ST The New Republic in the ST

I think the sequel trilogy made a big misstep in how it handled the New Republic. In TFA you have the opening crawl where it briefly mentions that the Rebels became the New Republic. However they don't appear until Hux mentions them. No character identifies with the NR. Nobody mentions the NR. In other words the NR is treated as distant power that isn't immediately relevant to the story. We learn the NR are "friends" of the resistance and have a "cherished fleet". Then the Hosnian System gets blown up and functionally the NR completely ceases to exist after this point. Its gets two references in TLJ. Once when Po identifies himself as being a member of the Republic Fleet (more on this later) and when Admiral Holdo talks (prematurely, since the First Order is conquering the New Republic; present tense) about restoring the Republic.

Essentially this is a very mechanistic thing. JJ knew the rebels won the Galactic Civil War. So he creates a scenario in which that faction is destroyed in one move by the FO. This essentially wipes the slate clean and allows him to recreate the setting of the OT. You have the Resistance in the role of the rebel alliance and the FO as the Empire.

So whats the problem with this?

1) It makes no sense:

Even if the entire government was destroyed, even if the bulk of the Fleet was destroyed (why were they all in one star system?), an entire galactic civilisation does not cease to exist. Think Pearl Harbour or Independence Day. Nations will continue fighting even if you have these sudden strikes that do a lot of damage. The member worlds of the NR would elect a new government and co-ordinate some of defence.

Even if the FO completely steamrolled the NR. Manage (somehow) to occupy all 3.2 million canon inhabited worlds in the galaxy....manage to shut down all fleet and weapon production facilities, prevent the mobilisation of armies. But if they CAN do that then the Resistance could never defeat them. They wouldn't be able to get the guns, men and ships. Its a massive plot hole.

What should have happened is that the First Order is really attempting a military coup, not an invasion and is relying on the several million member worlds not to mobilise. That is not what is depicted or described in the opening crawl or during TLJ. They are describing an outright invasion. However they cannot do that because then that would mean the NR would have continued to exist and that would create conflict radically different from the Galactic Civil War. Fundamentally Disney wanted the Galactic Civil War 2.0 and have compelled the setting into running down those tracks.

2) Why call yourselves rebels?

Basically accepting that the FO has destroyed the NR is an admission of defeat.

To accept General Hux's proclamation that "the Republic is gone and you are all terrorists" without question and to validate it by calling yourselves rebels is a little unrealistic. Normal political movements claim legitimacy. They don't call themselves rebels to be edgy. Even the Alliance had a senate and a chancellor. It was the Republic in all but name and was called that in name after Endor. What should happen is that the good guys tell Hux "no, you are the terrorist, you have broken the law, you have attacked the legitimate democratically elected government and you are a criminal regime." That's a very dry way of putting it, but lets say Po had made fun of Hux's self righteousness instead of doing the prank call and pointing out how dumb he is.

Plus, if we really are going to reform the Rebellion. Well, I guess that means it will have a senate like we had in Rogue One and a Chancellor like Mon Mothma. So, what, we are going to call ourselves rebels until at some point in the future we arbitrarily say that we are actually the New Republic? That could start looking very silly, very quickly; especially if the Rebels take any territory which I'd maintain they have to in order to build a fleet to take on the FO with its 100,000 Star Destroyers. At that stage you are calling yourselves rebels and resistance just to be edgy.

3) The NR should be too important to be blown up like this

If you follow the PT and OT, then the Republic is a massively central element of the story. It is this galactic civilisation that represented all that was good in the galaxy, was subverted by the Sith and was what the rebels were fighting to restore. The NR should be the physical embodiment of the rebel victory. It was what Leias father died trying to help come to pass. It is in a lot of ways, the focal point of the Jedi Order; with the two groups inextricably linked. It is a big moment when Palpatine declares that the Republic will become the First Galactic Empire.

But if you watch TFA, there no real attempt to build any kind of mythology or significance to the NR. Its something that just happens. We aren't even really asked to lament its loss. Leia and the Resistance don't make any remark on this. The equivalent would be like Aragon not being a little shook up if Gondor fell. Instead JJ puts the focus on "The Resistance". They are the protagonists, they are the successors to the rebellion, theirs is the struggle that defines this series. I mean Snoke isn't even fussed by the NR. Hux is, but its the Resistance which our villains overwhelmingly focus on. Why 400 people are deemed so important in a galaxy of several million planets is beyond me but there you go.

4) Nationalism works

Think in Lord of the Rings when Aragon becomes King of Gondor, or Théoden saves his people at Helms Deep. There is absolutely nothing wrong with making our heroes journey involve saving a nation. In fact it tends to be an extremely common and strong trope. It gives something tangible and relatable to the audience. You can build a mythos and romanticism around a particular faction. Again, think about the music that plays whenever Rohan or Gondor does anything.

So if you blow up the NR and make it functionally irrelevant to the storyline you've basically taken away what probably should be a major goal and character motivation from your heroes. Yes I can sit back and infer that "oh well, if Holdo says the Resistance wants to restore the NR then presumably so does Rey and that's a big motivation for her and the rest of the heroes." But that's an inference which exists outside the confines of the film. Personally I feel like the heroes have come across as being motivated purely by humanist reasons that are a reaction to the FO. They are not interested in and do not relate to the NR. If the FO was destroyed tomorrow, our heroes haven't done anything to indicate they have any stake in what future shape the galaxy has.

Even if in Episode 9 restoring the NR is a major event, they haven't built that up as something our characters care about. So it can't suddenly be important to them. Personally I think that's unlikely, I am expecting a Return style celebration scene

5) Its confusing

The OT works because you immediately understand what the conflict of that film is, even if you missed the crawl, in that first scene with the tiny ship being chased by the Star Destroyer. Rebels vs big Empire.

However the ST is actually a very complex setting pretending to be that same simple premise. What you have is a rogue nation formed from the remnants of the previous regime who have secretly rearmed, who are fighting a pacifist and heavily disarmed New Republic, formed by the Rebels from the previous film because their goal was always to restore the republic don't you know and the Resistance are a group of patriots who are fighting a proxy war under the terms of a peace treaty that ended the previous war.

That's before you consider that both the PT and OT were mostly static settings. In the PT, Palpatine is plotting to undermine the Republic with the Trade Federation; that does not change in all three films. The Rebels are fighting to overthrow the Empire; that does not change during the three films. But, in the ST trilogy, that whole opening blurb describing the setting gets completely smashed once you blow up the Republic. It fundamentally alters the setting and frankly the pieces still have not settled. You blow up the New Republic, the FO occupies the galaxy, the Resistance is almost destroyed and the Rebellion reformed. Snoke is killed and Kylo takes over as Supreme Leader. Those are MAJOR changes to the setting and they can lead to a lot of confusion. You very much feel as if you are not being told key information about the state of the galaxy and the progress of the war.

Lets take an example. Rey says that the FO will occupy "all the major systems in a few weeks". Okay, so what does that mean people are fighting? Who is fighting if the Republic is gone? If they are occupying all major systems then surely all the not major systems are free to, you know...kill Nazis. Again RJ is trying to do summarise but it only ends up creating for questions because the setting isn't fixed and perhaps the conflict is beyond the scope of a three hour film.

Plus you have Po Dameron say that he is part of the Republic Fleet. This makes no sense since in the previous film he identified with the Resistance and there was nothing to imply that Po was associated with the Republic. Again, this is shorthand that creates confusion unless you explain the convoluted context that Po is a member of the Republic military fighting a proxy war because he has personal objections to the Galactic Concordance; so he joined the Resistance. A bit like those Russian "volunteers" in Eastern Ukraine. But that's not very clear without some huge inferences to be made of the opening blurb in the Last movie that a casual audience would not do.

But all of this could easily have been resolved by making the setting purely a straight up war between the New Republic and the Imperial Remnant. Republic were rebels. Remnant was the Empire. They never stopped fighting. There you go.

 

The only difficulty with saying "they never stopped fighting" was that it seems to contradict the galaxy-wide celebrations at the death of the Emperor in RotJ, and it makes RotJ's victory seem hollow. Well...hollower than it currently canonically is.

 

You are right TFA really fumbled the NR part. Nonetheless, much of this has been dealt with in Canon.

Read this thread for some helpful context: http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...ussion-thread-untagged-tlj-spoilers.50033384/

 

Quick question that those that are more well-versed in the new supplemental materials might be better able to answer:

Does the New Republic carry on the legal continuity of the Old Republic/Empire? What I mean is that, despite its clear differences, the Galactic Empire was the same government as the Galactic Republic, similar to how the Roman Empire was still the Roman Republic (and even continued to title itself as such for centuries after the Republic had fallen). Does the New Republic claim to be the same entity, just restored to its previous liberty? The rebels were, after all, the Alliance to Restore the Republic.