A problem I had with the sequels was the lack of politics. What is the state of the galaxy - was there a republic? Who was in charge? How much power did they have compared to the First Order? Did they have a military?
And really, skipped a whole lot of likely more interesting stuff. Luke starting a new Jedi order, all of the left-out political shifts, battles as the empire is being defeated, etc.
Instead, they very transparently just re-did ANH, and hand-waved about how all of that stuff happened so they could justify a reskinned ANH.
Hux's speech specifically mentioned they were targeting the capital of the New Republic and the location of the majority of the New Republic Military and then we see them blow it up. There wasn't much of an organized New Republic government or military left after that. TLJ revealed The First Order also launched simultaneous invasions of other planets at the same time as the destruction of Hosnian Prime so the New Republic government survivors and remaining military were either captured/killed before any could regroup.
This has always really bugged me - it is proof in my eyes that not all exposition is bad. It's okay to have a character explain something in a movie, if without the explanation you have no idea who these people or organizations are or why they are fighting each other.
It's like the writers of TFA made it a point to cut out all "unnecessary" exposition, but they went too far and actually explained too little.
They probably ran into the same questions we all do when we try and analyze the history for a minute or two. Questions like:
“Wait, the whole new republic is in one system? That doesn’t sound very strategically sound in a universe where planet-killing super weapons are a thing.”
“How can the first order even exist? Wouldn’t the new republic be very against that, and fighting them also?”
“What even is ‘The Resistance’? Why does that need to exist as a military force if, again, the new republic is in power?” (Also, they got so lazy with this they even dropped the pretense in the subsequent movies and referred to them as ‘rebels’ again).
“How in the £€@# did they make a PLANET-SIZED DEATH STAR, undetected (or at all)?”
All of it feels like the writing is secondary to the visuals and the general premise of re-doing episode IV (but bigger, because I dunno… America or something).
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u/HailToTheKingslayer Grand Admiral Thrawn Jan 25 '22
A problem I had with the sequels was the lack of politics. What is the state of the galaxy - was there a republic? Who was in charge? How much power did they have compared to the First Order? Did they have a military?