been very good actually. The footage shown in TFA doesn't really give the viewer any reason to believe that the First Order is much larger than the group seen during the firing of the superlaser. It may be true that they have other bases on other planets, but the film itself doesn't suggest that.

next film.

it's like is this your first trilogy, kid? the first movie always offers up some kind of 'unknown' or mystery. Snoke's origin, the FO's origin, Rey's origin, Kylo's origin. next to nothing is known

>was it so hard for JJ to literally spell everything out for me and have absolutely no subtlety?
yes.

They were enslaved wookies actually

nobody cares about starkiller anymore, they blew it up.

>JJ missed a chance to show Captain Phasma whipping a Wookie and telling him his name is Tobi

>the film itself doesnt suggest that
Are you dumb? actually let me rephrase that, you are dumb. Snoke is never on starkiller base. Hux is a general of Snoke's army. do the math dumb fuck.

youtube.com/watch?v=I7jTfgXfaCU

>took 20 years to build first death star
yeah cool there is 30 years between rotj and force awakens. what mental gymnastics you gonna do now?

It's too big Disney, stop shilling already
Shill Kylo instead, everyone likes him

Yeah, it's totally impossible to learn from past mistakes and develop new technology that makes creation of weapons more effective than before
Starkiller Base is based on simpler concepts than the Death Star
This is more like a huge hole in a planet, instead of movable, completely sustainable little planets
Not to mention the Empire almost remade the entirety of the Death Star between IV and V, which (canonically) means if it's been done before, you will do it faster the next time
Death Star is far more advanced for its time than Starkiller is for this current time, and that's not a difficult concept to get behind at all

shut up and fuck off lucas shill

I'm really not seeing your point. Snoke could just as easily have been chilling on a star destroyer instead of attending the rally in person. The first order does appear to have a few star destroyers. Not many, but at least a few.

20 years to construct an object with a 160 km diameter. And yet it only takes 30 years to construct an object with 660 km diameter. You don't see the issue with that? Did you fail every math class that you ever took?

>Starkiller Base is based on simpler concepts than the Death Star

Are you kidding me? The Death Star just shot a huge fucking laser beam. That's simple. The Starkiller base does some bullshit where it absorbs the energy of a star and then fires it through hyperspace. The Starkiller base is very obviously a much more complex weapons system.

>Starkiller Base is based on simpler concepts than the Death Star
It's a fucking star eating star system destroying planet literally 10 times the size of the Death Star built by space nazi remnants

Just fucking read that with a straight face

What's the approximate diameter of Rose Skywalker's sphincter?

The Death Star, which was made several decades before Starkiller base, when the idea of a weapon of that mass was entirely new, had alot more features than just that weapon, and you know that

Starkiller takes that identical idea, but eliminates the stuff that took extra development time for the Death Star, like movement, oxygen, sustainability etc
Starkiller base is literally just that weapon, some living spaces as well as some turrets
That is a simpler concept, because it's nothing technologically advanced compared to the Death Star at its prime
>waa waa in this universe it's IMPOSSIBLE for a weapon to generate power from the sun, that's WAY to sci-fi for this sci-fi franchise consisting of other equally nonsensical elements

From what I can gather from the concept art the First Order may at one time have been something very different. Their initial designs looked almost tech-occultist, bizarre and alien, almost horrific. I imagine them as a radical splinter from the implosion of the Empire who went into the dark regions of space and started to dabble in ancient Sith shit, warping them and their technology. Just look at these designs; so they look new and evoke new emotions, specifically dread, disgust, horror, yet remain recognizably Star Wars.

I can just see how over time each and every piece was tossed aside for the safer choice. Ditch the red star ships, we need TIE fighters! This looks too weird and scary, what if they were just storm troopers again. Let's drop all of it and let them be the not-Empire.

The basic story is the same I guess, with them being a fringe group the New Republic doesn't take seriously until too late, but now it makes no sense. If Starkiller base was some ancient tech they found beyond the stars, it would have been better. But just look at the concept art for this movie and tell me you don't see a sad case of regression to the mean. Any interesting idea was tossed aside for copying ANH. It makes me so fucking sad.

Fun fact, Jakku was supposed to be a swamp world full of rotting Empire tech before the pencil pushers forced it to be Tattooing.

I'm fine with the First Order. They rely on Khyber and Force technology, which apparently isn't understood to the galaxy at large. Starkiller Base was their Hail Mary, and it worked; they decapitated the Republic. Hopefully, TLJ ramps up the super-elite paramilitary elements of the faction. Like they hijack a big space station or colony, lure a Republic fleet there, and blow it all up. Something like the space nazis from MSG.

>Starkiller takes that identical idea

And again, this is wrong. The Death Stars were just really large space ships that fired lasers. Okay. Now Starkiller is literally built into a fucking planet. It's many times bigger than the Death Stars were, and it can fire through hyperspace, which neither version of the Death Star could do. The Starkiller can also absorb the energy of an entire star, which is just another layer of stupid.

>Fun fact, Jakku was supposed to be a swamp world full of rotting Empire tech before the pencil pushers forced it to be Tattooing.