re: How many franchises has JJ ruined now?

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Resistance vs First Order. I thought the Rebel Alliance had won, so what exactly were they resisting? And please, give me movie answers, not stuff from a book.

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Much of the outer rim worlds were never really controlled by the Empire or the Republic, but were somewhat neutral and dominated by organized crime (The Hutts). People kept going to Tatooine for that reason. The Empire would go there to do business with The Hutts, but didn’t have political power. The hutts traded slaves which the empire used to build the death stars as well as “spice”, fuel for ships. The Empires and Republics were always trying to control the spice trade.

The rebels succeeded in overthrowing the Empire after the death of the emperor and restoring the power of the Senate. The Senate went from the source of power in TPM, to sharing power with an appointed executive in AOTC, to being largely symbolic and subservient to the Emperor in ROTS, to being essentially disbanded at the end of ANH. When the Emperor was overthrown by the rebels, Senate control was restored.

However, the Galaxy was always somewhat decentralized with power beings wielded mostly at the planetary level. Many ex-Imperial governors refused to accept Senate control and used their remaining Imperial garrisons to maintain control. The war between the Imperial remnants and rebels dragged on for years after ROTJ. Eventually, the republic conquered enough of these worlds to broker a peace.

However, not all of the remaining war lords took this deal. They instead fled beyond the Republic’s borders to the outer rim. They were more tolerant of organized crime than the republic, and were able to rebuild an army. This army became The First Order. They were conquering independent worlds outside the republic (neutral planets). Leah warned the republic senate that this was a growing existential threat to the republic, but they refused to sanction direct military confrontation since the worlds the First Order were conquering weren’t claimed by the republic.

So, Leah organized and helped fund a sorta guerrilla army called “The Resistance” to aid these independent worlds against the First Order. This “Resistance” was funded by monied interests in the republic that were invested in the government succeeding. The First Order was funded by people within the republic who made more money during the Empire’s days when organized crime and slaving were kosher. Meanwhile the arms dealers were supplying both sides. Basically, the outer rim was like a proxy war between factions within the Republic that were jostling for control.

The First Order “won” when they blew up the Republic Senate and bureaucrats in TFA. This allowed the people who wanted to restore Imperial rule to essentially come out of the shadows and regain power in their respective planets. The First Order became the de-facto power with The Resistance trying to stop them so they could rebuild the Senate.

Basically, in Star Wars, the Republics were always bloated, inefficient, bureaucratic, and economically stagnant. These republics were always fighting organized crime that supported slavery and smuggling. These republics always fought off forces within or without that wanted to replace the ineffective republics with centralized empires. These would collude with organized crime and through oppression and exploitation of certain non-human species, would generate massive financial booms for the wealthy. However, these empires were never sustainable because the oppression would breed revolutions or infighting between greedy planetary governors and generals for more power.

Basically, in Star Wars, governments all suck, and they either protect civil liberties while throttling economic liberty, or they go full nazi and eventually collapse in on themselves through violence.