J.J. Abrams To Direct Episode IX - It's official!!!!

If the rumour that the Resistance will be resorting to guerrilla warfare in IX is true, we could be moving into some interesting territory, because this could show the Resistance in a darker light than before. Not too dark.......this is Star Wars, after all! But Rogue One did an interesting job of showing not all of the rebels were saints, while still maintaining the Empire as the 'big bad guys'.
So far, Rey knows very little about the Resistance. To her, they represent Finn and Leia, her 'mother' substitute and best friend. But what if the rest of them fail to live up to her expectations?
Will Rey come to regret her choice, just like Kylo?

I think Kylo will be space Darcy trying to get over his feeling for Rey by distracting himself with Vader's helmet and other things.

special_cases wrote:JJ was kind of lazy for Resistance's plotline in TFA - maybe he planned to develop it in TLJ, I don't know. But he certainly wasn't lazy for Rey\Kylo storyline...

As noted above, the Resistance even having a plot was more a function of an accident than design. Poe was originally scripted to die in the crash as he was escaping with Finn. There were going to be other Resistance people looking for BB-8, but all the space battle elements of TFA would have either been background elements or handled by complete strangers so all we'd originally have had much connection to in terms of the Resistance would have been Leia.

I think you can even see how the original last act would have gone without Poe. Han's explosives completely take out the thermal regulator and Starkiller Base begins to self-destruct with no X-wing attack even needed (cue the same final Kylo/Finn and Kylo/Rey battles as before, just with more planet falling apart around them). This probably would have been a MUCH better sendoff for Han in that in addition to his last act being to try and redeem his son, but also that it was his plan that actually completely destroys Starkiller Base instead of just giving Poe his opening.

That would have greatly reduced the NEED for a Resistance arc in TLJ; you could have had the Resistance scatter to rendevous later and you'd just need Finn, Leia and the droids part of running from the First Order when they turn up; not the virtual annihilation of the Resistance with not enough of it left to completely fill the Millennium Falcon. Luke could even still turn up in the final act to save Leia and be a beacon of hope to the galaxy if that's really the end they wanted for him... but without Poe, Finn also gets a more solid role as Leia's protege and successor (since Poe's not around) in the Resistance which sets up a stronger dynamic between Kylo/Rey/Finn for the final film than it is with Poe as leader and Finn as follower (i.e. Rey doesn't have the personal loyalty to Poe that she has to Finn, who's the first person who ever came back for her in her entire life... Finn as leader of the Resistance in IX would have added a lot more weight to Rey's conflicted feelings about Kylo).

I think when people look back on the ST in a decade or so, the decision to not kill off Poe when they originally planned to will probably be seen as the biggest structural weakness. Yeah, Oscar is very charismatic, but you basically derailed Finn's whole plot and kept BB-8 from becoming Rey's version of R2-D2.

I actually find the Resistance plot dull - with the OT the rebels were taking on a totalitarian corrupt Empire, led by a man who was irredeemably evil. We were rooting for them all the way.
This time around we have a Resistance whose budding leader (Poe) got a large portion of his army killed, a 'villain' who is more sympathetic than some of the heroes, and an army presented as abducted brainwashed kids. Not so black and white.

It would be a fresh twist if in IX Kylo tried to run a 'fairer' FO and Rey discovered the Resistance could be pretty morally ambiguous. It would stop the ST from becoming just a rehash of the OT. And if any one argues Disney wouldn't go in such a direction, the TV series Once Upon A Time was also Disney. And the morals of heroes and villains were pretty much very grey......the villainess ended up the best friend of the heroine.

@Chris24601 I think that leaving Poe alive would be fine, if TLJ then treated him as a secondary character in Finn's arc instead of splitting them up and promoting Poe to a lead.

I understand completely why Rian thought that Finn and Poe are dramatically boring as a duo, but maybe he should have tried harder to make them not boring, and deepen the dynamics that were established in TFA.

the resistance plot is dull because we have no real emotional connection to any of the new characters - none of them are conflicted or question what they're doing...they're self-righteous "know-it-alls" but without a plan what's to come next. Restoring the republic and repeating what bred an organization like the FO again? They never once question- WHY did something like the FO even exists. It's like they haven't learned anything from the past.

It's strange because I'm usually someone rooting for the underdogs in the story- I love when a group of misfits defeats "the big bad" but only if its somewhat believable - like outsmarting them, or at least having some plan on what they're doing. I mean maybe JJ come-up with something in IX but in TFA & TLJ they're only reacting to events. Looking for Luke Skywalker was their only plan- and that's so...lame. OK, we can argue it "worked" (sparking hope blah blah.. whatever that means remains to be seen in IX) at the end but it was more by chance.

@Saracene

I think it could've been interesting to keep Finn & Poe together and having them infiltrate the Supremacy directly instead of making that trip to Canto Bight.
I can see a conflict between them when Finn starts to have sympathy for his former Stormtrooper colleagues and Poe calling him out for it.
Maybe that would've been to much of a foreshadowing (IF they plan something similar in IX) or they don't want the Stormtroopers humanized too much because they're constantly killed by our heroes without a second thought.

What bothered me in TFA was the scene in which Finn flees with Poe and only seconds after deserting the FO firing at the other Stormtroopers without ANY conflicting emotions! I understand he had to do it in order to escape, but we never see remorse....and that's what makes me doubt a little IF we get to see a Stormtrooper rebellion in IX. I still hope, but I'm not sure they're going there.

motherofpearl1 wrote:I actually find the Resistance plot dull - with the OT the rebels were taking on a totalitarian corrupt Empire, led by a man who was irredeemably evil. We were rooting for them all the way.
This time around we have a Resistance whose budding leader (Poe) got a large portion of his army killed, a 'villain' who is more sympathetic than some of the heroes, and an army presented as abducted brainwashed kids. Not so black and white.

It would be a fresh twist if in IX Kylo tried to run a 'fairer' FO and Rey discovered the Resistance could be pretty morally ambiguous. It would stop the ST from becoming just a rehash of the OT. And if any one argues Disney wouldn't go in such a direction, the TV series Once Upon A Time was also Disney. And the morals of heroes and villains were pretty much very grey......the villainess ended up the best friend of the heroine.

@motherofpearl1

We'll see what happens, but I really think that Snoke's death and the ambiguity sets us up for a conclusion in which the centralization and amassing of great galactic power is in itself a flawed idea, as it becomes fertile ground for someone like Snoke. The Emperor got killed and everyone thought the bad times were over, but they went ahead and tried to rebuild what was and alienated Ben Solo (and Leia!) in the process.

I mean, to me, the whole idea of these big governments having big wars and training force sensitives from early childhood to help them fight it is kind of f**** up. I always felt Palpatine took advantage of the huge bureaucracy to take control of this enormous force. Snoke likely did the same thing. People like Anakin, Luke, Obi-wan, and Rey were all used.

So in a sense, the theme is that romanticizing and trying to rebuild what was has not really helped things on either side of the conflict. Rey and Kylo are well set up dramatically to step away from their respective sides and resolve it so that we don't need 3 more movies about it.