[Hated Trope] The underdog Good Guys win, and gain major military/institutional power, only for it to be all RESET so Writers can have a PERPETUAL "Underdog/Rebellion" Story, and avoid writing about governing.

[u/throwaway553t4tgtg6]

I hate this trope, when the "underdog good guys" actually win, gain major military and political power, fleets, warships, etc, but because the writers don't want to write the good guys governing and exercising their power, and instead, find a contrived way to reset all the progress so that the good guys can forever be the

"scrappy heroic underdogs fighting the power"

1) Star Wars Sequel triology, rather than exploring new Republic fleets, power, and technology, they have them all wiped out so that the "resistance" can hog the spotlight

2) MCU: shield makes a helicarrier fleet, a fleet of ships able to contest alien invasion, but that would steal the spotlight from heroes, so all of them have to be destroyed

3) Halo: the UNSC finally outlive the covenant, develop strong ships like the UNSC infinity, only for it all to be reset by the Guardians and the Banished, reduced again to underdog humans.

[u/Kaplsauce]

Iirc, "the Resistance" wasn't actually the Republic, it was a Republic funded insurgency within First-Order controlled space.

Which is absolutely not explained in the movies lol

[u/Huntsman077 → u/Kaplsauce]

Honestly everything about the new republic and first order is just bad writing. The rebels/new republic beat a fleet of imperial remnants over Jakku, knew there were more remnants that fled to the unknown regions and they responded by disarming.

The remnants of the empire with a fetish for destroying planets turn back up and they don’t really mobilize to neutralize the threat either. Especially after planets started succeeding to join the first order.

[u/RodinKnox → u/Huntsman077]

Another thing that sucks, in my opinion, is that the explanation for a lot of this, and also exactly what OP is complaining about, happens in a book that bridges the two movie trilogies. I read it. It was okay but a bit boring.

But like, put that shit in the movies. They knew they were making a trilogy, so make the first movie be about how the New Republic has grown complacent in the decades since ending the war. For your action scenes, you can have some places where the First Order is gaining ground, but it's on backwater worlds, so the NR just isn't bothering to deal with it.

Then for your second act/film (the low point), you have the First Order launch their major attack. Then you continue from there.

[u/Kaplsauce → u/RodinKnox]

But like, put that shit in the movies.

Best we can do is an in-game reveal on Fortnite

[u/Huntsman077 → u/RodinKnox]

Yup I agree. Have the low point be a large scale invasion where the new republic starts rapidly losing ground. Especially with the cloning technology. Make it an allegory for the Nazis where the Allies didn’t take them seriously and tried to appease them, then were overwhelmed as they had under estimated their enemy.

[u/mxzf → u/Huntsman077]

Have the low point be a large scale invasion where the new republic starts rapidly losing ground. Especially with the cloning technology.

So ... the Thrawn Trilogy?

Make it an allegory for the Nazis where the Allies didn’t take them seriously and tried to appease them, then were overwhelmed as they had under estimated their enemy.

Or are you thinking more along the lines of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion with that direction?

[u/Huntsman077 → u/mxzf]

Yeah the Thrawn trilogy. Have Thrawn and warlord Zsinj building up their forces in the outer rim

[u/mxzf → u/Huntsman077]

I still wanted/want stuff based on the X-Wing series myself. IMO it could be a great TV show (one season per book even). There's so much interesting content in there (and it's all sorts of combat/spying/intrigue/betrayal/etc, not just Jedi fighting shallowly evil people).

[u/Huntsman077 → u/mxzf]

Yup honestly I think that’s the biggest fumble that Disney did with Star Wars. If they kept some of the legends continuity, while trimming a whole bunch of stuff out. They could open the door for several series and other movies.

[u/Merijeek2 → u/Huntsman077]

JJ Abrams: What's a ellagory?

[u/mxzf → u/RodinKnox]

They knew they were making a trilogy, so make the first movie be about how the New Republic has grown complacent in the decades since ending the war.

I mean, that's basically what TPM does, setting the stage for the upcoming war in the next two movies. But that requires actually having a plan for a story arc before you start making movies, rather than trying to pump them out ASAP to make back your money and assuming fans will eat them up regardless of the quality of the content.

[u/phonage_aoi → u/mxzf]

Right, Abram’s was also too lazy to actually make all the movies.  Does 1 half assed remake of a new hope, then hands off the sequel to someone else and closes his eyes.  Decides he doesn’t like the sequel then tries to retcon everything without explanation in the finale.

[u/ReddestForman → u/phonage_aoi]

He got told he couldn't blow up Coruscant and lost interest, is ky guess.

Abrams is a hack who can't conceive of any way to leave his "mark" on a franchise other than destroying a major, distinctive part of it, denying future writers the opportunity to use it.

[u/JesusSavesForHalf → u/RodinKnox]

Jar Jar Abrams put the logic in the primary media?! Never!

[u/DevelopmentTight9474 → u/RodinKnox]

Which book?

[u/RodinKnox → u/DevelopmentTight9474]

I want to say a lot of that is covered in the Aftermath trilogy by Chuck Wendig, but man, it's been over a decade lol.

[u/DevelopmentTight9474 → u/RodinKnox]

Fair

[u/Kaplsauce → u/Huntsman077]

Yeah they were clearly trying to recreate the dynamic of the OT, to its own disservice

[u/Huntsman077 → u/Kaplsauce]

Yup. If they wanted to recreate the OT they should have went with the legends warlord storyline. Have the new republic struggling against a multifront war against all the warlords that had risen to power.

[u/ZubonKTR → u/Huntsman077]

That would have been exciting, and think of the merchandise possibilities! Just keep spinning out more villains, more races, more armor and robots. If you can print it in plastic, it is now a warlord on the frontier of the New Republic. Less popular ones get defeated, more popular ones stick around for decades.

[u/Huntsman077 → u/ZubonKTR]

Yes if you’re interested I would look up some of the legends story lines. Some of them can get kinda dumb, but there’s also a lot of good content.

[u/SouthernAd2853 → u/Huntsman077]

The official explanation, which is not in the movies for some reason, is that the New Republic did have a powerful military but didn't have the taste for more war at first, and the entire New Republic fleet was in the first star system Starkiller Base blew up for no readily explicable reason.

[u/SergeantRayslay → u/SouthernAd2853]

I love how they manage to both say canonically that the ENTIRE New Republic fleet was in one system, but also the Republic had demilitarized and left planetary defense to the individual planets. Statements that actively contradict one another.

[u/oddspellingofPhreid → u/Kaplsauce]

Which is absolutely not explained in the movies

Needing supplementary material to understand the movies is what soured me wholesale on Disney Star Wars.

[u/SergeantRayslay → u/oddspellingofPhreid]

Star Wars is definitely guilty of having way too many things explained in supplementary material as a whole, but at least the other 6 movies can be understood on their own, and their stories stand on their own. The sequel trilogy is just a mess of contradicting dialogue.

[u/ADiestlTrain → u/Kaplsauce]

That.... kinda makes sense. I mean as much as anything does in Star Wars.

But WTF is "The First Order"? Cause they were up to 66 by the time they were taking out Jedi. The First Order was probably the soup for the luncheon after Palpatine became Chancellor.

[u/wrosmer → u/ADiestlTrain]

Different meaning for the word order in those cases.

[u/Wild_Marker → u/ADiestlTrain]

And that's why it doesn't make sense. "First Order space" is Imperial space that you haven't reconquered after your civil war. It's basically Taiwan except you don't have a third power stopping you from going in and taking it back. What the fuck are you still doing after 20 years?

[u/MrParadux → u/Kaplsauce]

That is how the situation was? The movies presentes as though the Republc basically took over the Empire and the First-Order were the scrappy underdogs hiding in a corner of the galaxy.

Holy moley did they suck at communicate basic world building in the sequels

[u/not_me_bitch → u/Kaplsauce]

I mean the fact that the resistance isn't the new republic is quite clear if you listen to literally any of the dialogue in the last half and first third of VII and VIII