TKA-001

Look, I've seen fanfilms that consisted of nothing but a couple of guys and a camera yet still managed to be entertaining and compelling (there was this one called "A Question of Faith"). This isn't one of them. Bad is bad.

This motion picture is so bad that it is amazing.

Why would this happen to begin with?

**** this ****. I want another X-Wing or TIE Fighter game.

Let the remainder of the discussion be flavored by this song: (This BBCode requires its accompanying plugin to work properly.)

So are most fans' opinions on what "should" have happened to the series, whether what did happen was good or not, and why the original two games' stories were good.

Why? No matter what they did - wrote something good, wrote something bad, wrote nothing at all (as the years between TSL and TOR attest) - the fanbase at large would still moan and moan, disregard whatever was officially decided in their own "headcanons," and write their fanfics that are no better - with their principal motivation being moral outrage over a story rather than a desire to write something good.

It won't happen. The Exile is dead, Revan turned evil again, his plans got foiled, and he either died or Force Asspull-Teleported away in defeat. Get over it.

Okay, proof this man is deranged. Slumming through that part of the game makes it psychologically impossible for a sane person to feel positive emotions.

Roman Catholic, and a lot of the time it's hard as balls to believe. My advice, stay calm and carry on for the moment, in all circumstances keep up appearances, and look to the people you trust in real life rather than the internet for further advice on this matter. Also, don't say that you want to find something you'd feel more comfortable to believe. Say that you want to find the truth of the universe.

Many (or some) Jedi seem to have the idea that the Force has some kind of a will and a desire to keep itself in balance - hence the whole prophecy referring to Anakin needing to balance the Force, Qui-Gon believing that the Force somehow deliberately created him, etc. Lots of fans seem to interpret this whole "balance of the Force" deal as though imbalance means "too much light side or too much dark side in the galaxy at any time," which I think is erroneous. There is nothing in the movies themselves to support that the Force works this way, with two sides constantly in conflict with each other that both need to be kept at bay, as though the Force is a set of metaphysical scales - I think it's important to note that the phrase "light side" never appears in the films; and that the reason for that is that the Jedi (at least as Lucas envisioned them) look at the universe in the sense that "there is the Force, and when it is misused, corrupted as it manifests in people and places, that is the dark side, the imbalance," not "there is the light side and the dark side, equals and opposites." As for Kreia herself: keep in mind that she is a control freak, a self-determinist, and also that she used to be a respected Jedi Master, and then the lord of all the Sith. I think it's more than likely that she picked up the idea of the Force having a will during those experiences and was never able to shake it. She probably looked at history (being a Jedi historian) and saw that repeatedly, light-siders and dark-siders have been in war after war, and with the revelation of more Sith being out in the Unknown Regions, that suggests to her that there's no end to the conflicts in sight. I think that, no matter how much Kreia may have ever wanted to believe that everyone can choose their own destiny or whatever, she was never able to convince herself that the Force is not putting up the Jedi and Sith to their activities. It's also more than likely that the fact that both orders cast her out in shame and disgrace colored her perceptions of the Force in general. Hence her hatred of the Force: the Jedi and Sith both rejected her, and she can't un-see the patterns she's seen. To her, it appears that these Force-users are just going to be endlessly fighting, and so many innocents are going to be destroyed because of their wars, and everyone will lose in the end. Erroneous? Most likely. I don't see why the Force would need to keep itself alive by fueling these conflicts (or want to especially if it doesn't have to), but it's not hard to see why Kreia would come to that conclusion. Just another example of the completely accidental genius of TSL. And yes, Kreia's pretty much definitely insane, or at least a major-league hypocrite (which she indirectly admits to if you ask her why she uses the Force if she hates it so much). For all the things about the Jedi and Sith that she claims to revile, she's pretty much the same as them, playing the same game, with the only major difference being that she hates the game itself, too.

I've never heard of anything like this in my life.

Please read what I wrote again. I have yet to hear of any such fan fiction. If you disagree, though, feel free to go read it. Bioware has no reason to make apologies for Revan and the Exile being beatable. As far as I'm concerned, the Revan novel did nothing but take these two characters that the fanbase exalts as the greatest and wisest Force-users ever and make them actually just a little bit human. More to the point, canon is an editorial necessity since these stories are part of the larger Star Wars EU, and there has to be an official version of these galactic events if any subsequent stories are to make reference to it (and not allowing future authors to reference the KotOR games for the sake of some fans' egos would be absurd). If you don't like the official version they come up with, well, you don't have to like it. And you only have to accept it if you're in a debate with someone which requires the whole of the EU to be taken into account. Just do what I do with all the EU I don't like (Jedi Academy trilogy, Karen Traviss, New Jedi Order series, Legacy of the Force, etc), and don't like it. Ah, the classical position toward Revan. You're wrong. It's late, I've debated on this many times before, this forum is a bad habit anyway, and I sort of hate myself, so I'm only going to explain why you're wrong once, in a numbered list with subtitles for your convenience. Consider this my reply to you to end all future replies to you, as well. 1. You are accepting Kreia's every word about Revan as fact despite the fact that she is unreliable - As we see in abundance throughout TSL, Kreia tends to have very, very strong opinions about her student, particularly whenever those opinions are about whether he was justified in his actions. Worth noting is that Revan is known for defying the Jedi Council many times in his actions, and that Kreia has an intense vendetta against the Council for denouncing Revan and her. Kreia despises the Council and their decrees, considering them to be set in their ways and unwilling to stand for supposedly being proven wrong, and feels betrayed for how they blamed and exiled her for Revan's turn to the dark side. Kreia lost her life as a Jedi Master because the authorities over her wouldn't accept her greatest student. She equipped Revan for everything he did, and then lost everything because of it. She therefore has a need to justify Revan, and therefore herself, in order to believe that her life hasn't been a waste. Is it not telling that she absolutely never in TSL says anything whatsoever about Revan that is negative or critical, never says anything about him except what a great guy he was? Also noteworthy is that she claims to know quite a lot about Revan's motivations, but has no way of actually knowing so much about those motivations after Revan left for the Mandalorian Wars, since we have no evidence that the two were in contact during or after that period. In short, Kreia has several major self-serving reasons to portray Revan in an unrealistically positive light and to pass off his actions as being for the noblest reasons imaginable. There is very little reason to consider her an authority where Revan is concerned. 2. Revan did not become the Dark Lord of the Sith out of any necessity, whether we accept TSL or TOR's theoretically revised version of it - The soundness of Revan's joining of the Mandalorian Wars is debatable. On one hand, the Jedi Council was initially doing little to deal with the invaders. On the other hand, Revan was being reckless in leading a large number of Jedi in direct defiance of them under his own command, inviting the possibility of some sort of disaster befalling them on account of his unchecked leadership (which eventually did happen; worth noting is also that the Council did give Revan their support against the Mandalorians after the genocide at Cathar was revealed to them per the comic, Masks). More important, though, is Revan's actions after he had been fighting in the war for a while. We are given plenty of information even as far back as KotOR I (the computer guarding the Kashyyyk Star Map, especially) about how he conducted the war, being willing to allow preventable deaths in order to strengthen his own public image. In TSL, Kreia (on Dantooine after slaying the three Jedi Masters) goes into detail about how Revan deliberately used the war to corrupt his Jedi to the dark side and to loyalty to him ("The Mandalorian Wars were a series of massacres that masked another war, a war of conversion"). HK-47 (and several others) also note that Revan deliberately worked to have certain individuals under his command killed in the war - specifically, those who were not loyal to him personally and therefore wouldn't follow him when he betrayed the Republic. This directive culminated in Malachor V, where Revan deliberately used a superweapon to massacre both the Mandalorian fleet and his own fleet, composed of officers he determined wouldn't follow him, with the side-effect of shattering the nearby planet and creating a wound in the Force. Now then, with all that out of the way, the question remains of whether for Revan, knowing about the Sith Empire in the unknown regions eventually wanting to come get revenge on the Republic, becoming a Sith Lord was justified. The answer is no because after having beaten the Mandalorians, Revan could have told the Jedi and Republic about the true Sith (his findings on Malachor would have been more than enough to convince the Jedi Council). Instead he took his fleets and armies, made all of them into Sith, and declared war on the Republic - this act was in no way prompted by any dire situational circumstances and can only be explained by a desire on his part to rule the galaxy. Whether he eventually was made into a herald of Vitiate is incidental to this; Revan already set his plans to become a Sith ruler in motion before the two ever met. 3. Revan's actions caused a lot of horrible repercussions - Revan created a Sith Order which spawned the likes Malak, Jorak Uln, Uthar Wynn, and countless other despots and narcissists (none of which, it is ever hinted, he ever disapproved of or punished the brutality of despite Revan supposedly caring so much about reducing collateral damage), as well as Sith assassins who tortured captive Jedi into converting. He is also indirectly responsible for Darth Nihilus and Malachor's wound in the Force (which he may or may not have been able to forsee). Needless to say, absolutely none of this was necessary in order to protect the galaxy from the true Sith. 4. There is no evidence to suggest that Revan's actions nearly prevented a greater evil because he was no better than the "true" Sith - What did Vitiate plan and eventually carry out 300 years later? Invade and conquer the galaxy with his Sith Empire. What did Revan do? Invade and try to conquer the galaxy with his Sith Empire. And there is nothing fundamentally different about the two Empires, as far as how well the galaxy would've fared under either of them. Vitiate's empire was extremely Human and Pureblood Sith-centric, but as we see in KotOR I, the Sith of Revan and Malak's empire were just as racist, at least in the rank-and-file membership (though it is notable that very few Sith in the game are non-human). In the end, both Sith rules destroyed planets and killed Republic military members, Jedi, and civilians. There is nothing suggesting the galaxy would have been better off under Revan. If anything, his noble goal of saving it from the "true" Sith is merely how Revan justified his goals of conquest himself (and again, this is generously assuming that Kreia knew anything about what she was talking about when speaking for his motivations); he wanted to save the galaxy for himself. In brief - The supposed gray morality of Revan in TSL is a lie that Kreia invents to justify herself and him (and for the record, I like the story of TSL not because it's a tract about how ****ing awesome Revan supposedly is, but because Kreia's character is written in such a powerful way). Whether you believe TSL, TOR, or both, Revan became a Sith Lord, killed a ton of innocent people during and even before that period, and tried to conquer the galaxy. Best-case scenario, Revan was a egomaniacal, sanctimonious, treacherous, delusional mass-murderer who successfully fooled himself (and his old master) into believing that his selfish desires for personal power were noble intentions to "save" the galaxy from others, and the only reason he was better than Vitiate himself is that unlike Vitiate, he didn't want to literally consume all life in the universe. So, yeah. Revan's not a good character because he was so awesome that he was able to transcend morality and the fundamental rules of the Force in Star Wars. He was a good character because he's a tragic figure who began as a hero, fell to evil despite having good intentions (and likely justified it to himself along the way), but then was given a chance for redemption. And in the canon he went down fighting for what he believed in. Except in TOR the game; ironically, his last appearance to date in that game has him pulling the exact same routine as in his Mandalorian War days. Good enough for me aside from that last part. You're free to think what you want, but unless I've completely misinterpreted your position (which case I guess I'll just have to live with myself), you're wrong.

This again? Actually if we listen to Kreia in TSL (and in case you're going to give me any malarkey about TOR somehow invalidating the events of TSL, please explain exactly how it does so), then Revan turned to the dark side on his own while fighting the Mandalorian Wars, where he made it part of his strategies to deliberately have Jedi and Republic leaders not loyal to him killed off and use exposure to the horrors of war to corrupt his followers. The only change TOR makes in this regard is that Vitiate made him a Sith, not a dark-sider (and even then, we have room to believe that Revan declared himself a Sith Lord anyway before that upon finding the Trayus Academy). This means next to nothing. War consists of sending your forces to destroy or capture the forces and facilities of your opponent. Revan did this. That he allegedly did more capturing of facilities than destroying them doesn't make the Jedi Civil War a "war of conversion" (and it wasn't really necessary anyway, since he had the Star Forge behind him). The most obvious, trite, and fanservice-oriented way possible to resolve the conflict, which hundreds of fans have already written in their fanfics anyway? No thank you, sir. Even if they did do this, you and the rest of the dissatisfied fans wouldn't like it because you can still imagine a better KotOR III.

Ah, the ol' "Survive Getting Stabbed With A Lightsaber" trick. Too bad Qui-Gon never picked it up.