Star Wars Has a Palpatine Problem

[@Joe_Brennan_]

Let me know how you feel about Palpatine's return, and the work that's being done to make it coherent

[@taterpun6211]

In my opinion, they should just put it behind them; it happened, it was a last-minute move, just move on. There's no need to set up some convoluted, post hoc explanation for a character who died in ros anyways. Did lucas explain away the holiday special or ewok shows?

[@taterpun6211]

​@Zane2698 if they have to keep explaining it, then using the bad batch - the aftermath of the clones and transition to the empire - would end it on a high note, setting up the tragic ending to clone technology as you said.

[@JediLordNathan]

Unfortunately this is something you cannot escape by returning to the EU because Palpatine came back in Clone Bodies there first: yeah a little thing called Dark Empire, essentially Disney threw out the EU and brought back two of the things from it that I absolutely hated the first being Sidious cheating death and making Anakan's sacrifice in ROTJ pointless and the other was the whole son of Han and Leia turning to the dark side to become an evil Sith Lord: yeah that was an EU thing to. The problem with Disney Star Wars is they thru out the established lore for something of their own creation only they had no plan and created a mess of movies that brought back the elements of the EU that people didn't like and made them plot threads The real problem is that Disney won't admit to their failures and fire the idiots that ruining the IP. But perhaps that will change if some vested fan who hates Disney Star Wars and has a LOT of money were to buy the Franchise off of them. But yeah the state of modern Star Wars is a disgrace courtesy of Darth Kennedy the Foolish and her cronies Jar-Jar Abhrams and Ruin Johnson.

[@MrRandomcommentguy]

I hate the idea that all this work has to be done to explain the return of Palpatine when the return of Palpatine probably happened because someone in marketing said, hey, we need a villain for this movie, why not Palpatine? And then the other apathetic execs listlessly said, yeah, fine, whatever, do it, we just need a script for this thing yesterday.

[@a.nonymous2089]

Why is everyone so flummoxed?? This had been around since Dark Empire for fuck's sake.

[@legofreak86]

I do agree though that TROS can’t be fixed on the levels that it is broken, outside of the Palpatine plot.

[@KRobinson-ko1ne]

The whole trilogy is broken It retroactively confirms the OT as insignificant The only way it even makes sense is if it takes place in an alternate universe in which Luke killed Vader in anger on Bespin, hence why Luke was such an uncharacteristic asshole and Anakin never manifested. Hell, that could explain why and how Palpatine returned: he never died!

[@codemanthe2nd343]

Yeah. Too much of modern Star Wars is trying to make sense of the sequels

[@Comicbroe405]

Which is why one if the reasons I love Andor so much too. Tho Ahsoka doesn't dive into this either.

[@Joe_Brennan_]

I’m glad I’m not alone!

[@davidb9639]

That's what happens when you make nonsensical sequels.

[@mazkeraid4039]

@@Comicbroe405 That's a reason why Andor doesn't contribute much to Star Wars, just a modern-day nonsense you should have seen a mile away.

[@Comicbroe405]

@@mazkeraid4039 😂

[@azaanyasir2811]

Great video. I think it's hilarious how JJ set up the most boring status quo with the first order. other people started making it interesting, only for JJ to come back and say "nah fuck that" throw the first order away and now it's all about the final order and Exegol and cloning

[@Joe_Brennan_]

It’s funny because there genuinely is something in the idea of an imperial remnant that’s more focussed on the Sith stuff. But when you’ve missed the chance to make that the story of your legacy sequel, you can’t just pivot to it in the third part lmao

[@azaanyasir2811]

@@Joe_Brennan_ the villains of the trilogy being insane darkside cultists who want to do ancient rituals to bring back the emperor and get the key to doing that with Rey and Kylo would be a cool overarching threat for the Sequel era. Unfortunately JJ came up with it 5 years after he already decided "eh let's just do the OT again" I wonder what people would have said it Rian had abandoned the first order the same way JJ did

[@christianwise637]

I remember hearing the First Order being described before TFA came out as equivalent to if the Nazis who went into hiding in Argentina regrouped and started scheming a way to regain their power, and thinking it sounded like a really cool idea. Which then led to disappointment when the film barely explored that idea and just treated them like the Empire 2.0, which I suppose was a good way to establish the sequel trilogy as being full of missed potential

[@azaanyasir2811]

@@christianwise637 the force awakens introduces a lot of really wonderful characters but JJs need to recreate the Star Wars 1977 feel means he attached them to a really lame Status quo. Ideally you'd take those characters (mainly Kylo Ren and Rey) and completely reconstruct the world they were introduced in, Ideally one without the first order/empire 2.0 Ofc no first order makes it impossible to keep anyone resembling Finn as a character, in which case you could lean into those Argentinian Nazi ideas and have them be a small strike force attempting to destabilize the galaxy, incorporating some parallels to modern day neo Nazis and you've got a more interesting version of the first order. Again though I'd have preferred we'd forgoe the empire entirely

[@garbotoxins840]

Kylo Ren becoming the new leader of the first order sounded so interesting and could have set up a really interesting episode 9. Snoke is basically Palpatine 2, so his empire was the same, but Kylo Ren is a very different character, so his order would be more unique and show a bigger rift between him and Hux.

[@TheScoundrelsCantina]

The only saving grace in this bad batch storyline where project necromancer is mentioned is that I can still pretend that this series is in the EU timeline because palpatine was always planing a contingency in case he ever died. In my head canon lets just say it didnt work and ROTJ is the satusfying ending we all wanted not the mandalorian and sequel pointless bs.

[@achaudhari101]

Oh shut up. You gave up for the 10th millionth time with this franchise already. No one cares about whatever fake solution you have to offer if you know it won’t happen.

[@mazkeraid4039]

@@achaudhari101 And no one cares for your hollow opinion. You’re not a fan. You’re just a stan in denial that fails to understand.

[@IsaacV24]

I would love to see an animated series about Kylo REN’s time at Luke’s Jedi Order and how Snoke found him and manipulated him to joining him.

[@Joe_Brennan_]

Have you read the prequel comic about Ben Solo? I don’t think it’s very good, given the potential of that story.

[@IsaacV24]

@@Joe_Brennan_can’t say I have. Though if it’s not that good, maybe an animated series could take that story and make it better. Who knows? 🤷‍♂️

[@Joe_Brennan_]

Yeah I wouldn’t recommend it really, it’s one of those stories I’d be happy to see disregarded for the sake of something more substantial. It’s a shame animation now feels so limited to one particular era

[@ender7278]

Heck, why make it animated when you can just get Adam Driver and Mark Hamill back.

[@jaieregilmore971]

@@Joe_Brennan_ Yeah the comic was dumb,you telling me that Snoke was speaking to Ben Solo mind the whole time and Luke didn’t notice that just a cheap compare to Anakin and Palpatine. Also Kylo reasoning turning to dark side due to him having a borrowed fake name is dumb the story trying to make us to sympathize with him but he didn’t do anything good at all besides running away and killed his fellow students all in all he’s a jackass.

[@ampersand2001]

Palpatine's eyes are not blue enough.

[@Joe_Brennan_]

When Dave Filoni gets his hands on this story thread he’ll fix this plot hole

[@KRobinson-ko1ne]

“Cold, late night so long ago When I was not so strong you know A pretty man came to me I never seen eyes so blue”

[@Otter34]

Also, Joe you raise a very important point that gets lost real easily in all the talks about supplemental material and prequels, which is that those things don't have to directly be, 1:1, about those future events and why/how they happened. In the real world there's plenty of stories made about people living on the precipice or in the shadow of huge events, which only need to go a very little into what those things were to get the point across. The Good, The Bad & The Ugly does a lot of work with a very light, cursory exploration of the American Civil War and its vicious impact on noncombatants similar to the wake of chaos and death behind the main characters. Making these things into basically dramatized history lessons mixed with bog-standard action-adventure routines feels like a huge waste given that they have a whole Galaxy to work with.

[@Joe_Brennan_]

This is a great way of putting it. If Bad Batch was set during a sequence of events that was already established, it could play with them and build on them in ways that weren’t beholden to the idea that they have to actually explain them for the first time.

[@amybrennan7490]

This weekly content brings me such joy

[@Joe_Brennan_]

cheers yeah

[@PixarPins]

I would generally agree, but I feel in the bigger picture Bad Batch is actually answering the question (and big lore gap) of why they stopped using clones. After how effective the clones were, and how they could be controlled by the emperor, it doesn’t make much sense that he would switch to stormtroopers. So I think it all being part of his plan, and indeed his whole plan of creating the clones in the first place being a step in this overarching gameplay, is satisfying. Yes Bad Batch is better primarily as a show about individuals navigating a hostile new world, but it has demonstrated plenty of that and continues to do so, and I do like that it also increasingly touches upon this much broader story.

[@Joe_Brennan_]

I hope the way it ties into the story they’re telling is done nicely, I just worry it has this perceived burden to provide an explanation for something it’s not really responsible for explaining

[@Otter34]

From what we saw in the OT, the stormtroopers are extremely cheap and inexhaustible and the Empire is mostly just terrorizing random people who might have some guns on the family station wagon. The need for good, effective soldiers to maintain a losing stalemate had largely dried up and the Navy just needed Star Destroyers and TIE Fighters to do its job. No rebellion could challenge the sheer firepower of the Empire, however incompetently it was used, so why bother? If a real problem happened, surely ImpInt and the ISB would take care of it.

[@william3100]

I think it does make sense that he would "switch" to stormtroopers because I got the impression that the clones were turned into stormtroopers. Like, they just changed clothes or something.

[@Otter34]

We SEE why they stopped. They didn't need anything but fanatical morons and a few technicians to terrorize normal people who might have a gun on the family station wagon. And even given the massive skill gap, no rebellion could stand up to the sheer firepower of the Empire, no matter how incompetently it was used.

[@djco5782]

I disliked TROS and Palpatine's return so much from a Doylist perspective that I flip-flop between really not caring and being actively irritated when the shows tie into it in a Watsonian sense.

[@Joe_Brennan_]

Fingers crossed it’ll all be wrapped up soon

[@thegentleartoffisticuffs6983]

I do wonder why this material is not placed in the actual sequel trilogy era. It's as if after TROS, Lucasfilm is scared of touching those movies even though they keep retro-foreshadowing.

[@tomhur1]

I think part of it might be how compressed the timeline of the sequel trilogy is (Taking place over the course of a year)

[@quaritchsilco]

4:38 My theory is we aren't getting a Clone Wars-esque series for the ST because they don't care about the sequel characters. They just want to explain away the end of the Skywalker saga so fans won't be so bitter about it. The problem is, they still don't understand why TRoS is so hated. When Rey comes back, she's 100% going to continue on her Jedi path, and we're going to have to watch her pass the torch to a new gen of characters. (I say this as someone who loved the ST characters pre-TRoS, I'm just unfortunately seeing a pattern with their avoidance to the ST characters.) This realization has turned me off from wanting to see her movie because I feel like I didn't even get to have time with the ST characters, and they don't even want to attempt to explore these characters more. So watching her essentially pass the torch when she isn't even "old lady mentor age" just bugs me. While every other OT and PT character continues to get a show, the ST characters have been left in the dust. As for the Bad Batch, I think I'm just so numb to their attempts to fix TRoS I'm basically ignoring it. I've just been enjoying the dynamics with Crosshair/Omega this season. *(Edit and random hot take addition) But I also find Crosshair more interesting than Hunter, especially when it comes to the dynamic with Omega. I think it's because Hunter just feels like another Din Djarin.

[@tomhur1]

Yeah I honestly think it's really telling that despite all the retroactive foreshadowing they're trying to do for the sequels, there's seemingly no real desire to revisit the characters of that era.

[@psychogoji]

Great stuff as always. One thing I’d like to add is the the supplementary material for TROS in the leadup to its release weren’t even acknowledged in the movie they were setting up. For example, in the novel Resistance Reborn, Snap Wexley spends a lot of time at his mothers home, and because Wedge is her husband now after Aftermath, Snap talks them both back into the fight. Whereas in TROS, Snap, although he’s a minor character at best in it, dies at Exegol and Wedge comes with the fleet like a minute later and he’s all chippy and smiling because instead it was Lando who got him to join the fight. These books/comics/shows all tried to tie TROS to the other sequels, and yet were ultimately discarded and are now being replaced with media that only services Rise and not of the other two as well.

[@Joe_Brennan_]

The funniest thing about Resistance Reborn is that it goes some lengths to explain the Resistance having an old corellian corvette as part of their fleet, and then in TROS it’s apparently the Tantive IV. So I guess they have two? Yeah I was really burned when TROS came out, partially because of how much I’d invested in the wider world of that era. I’d read all the Poe comics just for them to do that smuggler backstory, I read Aftermath and Resistance Reborn and Bloodline just for Snap and Wedge to be totally unrelated and for Leia to have a secret Jedi training backstory. A rough time. I think Jenny Nicholson said the film made her feel stupid for ever caring, and I was very much along the same lines

[@domtownsend6514]

It’s exactly the problem I’ve had with Star Wars since Mando started “teasing” the cloning stuff - it’s not a tease if we already know what it’s leading to, so, what’s the point? So we can pat ourselves on the back and say, “Hey! I noticed a thing”?

[@nedalsoned9940]

Aside from the fact that the prequels & tros have a very different laundry list of problems, I also think people are kind of kidding themselves when they say the clone wars "saved the prequels". Some elements make a bit more sense (inhibitor chips), but the movies themselves arent made that much better by the fact that a stronger story is grafted between them- PT Anakin is a bad character, and TCW Anakin being good doesnt really change that. The Clone Wars is a good show that creates a better iteration on the characters, settings, and themes of the prequels. But it wasnt really built to lay tracks for those movies imo. It told a good story in the world, which is much more important than bolstering some illusory larger picture.

[@Otter34]

That's the lesson Tartakovsky's Clone Wars should have taught people. It's more than fine to just have a good story set in a world. Needing the world itself to be impressive to people not in the scene (which is what lurks behind a lot of this talk) just sets it up for failure.

[@elliottwatt5297]

I think the M-Count stuff is part of the point, Palpatine thinks the Force can be reduced to science but it’s more spiritual, one of the reasons he fails.

[@Joe_Brennan_]

I’ve always liked this reading when it comes to the failings of the Jedi in TPM as well, that their focus on the numbers detracted from their focus on the true nature of the force, but I worry that there’s not actually much in the text to support that

[@elliottwatt5297]

@@Joe_Brennan_ i remember reading somewhere that that was George Lucas’ intention, but I can’t remember the source. I do think Ahsoka the tv show supports this with Sabine tho.

[@Otter34]

But he didn't fail. He won. His plan worked in every respect and only a random last-minute save prevented complete disaster.

[@elliottwatt5297]

@@Otter34 his plan failed dramatically, his clone bodies decayed within a matter of months, hence why at the start of the movie Palpatine has no fingers.

[@Otter34]

​@@elliottwatt5297He is still functionally immortal and able to be a puppet-master manipulating all events in the universe to his benefit. The aesthetics don't really matter, just like it didn't change anything about his victory over the Jedi just because his face got made to look like it did in that one 80s movie about that forest planet.

[@rosecoloredessays]

the thing this got me thinking about is that I would love a sequels-era-equivalent to the clone wars cartoon, but in my mind that necessarily involves actually being about the characters from the movies. like, give me a show that gives rose tico her due! that would be great! but it’s never gonna happen

[@Joe_Brennan_]

I’d absolutely love it, I feel Rose would be a great way into that era. Less burdened by big lore stuff, but with a story that’s able to involve the more major characters. Properly getting Kelly in to voice her would be wonderful.

[@JacksonWitsell]

I think a show like that set in between episodes 8 and 9 could potentially be interesting. They could even do occasional flashback episodes to show the stuff that happened leading up to episode 7.

[@mazkeraid4039]

They already did have the so-called Sequel era cartoon, that is Star Wars Resistance.

[@mazkeraid4039]

@@Zane2698 Yep, so true. It didn't live up to the heights which is why Iron Man: Armored Adventures overall aged better than Star Wars: Resistance.

[@MrChupacabra555]

Yes. It seems that we may be missing good final season Bad Batch episodes about, well, anything else, but much of the season will be setting up how Palpatine returned. That being said, we now have the possibility that Giancarlo Esposito could return as a gloriously evil Force Sensitive clone of Moff Gideon 😂

[@philipcao1275]

I was just playing around with my vintage Star Wars figures and thought to myself: -I wish Joe Brennan’s channel would make a video related to the newest Bad Batch episode. So I just casually checked on KZbin, and first thing I see is this. Hell yeah. Your one of my favourite new KZbin channels regarding topics in Star Wars!

[@Joe_Brennan_]

I’m so glad to grant such specific wishes

[@LordDustyMason]

I agree with so much of this. In fact I was even thinking earlier at how best to visualise the difference between how good expanded media can supplement the Prequels and the Sequels. The OT is like a fine, well built house. Its not perfect but its a place you can live in comfort and luxury. Anything of good quality added to this house like a new coat of paint or a new appliance will just compliment all the best features the building already has. The PT though, is a worn and slightly run down house, but the structure is solid and you can live in relative comfort with little worry. Now any good quality additions will enhance and refresh the areas most in need of help, taking the building from sturdy but flawed to a more complete house. And then theres the ST, which started out as a decent replica OT house on first look but major structural flaws have turned it into a disintegrating and unliveable ruin. No matter how much gloss paint you slap on the mouldy walls or expensive jacuzzis and TVs you try to set up in rubble strewn rooms, the building will never be attractive or safe to live in. Surface level embellishment cannot fix the deeper issues, just futile attempts to convince people to move back in.

[@sparco1979]

And therein in the problem with most new Star Wars media since TROS. Great vid!!

[@Joe_Brennan_]

Thank you!

[@JustChandlr]

I've personally felt that if it tells an interesting and engaging story, despite the quality of the stories it leads up to, it still is in itself a good story, which is how I've felt about the Bad Batch. though It's also probably helped that I've really almost forgotten about the sequel trilogy, because seeing palpatines plans fold out in (sort of) real time has been very interesting to me almost in a way that I feels like I don't know what comes next. But I could definitely understand being fed up with desperately trying to explain how a palpibillion death-star-destroyers ended up in a big space iceberg when much more interesting/quality stories in the era could be told.

[@Joe_Brennan_]

Palpibillion is great. Yeah as I said, The Bad Batch could end up doing all this really wonderfully. I do just worry.

[@russellgarifulla1114]

Love your video, I felt the same way and you put it into words. One thing I will add though, is that the Bad Batch mystery is not about Palpatine's clones, they trust us that we figured it out, they don't show a Snoke just not to patronize us. The real mystery is about how exactly Omega fits into it and what it means for her personal journey moving forward. If she is just a donor for medichlorians, but it's lethal like Ellie's brain surgery in Last of Us, it's just a sad avenue we have to prevent. BUT if Omega can tap into the force herself and is the first force sensitive clone, a fate of jedi training must be considered, a fate she might reject herself as part of her arc, or be tragically denied that fate by Hunter (Joel style) who simply never tells her? Since he wants her to just be a kid, not a jedi warrior or something. Or, maybe her omega blood is very much tied with Boba's alpha blood and will force them to develop a sibling relationship despite different morals. Yada-yada. You know what I mean? Hope this helps! I subscribed and am loking forward to more.

[@Joe_Brennan_]

Thank you for the comment! As I said, we’ll have to see where Bad Batch goes. I’m hopeful that, as you said, the potential for personal stakes is very present even as the Palpatine of it all starts to loom more loomingly.

[@Starwarsconnoisseur]

I mean I get it, but I also feel like this has been the plan from the get go. At least for this show. It aired in 2021, its timeline works out that it was in development around the same time JJ was doing TROS. So in the case of bad batch I think it was always designed to explain somehow palpatine returned. And wasn’t changed at say some point during season 2 to explain Palpatine returning.

[@NameIsArun]

I’m a massive world/lore building fan so these current series do kind of tick my boxes but I think you’re right on the matter of every current thing being about the same period of time, I can’t wait for Acolyte, and I hope they green light some old republic stuff soon too

[@Joe_Brennan_]

Feels like there’s a lot resting on Acolyte’s performance to prove that fans are open to different time periods

[@legofreak86]

I hope that this final season of Bad Batch can work on a similar level to Marvel’s Loki Season 2. Yes it’s technically another piece in a larger puzzle with the multiverse stuff just as TBB sets up Exegol but on a character level it used that element to bring Loki’s arc full circle. When he climbs that metaphysical staircase it’s not about establishing the multiverse as we know it going forward it’s about him finding his purpose in life. I hope that Brad Rau and co can accomplish a similar sense of completion for our Batchers, that works in spite of its significance to the larger picture.

[@pizza-time71]

It really speaks to how completely broken Rise of Skywalker is on a fundamental level the way all the new star wars content has to bend over backwards to make the movie just function as a movie

[@Joe_Brennan_]

Quite a power for a movie to ruin itself, its trilogy and everything that happens since

[@twicejaeger6997]

I sometimes wonder how crazy it’ll be for people in 5 or 10 years to watch Star Wars and the shows for the first time chronologically, it’ll be really interesting to see their perspective

[@Joe_Brennan_]

I wonder if this stuff will work as a great tease of what’s to come, or if it only makes sense once you’ve seen TROS (which itself only makes sense if you’ve seen this)

[@twicejaeger6997]

Exactly i need some lore maniac to unravel the overall plot of Star Wars and see their theories and takes on it as a whole, it’s an extremely rare combo but I’ll love following that journey 😂

[@jordanaftermath]

We're all assuming we know where this is going but it'd be great if we didn't. Palpatine doesn't manage to successfully clone himself even thirty years after his death yet he seems pretty close to it in the Bad Batch. I trust that the writers will do something meaningful and surprising with the season finale.

[@Raptyy_]

i appreciate that they're tryna salvage tros and make its messy writing make sense. imo it shows that some people at disney aren't willing to js throw away star wars but rather actually take accountability and fix their mistakes. plus the cloning subplots in shows is interesting, it all comes full circle and they each tie into the next.

[@CulturePhilter]

I’m in the camp of quite liking that they are doing this. It would be weird if, given the show is about clones, that they didn’t link it in in some way. It’s very different to forcing a cloning story into the Mandalorian.

[@legofreak86]

I think you have to look at it in the context of the show’s characters. For our Villain Dr Hemlock, project necromancer isn’t about Palpatine, it’s about fulfilling his ruthless ambition, that’s what makes him an interesting villain because he’s not simply evil or fanatical, he’s like Dedra or Krennic, a company man working his way up. His job is working for the space Nazis but it’s a job. Similarly to the Bad Batch and Omega, their only want is freedom for their brothers and normal lives after years of fighting. The Empire’s drive to use up as many Clones as it takes and do whatever it takes to accomplish the project is a direct threat to that and so it’s the perfect conflict. The whole show is about what happens to faithful soldiers when they are deemed obsolete. The Empire’s gradual campaign to discredit and phase out the clones so they can do barbaric experiments on them for the perverse whim of one old man is the most extreme version of that. It’s the ultimate threat to our heroes and against everything they’ve stood for, all their individuality stripped away, reduced in the eyes of The Empire to strands of DNA. Yes eventually it all leads to Exegol but why does that matter? The characters don’t know that, that’s not the role that thread plays in the context of the show on a character or story level. By that logic Andor is homework for Rogue One and Rogue One is purely A New Hope setup. It’s true, but they are more than just that, as is Bad Batch.

[@william3100]

It does matter because that's exactly what the whole story is hinting at in terms of future events. We can't focus on the characters because they feel kinda unimportant in the grand scheme of things in how the show portray's their story. It doesn't feel singular because it's executed in a way where it wants us to consider everything else. That's why I never got into Rogue One. It feels like a setup to the real story, that being A New Hope. You need to look at it in the context of writing and storytelling. Execution bogs down the intentions that are being conveyed to us.

[@richardcastillos2896]

​​@@william3100Rogue one is cool is a set up but you in 40 years didn't really need a explanation on how you got the plans to destroy the death star is really cool to see this regular person sacrificing themself for a greater good they will never see, I like Rogue one for this because yeah is totally a prequel but you don't need it to understand the other. I would not put it in the way of rise of skywalker were a guy that was suppose to be death just pomp out of nowhere and now everything is related to clones. Mandalorian set up clones, bad batch set up clones(not really a bad idea because they are clones but the show really is not about set up Sidious).

[@ColonelCactus89]

wow another fun yet insightful star wars video from jboi

[@seanhall6317]

It makes one yearn for the Dark Empire comic where he's just back because clones and go with it, just a tad.

[@jonahcox6672]

Each time they try and explain how “somehow palpatine returned” it just kind of reminds me of the glaring holes in tros, they keep putting in all this work for something that still sucks becos of the failed character arcs. If they want to retroactively fix that like they did with the clone wars show then they could maybe put something between tlj and tros. It’s a shame that they left basically no time between tfa and tlj though I think

[@Joe_Brennan_]

Yeah JJ ending on a cliffhanger really fucked it up on that front

[@bradyda14]

I think my big issue with always going out of their way to tie every evil in the galaxy to Palpatine really discredits any agency characters have to be evil. I know George has his "Palpatine is the devil" stance many people run with that, but it's similar to me of saying every evil thing in America is actually because of Trump. It's part of the reason I'm enjoying the High Republic, the villains there are so far removed from Palpatine and even the Sith that it all feels very fresh and freeing. I'd rather they focus on the motivations of Imperials outside of "I'm here to explain why TROS makes sense 60 years earlier in the timeline"

[@Joe_Brennan_]

Yeah I wish I’d brought in that recent Ian quote about how he quite likes that everything links back to him, because I don’t love that! It makes the galaxy a bit less interesting to me. Hemlock is a really cool villain in The Bad Batch and I almost wish he stood more alone as a separate entity within the empire, rather than Palpatine’s chief cloner

[@william3100]

​@@Joe_Brennan_I don't think it makes things less interesting. It makes it feel like it's part of a bigger story or a bigger thing. It conceptually makes the other villains interesting in how all of it affects them. Of course, I'm talking about the idea of palpatine being behind everything impacting the story, not in its connection to exegol, because that story sucks.

[@coolcats4summer82]

I couldn’t agree more with your point of view. Thank you for putting this out there.

[@Joe_Brennan_]

Thank you for watching! I’m glad it resonated

[@hjohnson966]

The Clone Wars show was fun, but it doesn't hold up. I've started to notice problems with it that really don't fit. The prequels stand just fine on their own. We never needed anything to "fix" them. We just needed time to warm up to them. The problem is the same it has always been: Star Wars is either a good story with a bad presentation or a bad story with excellent presentation.

[@adammaher403]

Totally agree. The prequels were sloppy, but the underlying story they were trying to tell was actually really compelling. Then in comes Clone Wars to capitalize on that story's broad strokes and make it the epic tragic narrative it was always meant to be. The Rise of Skywalker (and in hindsight kinda the whole of the sequel trilogy) is such a nothing story that there's not really anything compelling to expand on and flesh out in ways that'll make us care. That ship sailed when Disney gave consecutive directors with fundamentally incompatable understandings of the story they were telling the responsibility of pulling a billion dollar blockbuster rabbit out of their hat every two years.

[@kippenmiller8410]

You hit the Clone Wars/Prequels nail on the head, as far as how it worked vs how the new stuff doesn't

[@RandomInternetUser6120]

I think I'm fine with how TBB is doing it since the Palpatine cloning was tied in to the fate of the clones in a way that felt natural to me. It didn't feel like the show got " hijacked " to make room for this plot point.

[@Joe_Brennan_]

The writing of the Bad Batch is definitely deft enough that it doesn’t feel as much like desperate scrambling as it really could

[@AshanBhatoa]

I disagree - one can excise TROS and still acknowledge these developments as Sidious attemting to create fertile ground into his plan for immortality.

[@tedtalk9999]

I think it’s nice that bad batch is covering all errors of Star Wars including the sequel trilogy. I don’t have a problem with it explaining Palpatine’s return I don’t know why you’re making a big deal about it. The bad batch is trying to be a second clone wars, and I think it’s doing a pretty good job about it.

[@jeremyfields9009]

We wouldn’t be in this mess if they introduce the clone emperor plot in TFA. They could’ve had a whole trilogy to explain his resurrection and current schemes. The franchise would’ve been on its way exploring something new by now.

[@Joe_Brennan_]

I really feel like the franchise could be exploring something new already. Hopefully the Acolyte can do it, maybe Rey’s new movie can do it too.

[@andrewhelm2813]

Yeah, when I was watching episode 3, I thought it was a nod to Tom Veitch's Dark Empire comic book series... but you're probably right - all roads lead to zombie Emperor Palpatine. 😔

[@EllisThings]

Somehow, Jboi returned (complimentary)

[@Joe_Brennan_]

I did it with cloning

[@59rlmccormack]

Being honest here, its not too bad to often see some form of connection to that Dark Empire-like plot point. On the other hand, I can agree that it is time to tell new stories where Palpatine isn’t stirring up trouble & I get the fan frustrations…

[@VuddyProductions]

why would you go back to polish a turd rather than making something polished from the beginning that isnt a turd

[@Joe_Brennan_]

99% of turd polishers give up just before it turns into a diamond

[@VuddyProductions]

@@Joe_Brennan_ today could be your lucky day, and you’ll never know unless you gamble

[@JoakimHammarstedt]

I get a bad feeling every time they remind me of Sequel Palpatine

[@MRWALL.i6732]

Even tho they should have explained it in the film itself, the novel of Rise of Skywalker gave us a explanation on how he came back, it was a clone body containing his spirit, and that's it, we don't need to know the whole story on how he got clone bodies, leave that stuff for comics or other novels, let the series and films focus on other conflicts.

[@BRONZALiVE]

Imo if the films (TROS) failed to explain or provide any meaningful context for any of its plot lines, then that’s on the film. And for me any other media trying to fix or make sense of it is silly and not needed. Now expanding upon is a different topic, the clone wars and Star Wars rebels expanded upon the prequels era and the clone wars because the films didn’t show us the clone wars, only the start and the end of that war. Like the sequels maybe a story of Luke’s Jedi order and the new republic closer to the sequels could work to expand upon that period, but what they are trying to do in the mando era and bad batch is seemingly to fix/provide context for TROS. And that’s not needed, the less we know the better, I don’t really care to see the new republic after ROTJ look any more incompetent, because apparently they need to be in order to show us why they lost so easily in the force awakens, nor do I need to see how Palpatine managed to clone himself, now I’d take a story if Luke’s Jedi order falling because that’s a time and part of the story unexplored like the clone wars was, but trying to fix the palpatine situation is a lost cause, it’s a mess and for real the less we know the better. But a Luke Jedi order story would be cool, showing Ben and Luke’s story

[@Otter34]

RE: the New Republic needing to look bad so it being destroyed "makes sense" is a real telling part. If the government was effective and well-led, it can still be destroyed by a superweapon, like Alderaan was. Nobody is going around claiming Alderaan was too stupid to not be destroyed.

[@smirkyshadow4152]

I didn't even like the last jedi, but at least Rian Johnson had a plan, and it was going in a pretty interesting direction imo Edit: I think a big issue is that the sequels' story is broken on such a fundamental level due to a lack of planning, even if the prequels weren't perfect their core story elements made sense and worked

[@SigmaSal9]

I’ve always enjoyed when the other aspects of the Star Wars galaxy get explored. I’m content if I don’t see any of the main original trilogy characters. I’ve seen their stories already.

[@Atlas_Maproom]

Absolutely agree with you takes in this video. I kinda knew that the Omega plot line was gonna lead into the Palpatine RoS plot, but I was still disappointed to see it go there. I’m so much more interested in the Clone Rebellion and what’ll happen to them in the aftermath of the war. It won’t ruin the show for me, but it does leave a bad taste in my mouth

[@Joe_Brennan_]

Yeah I’m absolutely still excited for every other aspect of the Bad Batch, as much as this makes me frown

[@ArtofCodaleia]

Hello Joe ! I totally agree with your point of view. The fact that almost all the productions made after Episod IX are doing after-sales services for this particuliar fiasco is bothering me (except all High Republic, thank god, and maybe Andor) They NEED to make it right and coherent somehow, like they always try to link all the dots they can between everything. Maybe it's the trap they fell into. I just hope that one day we'll totally get out of this plotline because it smells necrotic, like zombie Palpy

[@Joe_Brennan_]

I have to hope that once enough projects have crashingly veered their way into Palpatine return territory, we may finally have peace. I just worry that they won’t decide it’s been enough projects for a while

[@theepicdude0002]

I think it’s good bad batch is doing this, it just Improved his resurrection

[@ZZZano718]

Tbh I think a story where the characters are overall not connected to the main timeline but doing their own thing would be interesting. (I think the new game is sorta doing this but idk). Such as the charaters are have there own adventure and then hear oh the galaxay is now an empire cool whatever doesn't effect me then a while later "Yo did you here aldrean got blown up?" Like the know about stuff going on in the series but aren't directly apart of it.

[@just_delightful]

Great video John! Thank you

[@isaacwright8211]

I'd be interested to see someone actually try to tackle and rework the sentiment behind tRoS either with added context or a sequel that says the opposite and aligns itself more with tLJ. Though that would obviously look messy and clearly they don't see the issue with tRoS as one of sentiment but instead plotty lore incoherence. I guess to a kid who sees star wars as just things that happen this is an improvement? I think it's possible bad batch can avoid that essentialist, blood-line obsessed subtext too. I think it's managed that so far, the clones are after all nothing like jango, crosshairs choices are made to be his own and the show emphasises found family and community far more than the biological relation they have to each other. Depending how it sticks the landing, tBB could be far more tLJacent (tLJ-adjacent) despite also being set up for tRoS.

[@Joe_Brennan_]

I hope so, it’s interesting how little Jango is ever in the conversation surrounding the clones. I’ll be interested to see where TBB goes on this front, and if it gets deep enough into the DNA/genetics stuff to actually reject it.

[@Otter34]

@@Joe_Brennan_ The only problem with more #JangoContent is the ongoing rehabilitation of the "warrior" clans after The Clone Wars made them into self-deluded, classist thugs. Either Jango turns out to actually have been a "real" Mandalorian as an explanation for why his genetics are so good, or he turns out to not have been and that's why the clones were inferior to true Mandos. The quasi-Mandalorianisms in the early PT-expansion stories, as a kind of cargo-cult designed to give the clones thought-terminating cliches and a phony interior "culture" to draw from for self-identity, gets much better with the knowledge that the parent culture was ALSO all about thought-terminating cliches and phony claims of a higher cause than land-grabbing and ladder-climbing.

[@rawnchydeard4669]

It doesn’t matter if the content made to “fix” RoS is S tier. Because RoS will always be hit, steamy garbage. Wasting time and money on a story to set up hot, steamy garbage is just dumb. Hot, steamy garbage.

[@guygrist4436]

I get rather confused with everything tying together and trying to lead to Exegol just a rather boring place to be leading to. It feels like Star Wars is stuck a middle ground between long form story telling that seems to be getting in the way and side stories that feel irrelevant.

[@T-2856]

Well, there are alternatives you could look at. For one, there's the ongoing High Republic multimedia project. It's a canon story set hundreds of years before The Phantom Menace with 99% original characters (Yoda shows up) and follows the conflict between the Jedi & Republic with the Path Of The Open Hand, later called The Path Of The Closed Fist which eventually becomes the Nihil over the course of 150 years. The story is set across books, comics, manga and audiodramas and separated into three distinct phases. Phase 1 is set about 250 years before The Phantom Menace, Phase 2 is set 150 years earlier and Phase 3 is set roughly a year after the events of Phase 1. I'd recommend starting at the first main book, Light Of The Jedi (2021) by Charles Soule and, if you liked that, maybe go on to the second main novel, The Rising Storm (2021) by Cavan Scott or even the first YA novel, Into The Dark (2021) by Claudia Gray, which is set concurrently with Light Of The Jedi and introduces the secondary villains of Phase 1, the Drengir. Another recommendation would be to look at some of the old Legends continuity with things like Timothy Zahn's first Thrawn Trilogy (1991-93) or the X-Wing novels by Michael A Stackpole (books 1-4 & 8) and then Aaron Allston (5-7, 9 & 10).

[@anthonyyoutubefan7567]

I absolutely agree, and I feel the exact same way. It's potentially taking the joy out of watching the new, quality material (The Mandoverse). It also taxes good writers, who have to fix the messes made by Iger, Kennedy, Hart, The Lucasfilm Story Group, JJ Abrams, and Ruin, which makes their own material hampered by incongruent narrative and character choices.

[@T-2856]

I generally agree, although I find some of your language a tad hyperbolic. I am not a fan of The Rise Of Skywalker, although there are elements I like. I have read Shadow Of The Sith and vol.2 of Darth Vader (2020) and I like them both, somewhat in spite of the TROS setup. Two wee things for you though. First is a lore thing. Project Necromancer, the project for cloning Palpatine, was first brought up in series 3 of The Mandalorian in the Imperial Shadow Council scene with Brendol Hux working on it. Secondly, a good place for those new stories you were talking about at the end is The High Republic, also called Project Luminous, an ongoing multimedia project across books, comics, manga & audiodramas. I highly recommend the project and there are two good starting places. The first chronologically and start of Phase 2 (set 150 years before the first books) , Path Of Deceit (2022) and the first book to release, Light Of The Jedi (2021).

[@Joe_Brennan_]

I’ve read Light of the Jedi and really loved it, I did a few of the other books in that first wave too but I think I found the sheer volume of it a bit overwhelming at the time. I should definitely go back.

[@Comicbroe405]

Good recs

[@T-2856]

@@Joe_Brennan_ I agree that it's overwhelming and some of the characters can go between the main books, YA and comics to get their full story. It's honestly too interconnected at times. I've read most of the main & YA books so far and the Phase 1 Marvel comic run. I still feel lost at times. It's far from perfect, but I have very much enjoyed what I've read.

[@a.nonymous2089]

Honey, it's all an industry of cool now. SW used to mean something.

[@alexmott507]

It's really disappointing how the whole trilogy ended up, because even though I wish we had a completely different Episode VII that didn't repeat the story beats of ANH, there is a compelling trilogy to be made from what we've gotten. If Episode VII covered elements of Bloodlines and TFA's flashbacks, showing the state of the New Republic instead of just blowing it up, showing Luke's Jedi Order and Ben's fall due to Snoke's deception, and especially showing the Republic shaken by the revelation that Luke and Leia are Vader's kids, that would have been a much stronger start instead of just... skipping all that as if it's boring backstory. If that was VII, a combined TFA/TLJ was VIII, and then a revision of Duel of the Fates was IX (with the stormtrooper rebellion on Coruscant led by Finn and the ancient beacon under the Jedi Temple being used to call people to the Resistance's aid), I honestly believe we wouldn't have anywhere near the backlash we got from TRoS. But like you said, here's hoping we move on to new stories. Maybe the new Rey movie will be good? Maybe??

[@Joe_Brennan_]

Anything can be good! Rey is great and if they let her be great then her movie probably will be

[@1983horizons1]

In my head I still think of The Aftermath Trilogy/Bloodline as the *real* sequels and the Disney stuff as just pulp filler.

[@william3100]

We could just also adapt EU material like The New Jedi Order and advertise it as a new, non-canonical story taking place in an alternate universe or something while not being overt about it(the alternate universe thing), so it doesn't feel weird and ridiculous.

[@DionysosBacchus29]

Just found the channel, really like your content and humor. Have a sub!

[@Joe_Brennan_]

Welcome! I hope you enjoy it here

[@hughsterb]

For me I think it will fully rely on how the series goes. If it can be well integrated into the characters' personal stories and not focused on to the detriment of the wider rise of the empire setting and the story of the clones as a whole I think it'll work out

[@jaieregilmore971]

It so hard to believe that the writers trying to justify rise of skywalker palpatine return even knowing it bad writing and not consistent at all through books and comics. I have my head canon on Star Wars lore and the Six movies are the true canon to me but if I take everything in face value then all I have to say is: Anakin should have stay his ass in the light side.

[@DyadintheForce]

I don't expect everyone to have read the books but Palpatine's contingency plan was revealed in Aftermath, a few months before TFA even released in movies. So for those of us who kept up with content... It wasn't out of thin air. And I'd appreciate it if people didn't continue to run with this notion.

[@nathanalene]

Great video.. u spoke my mind ❤

[@Joe_Brennan_]

I’m so glad!

[@Mikemic2218]

Remember people. There's always star wars legends. That timeline handled all of the original characters in a MUCH better manner. Made luke evolve how he should've been, a powerful wise jedi grand master. It also made han evolve into a general and leader and leia into a powerful jedi knight. It also introduced the new heroes of lukes son, han and leias 3 children and an entire new generation of jedi against intergalactic threats against the new republic. As far as I'm concerned, legends is true canon. Yes they did bring palpatine back in legends, but the explanation for his return in dark empire is so much more logical and it was also george Lucas's suggestion to the writers of dark empire to bring back sidious in clone bodies. And his final destruction in that story was satisfying and definitive in which luke and leia severed sidious from the dark side of the force and the jedi spirits of past trapped sidious's spirit in the void of chaos, assuring luke he would never return.

[@rogueguardian]

I don't mind if they flesh it out but I do mind if it takes over other shows so to speak. Easter eggs are fine but don't let it be JUST about making sense of the movie. I made my peace too but I still stand that they could have just made kylo the main villain because you save yourself TONS of headaches had he been given that chance.

[@generalcjg]

Good video, although to be fair, this is a problem that Disney Star Wars has had ever since The Force Awakens came out due to all three Sequels being terrible with their world building, relying on plenty of tie-in media to do the world building that the ST movies failed to do; so Disney Star Wars using Bad Batch and Mandalorian to explain Palpatine's return and the rise of the First Order is nothing new really, but it is indeed frustrating that they are still doing it to this day. You'd think they would just move on from the Sequel Trilogy due to how hated they are and do new stuff rather than have all their new shows tie into the Sequels to fix their world building problems, but no, they are still putting band-aids to their messy world building from the Sequels.

[@hectormontes7056]

This is really the only thing that can make episode ix at least a little bit better. Palpatine returning is stupid and really dumb, but if it was built up throughout the trilogy (or if anything was built up throughout the trilogy), I think fans would’ve been excited about it. Those movies, like the prequels, will never be good movies, at least not on their own. The prequels actually had an overarching cohesive plot, but the events of the sequels can be made better if the lore around them is better explored. At least they’re mixing in some Legends lore, which had a lot more time to build up their Palpatine cloning lore.

[@kungolaf4499]

8:20 I am not NEARLY as allergic to Project Necromancer as you are. At this point it has been five years since TROS, if you can't seem to stop seeing that movie everywhere, it is starting to become more of a you problem at this point. Since its been so long, I just think of Project Necromancer as an enunciation of Palpatine's PT/OT character; he is a sick narcissistic bastard willing to create abominations contracting and killing entire planets while lying to the faces of an elected office of why anything ever is done in the Empire. It all serves him, and no one and nothing is irreplaceable to him and only things near and dear to his heart is securing his own future. It is an ENUNCIATION of his character and general threat in this show and works fantastically to undermine the disturbing differences between the fledling new order and the republic. You seeing "TROS" painted on every wall is an active choice hindering the story-telling of this story since the Palpatine in this show at this point is nowhere near that story and is entirely consistent with what we already saw in the PT and OT (things that by themselves worked fine with Palpatine). This story will finish way before you will see a single Death Star Destroyer or a Sith Wayfinder occupy your screen.

[@TheLEGOZora]

3:48 nice use of lego

[@Joe_Brennan_]

Just saw them in my collection and had an idea

[@ganapatikamesh]

I mean, I am okay with it so long as it doesn't become the central plot point of any show whose title is about a specific character, group, thing, etc. Like if something gets mentioned at some point in Andor by someone about this it won't bother me provided it's not really relevant to the overall story since the show is called Andor and my perception by the title is that we're learning about the character Cassian Andor, not Palpatine. Like if they want to make it a central point in some stories they can either make a Palpatine show or have a Tales of the Sith thingy similar to Tales of the Jedi and do little short videos that have it as a central point. That said, I agree with you that it does sometimes feel like the writers, etc, seem compelled to talk about it. I don't think they should feel compelled to talk about it if it doesn't relate to the stories they want to tell. It doesn't have to be mentioned in everything Star Wars. So on the one hand I totally understand where you're coming and I agree that I'm satisfied with what's been provided to me as an explanation thus far and am not craving to know more and yet on the other hand I'm not extremely bothered by it provided that it's just sprinkled here and there rather than feeling like it's hijacking the story and perceived theme of shows not called Palpatine or Tales of the Sith....which is my concern any time it feels like it is being brought up (though so far it hasn't so I'm trusting the writers, etc, for now to continue to do that). I like that Star Wars jumps around a lot. And I agree that the sequels probably do need something akin to The Clone Wars show to help and in this video you highlight areas that I agree would be of interest for me, too, to see be done. I enjoy meeting new characters and learning new stories and I'm totally okay with going beyond and outside the Skywalker-Palpatine story and learning about how others were existing/living/being/etc in the galaxy at any point in the timelines. I don't read the books very often nor the comics. My niece reads some of the comics, but not all of them. I mostly stick to watching the tv shows and films mostly because the previous books prior to Disney were a bit all over the place, too, and I read them when I was younger and remember sometimes being confused about things and so even after Disney bought Star Wars, made the older books "Legends" and claimed that the books would be canon, etc, I just haven't strayed back into them very often except when a few folks who read them recommend them to me because they know it's something I'd enjoy. Though even then I take them with a grain of salt. I tend to view Star Wars as being like mythological stories that were orally told prior to being written, filmed, etc and so there can be variations on what a character says, what specifically happened, etc, and that there's a bigger lesson, etc, that the listener/viewer is supposed to draw upon. I mean, that's what I liked about The Clone Wars show is that every episode opened with a quote and then the episode had elements in it that related to the quote and shared a theme that was grounded in some philosophical/ethical/moral/etc lesson. That's how myths were and are used. I think Star Wars is very much the modern world's version of mythology. The lessons may contradict, there may be things that happen that seem contrary to what happened in another story as viewed from another character that we may have already watched/read, but for me that's the fun of it.

[@BooneBluemel]

I didn't know british people liked star wars

[@Joe_Brennan_]

There’s at least 3 of us that do

[@luckykennedy7364]

Funnily enough TCW brought back Maul in a never explain fuck all way. Also TCW fucked with the movies a lot... and it's skull fucked the old EU to boot.

[@Otter34]

Whoa, Palpatine's first name is Sheev? That's a surprise.

[@Joe_Brennan_]

Yeah and Reginald is his middle name, check on wookiepedia (don’t, I made it up)

[@DarthTamarus]

Well said my friend. I find myself stuck between rock and a hard place with the Star Wars “canon” 👈 That’s a joke right. It seems, for me, the only timeline I can enjoy without being reminded of the travesty that was the sequels was Ep1-6 and then the EU. I loved the clone wars and TBB felt like a pretty good continuation to that story but like you said, all this shit with cloning is obviously being shoehorned so that they can make sense of Palpatine returning. I enjoyed the first 3 episodes myself but it really is disappointing that every project lately has to be additional lore or information to help those films go down easier.

[@iloveeveryone8611]

You have a great voice and are a great speaker/writer. My only gripe is the camera placement. You seem too close to the camera and holding the microphone feels weird, but maybe that's just a Zoomer thing. Subscribed : )

[@Joe_Brennan_]

Welcome! I might try and get a slightly smaller mic to hold but this one improves audio quality so much compared to the one I used to wear on my shirt. Currently I’m very limited with space, so me and the camera have gotten very cosy. But hopefully gonna rearrange some stuff in the coming weeks.

[@sebastianvredin6474]

I hope its just motstöt some kind of filler episode Best yet from latest arc is. Omegas personal grow and crosshsirs problems now and how to overcome them and for him to come back to the crew. And i hope it goes bak to clone rebelion and so on

[@jarrodedson5441]

It's a problem that now other directors who are making there own star wars property, has to now singlehandedly try to make sense out of the unanswered things in the prequel...like ur never gonna make any sense of those 3 films

[@Joe_Brennan_]

TLJ catching strays here imo

[@jarrodedson5441]

​@Joe_Brennan_ what do u mean? Also I agree that bow they're focusing too much around that stupid somehow Palpatine returned....and trying to make sense of it....I don't think I like the way there going with it...they be like oh yeah that Palpatine somehow returned line yeah it totally makes sense, if u go backwards and watch this that and this and that and read this....yeah then it totally makes sense... Me: oh OK cool, what time period in Star Wars do those things that explain how Palpatine came back line make any sense? Disney: uhhhh original trilogy era Me: 😑

[@RobTFilms]

Where did you get your shirt from?

[@Joe_Brennan_]

RSVLTS

[@Maximilian_Ingrosso]

5:10 the difference between the prequels and the sequels is that the prequels for better or worse had a coherent story with a huge world. The sequels on the other hand is incoherent with the three movies being completely different. It also doesn't really leave any room for anything to be fleshed out. Like in TFA Rey goes to like two planets and then they blow up starkiller base. Parts of TFA has potential for further world building but not much. They also destroyed the new republic so there was nothing to be explored about them within the movies. So now it's just back to some Empire clone hunting the rebel alliance clone. And the TLJ picks up IMMEDIATELY after TFA so there is nothing to fill in between the movies. Everything is the same as in TFA. Then the entire fucking movie is just them on a ship being hunted by the first order only to have battle of hoth clone in the end. and there is nothing grand about the story, nothing worth exploring. Because they reduce the entire resistance to the like 20 people remaining at the end of the movie. They also kill off snoke, undercutting everything TFA had set up. so at the end of the second movie there is no new republic, no big bad guy in snoke, and about 20 people left of the resistance. So the set up for TROS is like 20 rebels against kylo ren and a billion first order ships. And they aren't fighting for anything, there is no new republic it is already gone, the first order seemingly doesn't even control the galaxy like the empire did and we see nothing of planets being oppressed by the first order. There is nothing of substance thus far in the trilogy. And then to top it off, palpatine returns for no reason after 30 years, like why didn't he do anything immediately? Palpatine returning could work but it would have had to have been hinted towards in the previous movies, instead he just shows up out of nowhere. And it just doesn't work in universe, but also it is just so evident that was never the plan from lucasfilm either. I mean look at the story they created for battlefront 2, it makes no sense to have operation cinder if palpatine knows he'll return. and why make it such a hassle to return, why does he need to be visited by kylo ren at some special sith planet. If this is the empire using cloning technology why tf would exogol be a thing? This is a lot of rambling but i'll try to summarize the point. the sequels have no coherent story and there is nothing of substance there, and they also leave nothing to be fleshed out. The prequels on the other hand where coherent. Look at attack of the clones. It's full of a bunch of shit, count dooku is suddenly a guy there and he is apparently an ex jedi that is now working with sidious. And he is also the leader of a political movement trying to get systems out of the republic. Then there's all this stuff about the republics military, a bunch of weird shit, some guy named syfo dias and apparent conspiracies. And it all results in a war starting between the republic and the seperatists. Now this lays a huge basis for further exploration because between aotc and rots the entire clone war happens, we already know of the republic and that it encompasses a bunch of planets, we have story for dooku and the separatists etc. And people like to say that "oh but everyone hated the prequels but after the clone wars they loved them" and imply that the same can be said about the sequels. But it just can't. Because with the prequels people at least didn't have a fundamental problem with the story, just the execution of it and the dialogue etc. But even with the problems everyone loved the main characters, loved the fights and generally the universe. but with the sequels people hate every singel thing about them, there is no story, it is terribly executed etc. it's also just impossible to generally like the story. since the prequels at least were coherent you could overall like it and it could be explored further. But with the sequels it is literally impossible to like the overarching story because there is none. All three movies have completely contradicting stories so you can't like the trilogy overall because it would be contradictory. And this also presents a problem with explaining it. Because if you watched TFA you would try to make a backstory on snoke and explain stuff about him, but then in the end snoke is literalyl no one, he was just a literal puppet for palpatine. So now do you explain palpatine returning? Well you have to because that is what happens in the end, but that will never explain TFA, and TLJ had literally nothing. omfg i'm sorry for all this rambling but it is just so hard to succinctly explain how fucking trash the sequels are and that they will never be redeemed with anything like the prequels were with the clone wars.

[@JessieTheNobody]

I appreciate doing some work to explain TRoS instead of abandoning everything the Sequels did but sometimes it does feel a bit like the story is focusing on setup for others instead of telling its own story but it's a bit case by case. Mandalorian Season 3 felt like setup but so far I haven't felt it in Bad Batch. It could be Mando Season 3 just felt uninterested in its own story with everything happening too slow or too fast almost like it was rushing to reunite Mandalore for whatever comes after. Bad Batch Season 3 feels focused on itself with even the cloning stuff at least belonging here instead of being crammed into a show about a bounty hunter. I'm not against them including setup stuff for the Sequels but it's knowing where to place it. Of course you can't really 'fix' the Sequels and Palpatine's return without a total rewrite but it's damn almost impossible they'd be allowed to considering the bad publicity and how they'd even present it. Overall, I'm fine with it so long as it isn't working against the story being told.

[@MrPyroCrab]

I've given up on Disney canon entirely now, I'm a legends purist now. Luke restored the Jedi and married Mara Jade, Han and Leia had three kids, Thrawn Trilogy is the real Sequels. Hell even Dark Empire was a better Palpatine Return than TROS. Long live the EU. I recommend this approach for anybody disappointed with disney star wars btw

[@ThePhantomSquee]

This was part of why I fell off the shows after Mandalorian s2. It started to feel like every new piece of media tying into the logistical and "realism" issues with the film that people made a fuss about was rather missing the point of why TRoS didn't work. The in-universe "how" isn't all that important. I really appreciate seeing your more level-headed critiques. Anyway, this video caused half a dozen rants whining about TLJ to show up in my recommended feed, so I need to go dip my monitor in bleach. Looking forward to the next one!

[@brandonsclips7741]

I dont like talking about starwars much anymore ( I really like the High Republic stuff they put out) but a lot of the current stuff I'm just not into, or burnt out on the discourse but I always enjoy hearing your perspective:)

[@Joe_Brennan_]

Thank you! The discourse can be exhausting but I’m too deep in it to ever escape at this point

[@_Darth_Vader_]

The sequels did me dirty…

[@Joe_Brennan_]

Hello Lord Vader I’m a big fan

[@_Darth_Vader_]

@Joe_Brennan_ you may dispense with the pleasantries. I am here to out you back on schedule.

[@mellonmould]

Palpatine never shouldv'e returned and I hate being reminded that he did.

[@officialthomasjames]

Never should’ve killed Snoke

[@Joe_Brennan_]

Killing Snoke was a great idea, the idea that he had to be the main villain of the third one just came from people expecting ROTJ. They didn’t need to scramble to a palpatine figure, it’s just that they couldn’t imagine an ending without one

[@bodybrest2644]

In the golden age of Star Wars, fresh stories and fresh settings were constantly popping up. Yuuzhan Vong started in 2000, happening in-universe 25 years after A New Hope. Three years after it ended, in 2006, a new big saga started with the fall of Jacen Solo, happening 40 years after A New Hope. Meanwhile, we were having the old Republic explored in Kotor and Kotor 2, which itself was set in a slightly different era from the Tales of the Jedi comics with Exar Kun or with Naga Sadow. Concurrently to Jacen Solo's fall in novel publications, we had at the same time a comic book series happening 130 years after A New Hope about Cade Skywalker. Star Wars was rich and vast, it made bold moves and had decisive storytelling. It wasn't afraid to shake the status quo, to define and challenge the galaxy and the factions. In the span of 10 years IRL, we had an immense amount of developments and stories. Disney Star Wars is all about milking the franchise, it moves as little as possible. We're soon 10 years after The Force Awakens and the timeline is still glued in the Empire era.

[@willpulford8893]

I think its interedting that jj made a film (TFA) that was definitely flawed but also did a fantastic job of: - Setting up a new franchise that was a soft reboot of most of the canon after ~30 years since the latest piece of the story (rotj) - creating new worlds and people and making the universe feel lived in and full of life - vaguely setting up a villain (snoke) while leaving SO much room for interpretation of character, backstory, motives etc - introducing several interesting new characters in Rey, Finn and Poe who again had most of their stories specifically NOT told, so they could be told in the future And then far from taking these points and taking them in literally any exciting new direction, Rian Johnson made a film that: - effectively rebooted the just-rebooted franchise by dropping plot threads while telling a story about... I'm still not entirely sure what the plot of TLJ was supposed to be - ruined any characterisation of the three main characters introduced in the previous film - explicitly told us that snoke was irrelevant and killed him off without that ADDING to the story in any way at all. Nothing wrong with killing off a major character if there is some benefit or point to it. - promised to answer the questions of the previous film, just to give the most uninteresting answers possible. We didn't need to find out Rey's parents, it could've remained unknown, but teasing an answer in trailers so you get the hype train going just for the answer to be nobodies, that doesn't subvert expectations. Unless the expectation subverted was that the film would be decent - failed to continue or conclude any story lines as expected of a sequel - failed to setup any story lines for the narrative finale of the expected trilogy - salted the earth of everything that came before and put nothing in its place And somehow... JJ is the bad guy for following that with another bad film (RoS)? He was brought back on because disney wanted a merchandiseble franchise with spun off potential and he sort of did that. The last jedi would've been a good film if it was the slightest bit interesting and if the franchise needed a soft reboot. It did that great, what a fantastic way to basically say "these characters have their stories told and now lets see some others" but to do that in film 2 of a series is daft. Imagine if in The Two Towers we had a story of "instead of going to mordor we need to go the far north for something else, which will end up being a waste of time. Also it turns out sauron was killed by saruman and the ring wasn't the one ring after all. Also Aragorn does pointlessly to give the fellowship a few extra minutes to get away after most of the free peoples of middle earth have been killed with very little fanfare. Would that be a good film?

[@Azure_Fire]

I sincerely believe that if you changed a few things about the sequels, you could keep most of the same story beats and still make a great trilogy.

[@emilianomartorell3587]

I refuse to watch the Bad Batch because I’m simply not interested in shows that solely exist to be Sequel Trilogy damage control.

[@Joe_Brennan_]

It really does have a lot of merit beyond that, although we’ll see how it sticks the landing

[@lavalampbamboo]

Joe be honest was this entire video an excuse to do a surprisingly good Palpatine impression at 3:21?

[@Joe_Brennan_]

Yeah

[@JurassicLion2049]

I need Rise of Skywalker nixed from canon. And Reylo out of canon. They needed to focus in Finn and Rey.

[@Joe_Brennan_]

If you wanna remove Reylo from canon you better wave goodbye to the last friggin jedi ohooooooo

[@JurassicLion2049]

@@Joe_Brennan_true & itd fix the issues that began with Finn. Tho as most originally took The Last Jedi, you could argue the film rejects the ship. It points out Kylo for all the wrong he is & even the last shot of Rey and Kylo’s force bond is her rejecting him. Too bad Rise of Skywalker sided with racist Star Wars fans.