Originally Posted by
godisawesome
The weird thing for me about this whole "the New Republic must fall and we must restart the OT conflict!" is:
A) Abrams actually comes off as one of the less obsessive about mimicking it (which is shocking considering he's still 100% behind the idea), and...
B) It's like the only thing that literally every major creator seems to agree on, with Filoni and Johnson being, if anything, even more invested in trying to make the New Republic an impotent non-factor.
LFL and its associates couldn't agree on anythign else about the ST: Abrams wanted Rey as the clear main character and Finn as the male lead with Kylo as the villain and an effective First Order, Johnson wanted the whole thing to be a Hipster Saturday Morning Cartoon based around Kylo as his Gary Stu Villainous Protagonist, and LFL couldn't give a damn about anything but making Kylo EVEN MORE of a Gary Stu and wanting him to be a/the hero. (Remember kids: Kylo is the blackhole at the center of the ST, not Rey.) But *EVERYONE wanted the New Republic gone and the Empire back fighting Rebels.
Abrams arguably started somewhat more nuanced than the others, since his First Order in TFA is a lean and hungry force still scared of the New Republic Navy and seriously harasser by the tiny Resistance, and thus dependent on Starkiller Base to actually begin their offensive, and are undermanned enough to find the Resistance strike force genuinely scary. TFA actually ends somewhat somberly regarding the situation, but suggests that the First Order is nowhere near dominating the Galaxy yet.
That's a functional situation, or at least a salvageable one.
Johnson then insists the First Order already reigns in the opening crawl of TLJ, immediately retcons the First Order Fleet in size while also retconning their intelligence and energy-level into a bloated, slow group of idiots (very much in a parody of the OT), shows a Galaxy with about as much emotional reaction to Hosnian Prime's destruction as Johnson himself has towards Kylo's crimes (read: none.) He then also has the Resistance reduced to twelve dudes and tries to have them outright re-christened Rebels in a misguided attempt to abuse nostalgia as Abrams does (say what you will about Abrams, but he's competent at exploiting nostlagia.) Johnson even commissioned that Bloodline book to try and retcon the size of the First Order into a large Galactic faction, while TFA's First Order was explicitly a hidden and small group in the Unknown Regions.
That's not functional, nor exciting.
Then TROS comes in and re-retcons the retcon so the First Order is again too small to conquer the Galaxy itself, even if the Resistance is still small... and basically sets about making a new "First Order from TFA" faction in the Sith Fleet and by replacing TLJ's version of Hux with a TFA!Hux-esque character in Pryde (literally every line Pryde has save one would fit perfectly with TFA Hux as well.) He then also shows that the Galaxy could rally to overwhelm the Sith forces with sheer numbers with the right motivation (lazily excused by Lando.)
That's still dysfunctional, but seems to work for some people.
Now you've got Filoni doing a generally competent if still painfully formulaic version of the "New Republic is toothless and stupid, and the heroes have to outfox the bureaucracy before the Empire gets too many dudes" situation. And I think the reason is pretty clear - it's the easy, lazy way to do a familiar formula without taking risks and without having to strain themselves by studying politics, culture, and stuff like that.