KOTOR 2: The Sith Lords vs. The Last Jedi

[FaxModem1]

KOTOR 2 is a deconstruction of Star Wars, but it still gives you the option of refusing the deconstruction, because it offers several different variations on the force and it's applications

If the Jedi can be corrupted, why not just stop making Jedi, as Atris does? Because locking away all the knowledge and making yourself God-Emperor of all Force related knowledge means that you can still be corrupted.

If you use the force to keep yourself alive, wouldn't you be unstoppable, like Darth Sion? Yes, unless you lost the will to live, which is how you stop him.

If the force is an energy field, can't you use it to make yourself more powerful by taking it from others, like Darth Nihlus does? Yes, unless someone has a relationship with the force that you can't feed on, to which you will drain yourself.

If the force makes the Jedi care about others, can't you just exploit that in your hunting of them, like Atton did? Sure you can, but you'll have to live with yourself and knowing that you're a monster, hoping for redemption someday.

If the force, and dealing with enemies via fighting makes you kill, shouldn't you try and not hurt others, always walking a razor's edge, like Mira does? Sure, but if you're not careful, all you'll do is run for the rest of your life, not wanting to every stay anywhere, meaning you don't belong anywhere, not achieving anything.

If you're listening to the force, and using it to determine when the time to strike is right, shouldn't you be cautious, and make sure you don't fall into any traps by waiting it out, like the Jedi Council does? Sure, until you become utterly useless to the galaxy at large, to the point that the galaxy is falling into chaos due to your inaction and cowardice.

Etc. Etc.

Each character is showing a different facet of the Star Wars tropes, and how working around them can lead to different, interesting consequences, and where such characters who choose to follow such strategies end up. It even plays with the previous game's twist mechanic, and reveals that there's no big twist regarding the Jedi Exile, except that she gains the force through force bonds. The most important character though, is not the player character, but Kreia.

Kreia is, well, an Objectivist. She believes in writing her own fate, and not having to follow the lead from anyone else. Problem is, she exists in a universe in which the force exists, and there is destiny. Her solution? Destroy the force. She wants to subvert destiny, and be in control. At the same time, she is a teacher, and views the Exile(you) as her student, who she wants to be proud of because you follow her teachings, and wants to prove her philosophy through your actions. This is why she admonishes your support or hurting of others for any reason beyond your own gain. She is trying to mold you into her perfect version of a force user.

Why?

Because you're her prize pupil to show that, objectively, her philosophy is better than the Jedi Council's, and she wants to rub that into their faces. When they reject what she presents on Dantooine, she doesn't kill them, she does what the Exile did to herself. She cuts them off from the force, and makes them experience what may be, for the first time in their lives, life without the force to support them. Such a shock killed them. That is Kreia in a nutshell. Proud, but the pride of a teacher, mixed with the selfishness and insanity of Objectivism.

At the same time, you can reject her teachings, and disagree with her, while still saying you understand where she's coming form. Kreia is a mentor, but one who tells you not to trust her, and keep your distance.

To sum up, it's a very philosophical game, and looks at everything rather deeply.

----

With The Last Jedi, we have a different problem. It wishes to subvert expectations on what goes on with Star Wars trappings, but doesn't do so as deeply, and giving logical reasons why such things are the way they are, like KOTOR 2 did. Instead, it destroys established characters and settings, making them the worst versions of themselves.

Why did Luke not build up the Jedi? Because the compassion and love for others was burned out of him and he's given up on everyone. Why did the Resistance fail? Because Leia is such a bad leader that she set things up to where if she's gone, it falls apart within a day. Why is the Resistance so bad at everything? Because if they don't have a genuine leader in place, they'd be at each other's throats killing each other within a day. Why hasn't the First Order conquered the galaxy? Because their leadership is so incompetent that a single man on an intercom can distract them.

It tries the same thing, but all the same answers lead to, "Your heroes and villains are stupid, and they'll all die soon, so you shouldn't care."

[Wargriffin]

Kreia's philosophy is that a man should stand alone with no Force or others to help him.

Except she uses the Force all the time.

Cause Kreia is a Massive Hypocrite, Its just everybody who wants to jump on the "Jedi Suck" bandwagon ignores that... Hell They ignore the biggest glaring aspect of Kotor 2


The reason I say Kotor 2 is you never can refute Kreia... is cause the entire game is Her Revenge ploy

She kills the 'Old' Jedi order for having the audacity to kick her out' THERE IS YOUR LESSON KIDS, and Then Wipes her Sith school out for betraying her

and Nothing you do will change that outcome... Basically Kreia more or less wins the only thing that differs is how you and her view each other respectably

Doesn't she say that killing the Force might kill her and every living being?

The Funny thing is... I don't think Kreia would actually go through with it

Hence her musement that perhaps "She's a bitter old woman ranting about hating the thing she's grown to rely on"

Kreia is all about control... Killing the force would in Her mind ultimately make fate her own... but at the same time Kreia is utterly dependent on it 'She even needs it to see, read and manipulate people.'

and Kreia isn't gonna let go of that much power, Weaken herself... over a sentimental point or a notion like Freedom something she doesn't believe in.

Its kinda why she settles for just revenge on The Order and Her Sith Students


______

KOTOR 2 has alot of great studies, Don't get me wrong... but alot of the ones people fixate on are ultiamtely the ones that have the most flaws.


The Jedi order basically either being Emotional Suppressive 'IE the thing most people bitch about' or about Emotional Control is dependent on the Writer and their interpretation of why things played out the way they do... that and when wanting to make Their Jedi character stand out.

IDK if you check the bodies it says the masters were drained... and Suddenly Kriea is more then capable of waltzing into Malachor by herself to dethrone Sion... I'm pretty sure she does the same thing to you if you went darkside and murdered the masters, and You say its like Kriea stole a chunk of something from you.

Since her Sith are all about devouring a person's force energy.


...

So the Last Jedi's Flaw can be summed up as

Your Main Characters are Stupid and Deserve to Die!"

[Winter]

I think one major advantage KOTOR 2 has over The Last Jedi is that, since most of the characters are original characters and unrelated to the cast from the first game anything and everything they do fans are more okay with because what they're doing fits their characters. My least favorite scene in all of Star Wars, and I mean it I HATE this scene, is the bit with Luke contemplating killing his nephew in his sleep.

For me, this is on par with Spider-Man making a deal with the devil, Superman having a bastard son with Lois, and Batman having sex with Batgirl which has done at least twice, (one of which is when she was about to get married to Dick). And I didn't care for the argument that Luke tried to kill Vader in a moment of Anger in Return of the Jedi as Luke was under a great deal of stress, was losing all his friends, was being tempted with the Dark Side by two of the most powerful Dark Side users of all time and just learned that his sister would be their next target if he didn't give in to the Dark Side. In Last, Luke just felt the darkness within Ben and decided that was enough to consider killing him in his sleep.

I also don't like how Luke acted nothing like he did in the Original Trilogy. That he would just give up and was just sitting around to die and wouldn't take on the first Order because of one mistake he made. Even Mark Hamill stated recently that he didn't get why Luke was acting like he did and the reasons for him acting this way feel rather contrived and forced.

I have the same issue with Anders in Dragon Age 2 as he also acts nothing like he did in the first game and does something that is so stupid and so out of character and is so forced and goes against the core of the series (namely that you're the one who is suppose to be directing the story only for Anders to turn out to be the most important character here) that it ruins the story for a lot of fans.

But with KOTOR2 it was able to avoid all these issues as these weren't the same characters from the first game so it's a lot easier for fans to except these new characters as they are. What could have made the film fail is if Kreia was Bastila from KOTOR, with all her character development or death if you choose to kill her in the first game ignored just to have a beloved character acting nothing like they did in the first game for a story they don't fit.

Sure you could argue that the story might fit her characterization in Sith Lords but odds are good that there would be more fans against it then for it and it would very likely drag the game down quite a bit.

Same thing with the new Lara in the Survivor timeline from Tomb Raider. This Isn't the character from either the Original series or the second reboot series. She is her own interpretation of Lara and while she may share a few character elements with the original she can still be her own Lara. Most fans are okay with this because it's not the original Lara so her acting nothing like that Lara makes sense.

But with Luke and Anders, these are suppose to be the characters you know and love from the Original Trilogy and Dragon Age: Origins respectfully and yet they're acting nothing like they did in those stories which raises the question. Why did in bring these characters in if you weren't going to have them act like they did originally. Even towards the end of Last Luke is still not acting like himself. Sure he's now acting like a hero but he's still not acting like Luke as he still has a rather bitter cold reaction to everything he does. Even him trying to assure Leia that her son could be redeemed felt, to me, more like him just humoring her.

Again with Kreia she works, for most fans, because she's her own character and Lara works because she's her own interpretation of a iconic character. I think that Luke and Anders would have worked a lot better if they were entirely new characters or if this was, in fact, a reboot to their respected series.

[Wargriffin]

So many of the Sequel trilogy choices are very clearly there for the sake of keeping the Empire vs Rebels Aesthetic basically The Sequel trilogy is trying to play as many safe choices as possible.

Rian Johnson strikes me as Ehren kruger 'IE the guy whose responsible for the Bayformer movies... down to using the same story beats and racist jokes'

Possibly BS'd his way into his position by claiming he had intimate knowledge of the SW-verse

[FaxModem1]

KOTOR 2 has alot of great studies, Don't get me wrong... but alot of the ones people fixate on are ultimately the ones that have the most flaws.


The Jedi order basically either being Emotional Suppressive 'IE the thing most people bitch about' or about Emotional Control is dependent on the Writer and their interpretation of why things played out the way they do... that and when wanting to make Their Jedi character stand out.

IDK if you check the bodies it says the masters were drained... and Suddenly Kriea is more then capable of waltzing into Malachor by herself to dethrone Sion... I'm pretty sure she does the same thing to you if you went darkside and murdered the masters, and You say its like Kriea stole a chunk of something from you.

Since her Sith are all about devouring a person's force energy.

Kreia's capability is because she has her answer that she's been questing for the entire game. IE, how/why were you able to turn away from the dark side, even turn yourself off to the force, and survive, and thrive? Of how someone like the Exile was able to turn away from such corruption as Revan did, as Kreia did in her youth.

She finds her answer, "But I see what happened now, it is because, you were afraid."

So the Last Jedi's Flaw can be summed up as

Your Main Characters are Stupid and Deserve to Die!"

That's a good way to sum it up, yeah. Remember that this is the same director who, in a time travel movie, had one of the main characters tell the audience to shut up when it came to thinking about the time travel.

[FaxModem1]

Another thought, in Sith Lords, we visit locations visited by Revan, and see the aftermath of the previous installment. Dantooine is a lot worse due to being a target by Malak, Korriban is an utter ruin, and the planet mentioned in the first game by Carth, Telos, is a major part of this game, showing what happens after the fight of good vs evil.

In the Last Jedi, the consequences we see of all the fighting Luke is talking about is child slavery and weapons dealers on casino world. Imagine if they had come to Cloud City, and seen the consequences of our heroes actions in previous films instead. Or that Luke was hiding on Endor, and we see what has become of the Ewok people due to the war, with some semblance of the Endor Holocaust having happened enough to be devastating to the Ewoks.

[Winter]

Another thought, in Sith Lords, we visit locations visited by Revan, and see the aftermath of the previous installment. Dantooine is a lot worse due to being a target by Malak, Korriban is an utter ruin, and the planet mentioned in the first game by Carth, Telos, is a major part of this game, showing what happens after the fight of good vs evil.

In the Last Jedi, the consequences we see of all the fighting Luke is talking about is child slavery and weapons dealers on casino world. Imagine if they had come to Cloud City, and seen the consequences of our heroes actions in previous films instead. Or that Luke was hiding on Endor, and we see what has become of the Ewok people due to the war, with some semblance of the Endor Holocaust having happened enough to be devastating to the Ewoks.

That's one of the reasons I love The Thrawn Trilogy so much, with it you actually felt the consequences of the actions of the Original throughout the series. We see the Rebellion trying to rebuild the Republic, we see that the Empire is still suffering form the defeat of the Endor, Lando making a comeback after he had to close down Cloud City and the power vacuum left in the wake of Jabba's death with Karrde making his mark as the new Kingpin of the Galactic Underworld.

This is also used for great character building moments like Han taking on more responsibilities as both a husband who is read to be a father and as someone who is being used to secure trade with smugglers for legitimate supplies. Luke taking in the fact that the future of the Jedi now rest on him and Leia preparing to become a mother while also helping an entire species to rebel against the Remnant of the Empire.

And, of course, Mara who also has to deal with the consequences of the Empire's fall and her slowly coming to terms with how horrible of a father Palpatine really was is the story that ultimately drives most of the plot forward. By contrast the current films seem determine avoid dealing with the fall out of any choices the Original heroes took and is instead more interested in just keep the Status Quo from the Original Trilogy intact regardless of how little sense it makes in story.

One of my issues with The Last Jedi was the whole how the First Order is buying weapons on the Black Market and so is the Resistance. This raises one simple question that is never answered and that is, Then How Is Their Weapons So Advance IF Their Buying Them Second Hand!?!

Where did Star Killer Base come From, did they buy that off the Black Market? If so then who did they buy it from and why the Hell did they cell it in the first place? How is the FO able to buy so many ships and weapons that are so powerful and so big that they literally dwarf everything the Empire had back in the Original Trilogy? If they have enough money to buy super a super weapon that can destroy a entire star system while draining a star which means they can destroy Two star systems for the price of one then why not use it right away to destroy all their enemies so they can continue to look for Luke without interruption? If the First Order was the ones who build SK how did they do so without anyone finding out as in the Original Trilogy the Empire was the only major power in the galaxy but during the Disney Era The New Republic was apparently more powerful then the First Order so how did not hear of this Super Weapon being made? How was Luke entire Jedi Order Destroyed so quickly? Were they all on that planet where we see Luke and Ben on or did Ben seek them out and kill them after Luke's out of character moment? How did Ben not sense that Luke was still alive under the rubble, he hadn't cut himself off from the Force yet and if he was willing to kill every one at the Jedi school so quickly why would he or any of the other students who went on a killing spry not kill him when he was out cold, especially when Ben implies that he had wanted to soon after that moment?

And why would Luke leave a map to where he was hiding if his intent was to just run from his responsibilities and die? For that matter why did R2 have the rest of the map and why is it no one ever thought to turn him on or at the very least search his memory banks?

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDyVeIuTQLY[/youtube]

[Wargriffin]

Because Rian was trying to make a Statement and JJ was just trying to make the most commercially edible version of Star Wars so he writes a story that basically makes history repeat itself.


Thats why the New Republic existing Means Nothing in the Sequel films

Kylo and the Knights of Rem... who we're two films in and We only Know Kylo and Snoke


The whole Weapons dealers are profiting from both sides felt like a poorly thought out attempt to be politically relevant except... It Star Wars not Metal Gear Solid

[Winter]

The whole Weapons dealers are profiting from both sides felt like a poorly thought out attempt to be politically relevant except... It Star Wars not Metal Gear Solid

Not to mention that The Prequels and Clone Wars already did the whole War Profiteering and, IMHO, did it a whole lot better as it tied into the story of the films and the show and didn't raise a million questions. Plus it wasn't as in your face as what we got in Last where the characters are almost literally spelling out that War Profiteering is bad and tried to back the whole War between the light and dark sides more grey...

The problem with that is A) The Resistance is fighting to protect itself and save the galaxy. B) as How it Should Have Ended pointed out lives are on the line and as bad as it makes them feel they can't help everyone because to do so would risk everyone's life for something that isn't going to make much of a difference. And finally) THE RESISTANCE HASN'T DESTROYED AN ENTIRE STAR SYSTEM JUST TO PROVE HOW EVIL THEY ARE!!!

That's one thing Last seems to conveniently forget that the First Order destroyed a entire star system just because they wanted to be taken serious and Last is trying to make them seem more grey while they are currently destroying the Resistance ships one by one and laughing maniacally about it. THRAWN is a morally grey villain because he does what he does because he thinks the galaxy would be better off under his control and rarely if ever target civilians but is shown that he is willing to be reasonable and will not kill without reason.

But the First Order is a mustache twirling villain who's only goal is to take over the world because that's what they're expected to do in the plot. That worked for Palpatine but the newer films are trying to be more complex and the worst offender of this is Kylo Ren.

The films want Ren to be seen as more of a complex villain who can also be seen as a person with flaws and personal fears... While also being someone who enjoys hurting people and is completely fine with the First Order killing millions just to prove a point. Honestly you know which villain Kylo Ren reminds me of? Superboy Prime. He whines about not being taken seriously, tries to be as cool as the person he wants to be like and when that fails he tries to distance himself from that image and be cooler cause he like totally broke his helmet and is going to do things his way and let the past die. And throws tantrums when anything doesn't go his way and often complains how things were so much better on his Earth. Okay, that last part is never said by Ren in the films but it might as well be.

I'm not a fan of the whiny brat who demands to be taken seriously because they're more annoying then threatening and I had the same issue with Anakin in the Prequels only there Lucas admitted his mistake and did what he could to undo in the next film while in the Sequel Trilogy they seem to be doubling down on it as Ren still throws tantrums whenever things don't go his way and still whines when about how much better things are in a world he was never apart of.

Maybe he'll get better in the next film but the fact remains that he is still Star Wars version of Superboy Prime.

[FaxModem1]

Going by the EU(ugh), the Rebellion/New Republic decided to be overly vindictive in regards to the Empire, and made every officer of the Imperial military a war criminal that needed to be arrested.


Imperial Instruments of Surrender

The Imperial Instruments of Surrender was a document signed by New Republic Chancellor Mon Mothma and Galactic Empire Grand Vizier Mas Amedda following the Battle of Jakku in 5 ABY. The Instruments marked an initial armistice between both factions, setting the stage to a formal end to hostilities and reduction of the Empire's power.[5] It forced the defeated Empire to abide by the terms of the Galactic Concordance. Mon Mothma issued another declaration designating all surviving Imperial officers as war criminals but granting conditional pardons to civilian functionaries including Mas Amedda, provided they complied with the articles of the Galactic Concordance.[1] Despite this formality, the Imperial Navy was in fact allowed to remain united, so long as it remained within the borders of the Imperial remnant.[6] The officers who did not accept surrender retreated to the outer portions of the galaxy and established another faction. These war criminals would then keep their forces at the ready in case conflict were to break out, leading to a cold war between the Imperial hardliners and the New Republic.[7]

The signing of the Imperial Instruments of Surrender took place north of Hanna City, capital city of the planet Chandrila.[1]

So, what we have here is that the New Republic said that in addition to giving total amnesty to all the civilian politicians in the Empire, it also made every Imperial who had the rank of ensign or above a war criminal. So, some officer working at an Imperial BX, or flying patrol in a TIE fighter is expecting a trial for daring to wear a uniform, while a politician who signed the order for Wookie slavery gets off scot free.

This makes me wonder if the end of the OT's Civil war was a bit like the end of World War I's Treaty of Paris, with the winners being so gravely incensed that they made sure the pen was dry when the surrendering Imperials pen was dry when they came to sign.

So, with the EU, the First Order is analogous to the Nazis rising in response from being humiliated and having to do what they thought was right in order to have some pride in who they were.

Without the EU, it just seems that the New Republic is so inept at what they do that we wonder if Luke, Leia, and Han just smoked a bong while making decisions when it came to running the new government they set up.