*SPOILER DISCUSSION* Star Wars The Force Awakens *POST HERE AFTER SEEING THE MOVIE*

[CaptainCrunch]

Also to the Force sensitive baby theory, its interesting because its a key storyline in Rebels, however Palpatine has been dead for 30 years at this point so for the time line to work, Ray would have to be in her 30's.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Hesla

CC : love the analysis. Really fills in holes for someone that has not read much of The EU.

Fin leaving the order is believable to me. While they are menacing they are obviously not with out their faults. Hux seemed out of his element and Kylo was wavering in commitment

Hux wasn't a good character. He was a true believe and meant to be the jack booted representative of evil.

He was meant to be this movies Tarkin, but he turned out to be this movies Jerjerrod.

Peter Cushing made Tarkin almost into a brutally efficient shark. He felt like a character who would be tough to beat, was a true believer and extremely smart and dedicated.

Hux was a marionette.

[Knut]

I saw Hux as more of a spoiled kid of a better leader. Maybe his father drove the development of the First order and when he died his less competent but more ideological son took over. Not like it has not happened repeatedly in human history.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

On top of it the secret of what happens to Kaanan, Ashoka and Ezra is contained in ANH.

Exactly. The whole set-up for the original trilogy is that every known Jedi is dead and Vader is the sole surviving person to ever be trained as a Jedi.

Obviously, he/we find out that Obi-Wan survived Order 66, and that Luke was born and taken to safety before Padme died. As far as I know, Vader never knew that Yoda survived to train Luke (as he says, "Obi-Wan has taught you well").

In Rebels, Vader knows that Kanan, Ezra, and Ahsoka are alive and acting as Jedi. The only way it can really end without screwing up the whole premise of the OT, is for those three to die. I suppose they could go into deep hiding under assumed names, but even that kind of undermines the whole "last hope of the Light Side" idea of the OT.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Hesla

I saw Hux as more of a spoiled kid of a better leader. Maybe his father drove the development of the First order and when he died his less competent but more ideological son took over. Not like it has not happened repeatedly in human history.

I don't know why I laughed at this, but I did. I had this image of Hux sitting in the frat house of Delta Delta Delta at the Imperial Academy after he finds out that his fraternity is about to be disbanded because the nasty Dean Thrawn has put them on double top secret probation rallying his troops

Hux - "Did the Empire give up when the Federation blew up the Death Star!!!"

Unknown pledge - "Actually it was the reb . . . "

Phasma jams a rifle in his face.

Phasma - "Let his go, he's on a row"

Hux - "Toga Toga Toga"

[SHOGUN]

I recommend people reading the Star Wars Shattered Empire comic book series. It's official canon, it's based on everything between ROTJ and Force Awakens. It'll explain a little background and clues behind some of the main characters...

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by getbak

Exactly. The whole set-up for the original trilogy is that every known Jedi is dead and Vader is the sole surviving person to ever be trained as a Jedi.

Obviously, he/we find out that Obi-Wan survived Order 66, and that Luke was born and taken to safety before Padme died. As far as I know, Vader never knew that Yoda survived to train Luke (as he says, "Obi-Wan has taught you well").

In Rebels, Vader knows that Kanan, Ezra, and Ahsoka are alive and acting as Jedi. The only way it can really end without screwing up the whole premise of the OT, is for those three to die. I suppose they could go into deep hiding under assumed names, but even that kind of undermines the whole "last hope of the Light Side" idea of the OT.

That doesn't necessarily have to be true. Kanan, Ezra, Ahsoka don't need to have died to keep the OT intact. They certainly would be too old and not really in a condition to qualify as a "new hope" for the light side as the OT makes Luke to be. There isn't a reason that these 3 didn't survive Order 66, like Obi Wan and Yoda did and live in exile. Now, without knowing for sure the life expectancy of the original clones who had Order 66 built in, they may have been pretty safe after a certain time.

It just seems like a logistical nightmare for every Jedi to have been sought out and killed. If they weren't killed within the lifespan of the clone troopers, they could have just been forgotten about as any threat.

Hmm, but Rey being an Anakin clone would be interesting. Could explain her natural giftedness and the affinity for that lightsaber. There would be an interesting ambiguity about her future destiny. But I agree with CC that a "force conception" would be horrible.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by Wormius

They certainly would be too old and not really in a condition to qualify as a "new hope" for the light side as the OT makes Luke to be.

Rebels takes place about 5 years before ANH. Ezra is about the same age, if not a little younger than Luke. Ahsoka would probably be in her late 30s/early 40s at the time of ANH, and Kanan is somewhere between Ezra and Ahsoka in age.

[CroFlames]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't a clone an exact replica? Wouldn't that mean that Rey would need to be a male, and look exactly like Hayden Christiansen?

I don't buy that she's a clone.

A midichlorian conception is possible I suppose, given that midichlorians are canon now, but I hope Abrams and Ryan Johnson are wise enough to never mention or speak of midichlorians ever again.

[icecube]

Midichlorians aren't canon. Nobody cares about the prequels anymore.

[Hockey_Ninja]

Originally Posted by icecube

Midichlorians aren't canon. Nobody cares about the prequels anymore.

Ehhhhhh I saw someone saying that The Phantom Menace is a masterpiece compared to TFA

[Regulator75]

Originally Posted by Hockey_Ninja

Ehhhhhh I saw someone saying that The Phantom Menace is a masterpiece compared to TFA

Obvious troll is obvious.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by icecube

Midichlorians aren't canon. Nobody cares about the prequels anymore.

Anything in the movies is canon.

[nik-]

The Force's explanation in TFA was pretty contradictory to the midochlorians BS.

[icecube]

Originally Posted by getbak

Anything in the movies is canon.

The prequels only exist to the biggest of star wars nerds/losers now. They're dead. Gone.

[CaptainCrunch]

So lets talk about Kylo Ren and what he is

I can't help it, I find Kylo to be extremely interesting and a lot of it has to do with the job that Adam Driver did in portraying him.

He is a series of contradictions in one persona, the man in the mask, and the man without the mask. With the Mask on Kylo is a vicious killer, with a decisive and deadly personality. When he takes off the mask he appears to be a split and vulnerable teenager.

In the ROTJ novelization, when Palpatine was scarred by Mace Windu he peers into a mirror and sighs, "at last the mask has become the man, I shall miss the old Palpatine.". He muses. With Kylo the concept of his self is exactly opposite, he desires to become the mask and leave his old self behind, he even goes as far as mentioning this to his father in their confrontation where he blandly states that he killed Kylo Ren. Kylo wants so badly to follow his grandfathers footsteps that he fails to realize that Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker were not two different personalities, but that Vader was Anakin and Anakin was Vader. and Anakin desperately tried to bury the weaknesses that were in Anakin Skywalker that had failed him so badly, his compassion and sense of mercy and loyalty and love.

But is Kylo a Sith or even on the way to becoming a Sith. First of all, I want to restate that I firmly believe that in terms of canon the Sith are dead. When Anakin destroyed Palpatine and then died the last two Sith in the galaxy with thousands of years of Sith knowledge and training were lost forever. Now I know that the common argument at that point will be what about Snoke, he must be a Sith right? Well I'll get into that when I talk about Snoke and what I think he is.

We know that Kylo Ren was trained at the Jedi Academy, Leia alluded to that in her conversation with Han, but what we don't know how much knowledge Ren picked up there, but I have my doubts that Ren has received much in terms of training from his Master Supreme Master Snoke. We don't see any true dark side powers, like Lightning, or Force Chokes, what we do see are instances of Force Push, We saw the ability to stop a blaster bolt in mid air, and the ability to probe someones mind.

In terms of marital abilities, I'm not convinced that Ren has been heavily trained in light sabre combat, his form seems to be based solely around heavy power moves, and it works well in this movie because frankly he fought two untrained opponents, and one of them battered down his defenses fairly easily and wounded him severely. We didn't even see the true force ability of precognition that was so prevalent in the prequels and even the Original trilogy, as Chewbacca shot him once and wounded him severely.

So if I was to guess, Kylo's training came strictly from his training at the academy and has received little to no training from Snoke, this is important when we talk about Snoke another time.

One of the great concepts that I've read about the Sith is that they have to fully commit to the Darkside by sacrificing someone that they truly love. Anakin did this with the Jedi order, and then later his murder of his wife truly cemented him to the darkside and allowed him to open up fully to the power of the Dark Side. With Jacen Solo, he murdered his aunt and sacrificed the love of his family before he was firmly cemented to the dark side and the Sith path.

I firmly believe that until Kylo murdered or sacrificed his father he was in the middle world of the dark and the light side in a similar way that Anakin was before he sacrificed everything to become Vader. Once Kylo sacrificed his father and truly committed to his destiny Snoke became interested in finishing his training.

Here's another thing that I noticed, and that's the difference between Vader and Ren was that Ren raged and had little emotional control, Vader at the height of his power was self possessed and had a cold rage about him.

We heard in the prequels that fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering.

In the excellent book Dark Lord which chronicled the rise of Vader. Palpatine muses about how the Jedi didn't understand the Sith. That a Sith used anger and hate and fear to call on the power of the darkside, but a true Sith needed to learn to use those emotions and transcend them in order to squash any morality in order to obtain a higher goal.

For Palpatine, he had great emotional control but could still use his anger and hate to become powerful in the force, but his higher goal was to conquer and rule the galaxy for the betterment of all non force using individuals that could not be trusted to rule and control the galaxy. For Vader, his higher goal was ultimately that his actions would bring peace and security to the galaxy and someday rule it. We don't know what Kylo's higher goals are yet. All we want to know is that he wants to finish the work his grandfather started, but if he believes that his fathers work was simply around the extermination of the Jedi to bring balance to the force, then Kylo is following a fools journey and being fed lies by his master. At this point if these are Kylo's goal then he is merely a tool and an assassin and not on the path to Sith Mastery.

Darth Plagueis in the very good book, taught Palpatine

You must begin by gaining power over yourself; then another; then a group, an order, a world, a species, a group of species… finally, the galaxy itself.”

Frankly Kylo isn't even near having control over himself or his rage so he's not even on the proper path to dark side mastery.

To me, Kylo right now is more of a Dark Jedi then even approaching what a Sith is.

Now what's interesting is what happened in the end of the movie to Kylo, what we saw was a massive facial wound, a obviously damaged hip and arm. I don't think its a stretch that he will return in the next movie even more consumed by Vader as he follows his path of becoming a shrouded and damaged or wounded man. I would think that we're going to rarely see Kylo with his mask off in the next movie and he will have some cybernetic attachments.

My last point that we can touch on later is that Han told his son before dying that Snoke wants him for his power, and when he uses that up Snoke will get rid of him. I think it will be interesting to see what kind of training or skills Ren returns with in the next movie because it will give us a hint as to who Snoke really is, and if Ren is on the path to bringing back the Sith line.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by icecube

The prequels only exist to the biggest of star wars nerds/losers now. They're dead. Gone.

Yeah no, that's wishful thinking. Certain details you could argue will be modified or changed. But the storyline, and the time lines and the death of the republic and rise of the empire and the emperor and vader were all told in those movies.

[cracher]

Originally Posted by getbak

In Rebels, Vader knows that Kanan, Ezra, and Ahsoka are alive and acting as Jedi. The only way it can really end without screwing up the whole premise of the OT, is for those three to die. I suppose they could go into deep hiding under assumed names, but even that kind of undermines the whole "last hope of the Light Side" idea of the OT.

Can/do they actually kill people on Disney XD? I have nothing to base this statement on, but I'm pretty sure the target audience would be younger than Cartoon Network (TCW). TCW was dark and there was death, but I'm pretty sure CN goes after older people (stuff like Adult Swim).

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

In terms of marital abilities, I'm not convinced that Ren has been heavily trained in light sabre combat

This typo made me smile.

[CaptainCrunch]

There's been a pretty heavy body count in the first two seasons.

Agent Callus murdered a stormtrooper in the first episode.
The Inquisitor executed two imperial officers in Tarkins office
Minister Tua was blown up by Vader
Kaanan was run through with a light saber and kicked off a cliff as well the crew of the ghost were brutally murdered in the Jedi Temple on Lothal though they were a vision
The seventh sister killed everyone on a freighter when she retrieved a force sensitive baby
Several storm troopers have clearly been killed when Rex and Kaanan shot them.