Quote Originally Posted by ChrisIII View Post
The Phasma novel pretty much still has Hux's father in control but Hux, using a lifeform from the freshly recruited Phasma's homeworld, uses it to kill him and pretty much give more power to the newer generation of FO.

Although we still do see Canady in TLJ, Terrex and Pryde in the sequels who are all supposed to be from the OT era period. Pryde I think is actually supposed to be a mole/scout for Palpatine's group although I think this is made clearer in the novels.
There's definitely some veteran members throughout the First Order, but its still notable how much younger on average they were portrayed as being around TFA, and then it subtly shot up a bit in TLJ and stayed that way for TROS.

Still, the biggest sign of the change in the First Order's portrayal was in the retconning of Hux and the transfer of his TFA personality onto the doomed Canady, leading to Pryde being introduced in TROS to make up for the loss of a decent Tarkin/Piett-parallel. TFA!Hux, Cannady, and Pryde are all basically send-ups to the more professional and straight-forward military villains of the OT, and their dialogue is largely interchangeable, as is their attitude and how they contrast with Kylo.

...It's just that TLJ screwed up Hux's portrayal and then killed its own new version in Cannady for whatever shallow as hell reason Johnson had, probably with the lame excuse that he thought Hux during his speech in TFA was all there was to the character and must be a hammy diva - which, yes, ignores how that was a speech given before murdering billions of people, and how the entire rest of Hux's screentime is simple, competent and restrained villainy... but Johnson didn't get anyone else's character right either, still seems completely ignorant of that, and mostly wrote a dumb Saturday Morning Cartoon with a dumb "gotcha!" element to it anyways.

Pryde's a solid substitute in TROS, since Richard Grant can add the right layer of "cold ham" to give the archetype distinct energy... but there wouldn't be a need for Pryde, or a need to waste Cannady's actor, or replace Hux if they just kept Hux's portrayal from TFA - much like how they didn't need to make the Galaxy apathetic about themselves or completely waste the new Republic if they just realized a more chaotic quantity (New Republic) vs quality (First Order) fight would have been a great contrast to both the PT and OT.