History Main / CosmicDeadline

* The last part of ''Exile's Valor'' rushes to cover many of the background events mentioned in the first ''Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar'' trilogy.
%%** The end of ''Storm Breaking'' may have rushed to finish things as well.

* Joss Whedon has really fallen foul of this one.

* In many of his early novels (particularly the "juveniles"), Creator/RobertAHeinlein would wrap up the plot in a page or two, often leaving the story unresolved. This was probably due to word count/length limitations. Some blatant examples are ''Literature/BetweenPlanets'', ''Literature/GloryRoad'', ''Literature/ThePuppetMasters'', ''Literature/TheRollingStones1952'' and ''Literature/SpaceCadet''.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'', despite its growing popularity, only received a third season [[OnlyBarelyRenewed consisting of three double-length specials]]. This forced the show's creative team to scrap, rework, and speed through many of the ideas and story beats they had planned for Season 2B onwards in favor of a brand-new storyline that could be more easily fit within the remaining time. This is [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] by Luz in ''[[Recap/TheOwlHouseS2E19OTitanWhereArtThou Oh Titan, Where Art Thou?]]''.

* ''Fanfic/{{A New Hope|Danganronpa}}'': The final trial of the Killing Game is slightly faster in pace than most of the others, particularly due to the comet approaching that will destroy the space station.

[[folder:Films - Live-Action]]

** In ''Literature/{{The Way Of Kings|2010}}'', Sadeas betrays Dalinar and abandons him to die.

* Creator/NealStephenson's ''Literature/TheDiamondAge'' suffers from this a little. After the leisurely progress of the rest of the book, the last 100 pages or so run at a breakneck pace. Fortunately, it's well written enough that you don't mind the dizziness too much.

* The last part of ''[[Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar Exile's Valor]]'' rushes to cover many of the background events mentioned in the first Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar trilogy.

* ''The Oracle's Queen'', the last book in the ''[[Literature/{{Nightrunner}} Tamír Trilogy]]'', ends so quickly after the FinalBattle that the MacGuffin doesn't even get a mention in the epilogue and is instead reduced to an author's note. (Although, to be fair, the MacGuffin was primarily buildup for a plotline that not only would happen hundreds of years later in-universe time, but ''[[{{Prequel}} had been published ten years earlier]]'' in real world time.)
* The novelization of the first ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil'' game is a good example of this, as the first third of the game takes up about two thirds of the book, with the remaining two-thirds crammed into the last sixty pages or so.

* In ''Literature/TheSumOfAllFears'' spends approximately the first three quarters of the book dealing with the protagonist's miserable personal life. Then the nuclear bomb finally goes off and the plot that everyone came for is wrapped up in under 200 pages.
** Most of Clancy's books operate to a cosmic deadline - this is a conscious decision on his part. The intent is to show how crises start small, then snowball and snowball. His other reason is to illustrate how much planning goes into military operations. He can spend 300 pages getting all the pieces in place for 100 pages of fast-paced action. It's his style.
* ''Literature/{{Tehanu}}'' is fairly slow-paced and low-key until the last handful of pages, when suddenly [[spoiler:the main characters fall into a trap laid by an evil wizard who had previously been a background character. He savagely beats them then attempts to force them to jump off a cliff to their deaths, prompting their adopted daughter to reveal that she's actually a dragon in human form by summoning a ''bigger'' dragon to come burn the evil wizard off the face of the world]].

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' suffered this during Stormblood, contributing to it being seen as the weakest of the expansion packs. Even though Stormblood is actually the ''longest'' aside from A Realm Reborn in terms of quests, it ''still'' feels compressed. The problem is that two rebellions (Doma and Ala Mhigo) occur during the expansion pack - and even though Doma takes up a ''huge'' portion of Stormblood's questlines (ie everything between levels 61-67) it ''still'' feels as if everything showing off the culture and country of Doma was rushed so that the player can go back and quickly resolve everything with Ala Mhigo, which didn't receive the same treatment in terms of lore. This even carried into Stormblood's post story arc, in which everything is resolved within one patch for Ala Mhigo and then double the content is devoted to resolving Doma's issues.
*** This is also how some people feel with regards to ''Endwalker'''s first act, resulting with TheEmpire being reduced to just one zone.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

** ''Series/{{Firefly}}[=/=]Film/{{Serenity}}''. The show was canceled without any resolution to the plot, so the major would-have-been-a-two-season-long-{{arc}} (according to WordOfGod) [[TheResolutionWillNotBeTelevised got tied up over the course of a movie barely longer than the pilot episode]].

* While the writers of ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' did try to keep the pacing of the ''Best Wishes!'' brisk, the League was aired about a year earlier than it normally would, and had Ash lose [[spoiler:to Cameron]] in a 5-on-6 match in order to make room for N's arc and an Orange Islands-esque filler arc. [[SeasonalRot The end results were not pretty]].

* As ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'' was given a shortened 13-episode third season, with the writing team still wanting to attempt some of the larger plot ideas they had while also having to tie up all the loose ends from the previous two seasons. The end result was a divisive final season home with a lot of compressed storylines, supporting characters (such as Valerie) whose arcs never got a resolution and the romantic subplot concerning Danny and Sam going from a slow burn to constant ShipTease moments up until their LastMinuteHookup in the finale.
* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'': Creator/AlexHirsch was adamant about wrapping up the show in its second season, resulting in the back half of said season needing to quickly introduce and conclude a story arc about TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt, with any lingering plot points and conclusions to character arcs having to be relegated to post-series books ''Literature/GravityFallsJournal3'' and ''ComicBook/GravityFallsLostLegends'' in the following years. For years, [[PopCultureUrbanLegends some fans were certain]] that the plotline was actually a condensed version of a planned Season 3.
* ''WesternAnimation/MoralOrel'' gained a lot of attention for the DramaBombFinale of Season 2, in which Orel's HilariouslyAbusiveChildhood was given a massive CerebusRetcon when a drunken Clay shoots him in the leg. The higher-ups initially let the creators to [[CerebusSyndrome lean into this more dramatic direction]]...with the result being one of the darkest, most depressing cartoons ever made. After execs watched the season's bleakest episode "Alone", which dealt heavily with sexual assault, they quickly canceled the show, forcing several plotlines and character arcs to be wrapped up quickly and anti-climactically (namely Ms. Censordoll's attempt to take over Moralton), with the finale focusing on the collapse of Orel's family...only to abruptly flash-forward and end on Orel's somehow HappilyMarried adult life.

* ''WesternAnimation/OKKOLetsBeHeroes'' had its third season, due to the show's cancellation. All ongoing plot threads had to be concluded far more quickly than anticipated, causing the season to have a rather frantic pace -- especially in comparison to the prior, more laidback seasons that focused more on episodic hijinks than the larger MythArc. This is even lampshaded in-universe in the episode "Big Reveal", in which Lord Boxman complains that he had expected to draw out the titular reveal "for at least another season!"
* ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'', for [[ScrewedByTheNetwork very vague reasons]], had its third season slashed into 3 double-length specials, which in turn forced the show's second season to rush through plot points for its final episodes, which is [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] by Luz in ''[[Recap/TheOwlHouseS2E19OTitanWhereArtThou Oh Titan, Where Art Thou?]]''.

* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls1998'' special "Powerpuff Girls Rule!" was originally an hour-long, but was later cut down to half an hour due to ExecutiveMeddling, which is why the plot feels so rushed and a lot of characters speak so quickly.
* The second season finale of ''WesternAnimation/Primal2019'' got criticism for the rushed conclusion. After a three episodes arc about the heroes being enslaved by a warlord, the last episode had to cram a flashback showing the death of Spear's father, another flashback showing how Mira got abducted by the Vikings, them entering Mira's village, [[spoiler: a final confrontation between Spear and the powered up chieftain where the former is fatally injured and an epilogue with Spear and Mira's daughter]] in just 20 minutes.

* ''WesternAnimation/OKKOLetsBeHeroes'' had its third season, due to the show's cancellation. All ongoing plot threads had to be concluded far more quickly than anticipated, causing the season to have a rather frantic pace -- especially in comparision to the prior, mode laidback seasons that focused more on episodic hijinks than the larger MythArc. This is even lampshaded in-universe in the episode "Big Reveal", in which Lord Boxman complains that he had expected to draw out the titular reveal "for at least another season!"

* ''Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker'' is an entire movie plagued by this issue. The start of the trilogy, ''Film/TheForceAwakens'', was directed by Creator/JJAbrams, and its sequel, ''Film/TheLastJedi'', was directed by Creator/RianJohnson. However, Johnson had a very different approach to the trilogy than Abrams, so its planned BigBad was killed off, Luke Skywalker was portrayed in a very different and controversial manner and then killed off, and the Resistance was reduced to a dozen people or so with no-one willing to help them. Abrams was back on the saddle for the conclusion, and he was obviously not happy with what Johnson did to the story he envisaged. To make matters worse, ''The Rise of Skywalker'' was planned to focus on Leia, whose actress, Creator/CarrieFisher, died between movies. As such, it had to establish a new BigBad [[spoiler:which ended up being the old one from the previous trilogies]], give the Resistance a viable path to defeating him, give Rey a backstory (that ended up contradicting the one in the previous movie), and resolve her relationship with Kylo Ren (that was already resolved), all under a director whose vision directly contradicted with the film's predecessor (further compounded by the fact that the original director of the movie, Creator/ColinTerevorrow, had been dropped taking his own vision of the film with him). The result is a movie that quickly jumps between locations and relies on [[ContrivedCoincidence coincidences]] to rush characters along their plotlines, as well as creating [[ContinuitySnarl Continuity Snarls]] between it and the rest of the trilogy.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'''s fourth expansion, ''Wings of the Goddess'', suffered from slow story updates due to the fact that the writing team was writing not one but ''four'' storylines: one primary expansion storyline and one past national storyline for each of the three starting nations. This came to a head when suddenly corporate ordered them to start working on the story for ''Final Fantasy XIV'' 1.0, forcing them to quickly wrap up the story by suddenly having the EldritchAbomination threatening to eat one of the timelines start negotiations.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'''s fourth expansion, ''Wings of the Goddess'', suffered from slow story updates due to the fact that the writing team was writing not one but ''four'' storylines: one primary expansion storyline and one past national storyline for each of the three starting nations. This came to a head when suddenly corporate ordered them to start working on the storr for ''Final Fantasy XIV'' 1.0, forcing them to quickly wrap up the story by suddenly having the EldritchAbomination threatening to eat one of the timelines start negotiations.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'''s fourth expansion, ''Wings of the Goddess'', suffered from slow story updates due to the fact that the writing team was writing not one but ''four'' storylines: one primary expansion storyline and one past national storyline for each of the three starting nations. This came to a head when suddenly corporate ordered them to start working on the storr for ''Final Fantasy XIV'' 1.0, forcing them to quickly wrap up the story by suddenly having the EldritchHorror threatening the timeline start negotiations.

[[folder:Film]]

* In many of his early novels (particularly the "juveniles"), Creator/RobertAHeinlein would wrap up the plot in a page or two, often leaving the story unresolved. This was probably due to word count/length limitations. Several blatant examples are ''Literature/BetweenPlanets'', ''Literature/SpaceCadet'', ''Literature/TheRollingStones1952'' and ''Literature/ThePuppetMasters''.

* "ComicBook/DeathOfTheFamily2: The finale is a special extra long issue. Nothing out of the ordinary. Then [[spoiler:''Batman Incorporated'' #8 came out a week later and saw the death of Robin. Which was leaked a few days before release, the fact that every Bat book the following month was a mini BatfamilyCrossover dedicated to Robin suggests Batman writer Creator/ScottSnyder was forced to wrap up his epic Joker story sooner than planned]].

* ''LightNovel/ScrappedPrincess'' is an example of a series that really needed two more episodes. The death of [[spoiler:Cz]] is caused by [[spoiler:her Cin personality suddenly taking over and letting herself die]] -- which would have been really touching had they had time to ''establish'' it.

-->'''[[BigBad Beelzebub]]''': Yamato, before we fight, there's something I want to say. It is said that you need the Holy Stone to defeat me... Turns out you don't need it after all, and as reward for your courage, your parents have been released to the nearest city.
-->'''[[TheHero Yamato]]''': I've got something to say too, I seem to have said before that I have a [[LongLostRelative long lost sister]], turns out that I don't!

* The first twenty-something chapters of the Marineford arc in ''Manga/OnePiece'' have a pacing that by fans is often described as anything from mediocre to downright terrible - a slow pacing, that is. Essentially, nothing happens other than the characters of the different factions fighting each other, but having their fights interrupted before anything can really happen. The pacing gets a little better when Luffy finally manages to get the scaffold and free Ace. From chapter 574 and onwards, all the important things that really define the arc and change the One Piece world forever happen: [[spoiler: Ace gets killed by Akainu, Whitebeard curb-stomps Akainu, the Blackbeard Pirates appear, Whitebeard reveals that the treasure of One Piece really exists and implies a great war in the future, the Blackbeard Pirates kill Whitebeard, Blackbeard steals Whitebeard's Devil Fruit and starts destroying Marineford, Akainu wakes up and goes on a massive rampage, Coby gathers the courage to call the Marines out on their needless killing, Shanks appears, Shanks stops the war]]. All of this happens in a course of ''8 chapters''.

** The Thousand Year Blood War arc was the cosmic deadline for the entire series. Despite going on for a mere 4 years compared to the whole time of the manga's publication (15 years), it resolved a heck lot of plotlines and contains as many stories as there are in all previous arcs combined. Most of the bankais are revealed here[[note]]Including but not limited to: Chojiro, Yamamoto, Unohana, Rose, Rukia, Kyoraku, Zaraki, and ''Urahara''. Yes, [[{{Troll}} Urahara]].[[/note]], it finally answered many questions that have been left hanging, some since the very first arc (the circumstances of Masaki's death, the massacre of the Quincies, why Ichigo looks uncannily like Kaien), and some more. Don't forget the plot-related deaths, too (goodbye, [[spoiler: Chojiro, Yamamoto, Unohana, Ukitake, and probably Komamura]]), and those are ''actual'' final deaths for you, not mere grave injuries that the series is known for. Its DistantFinale ending in August 2016 almost left more questions that it provided answers.

* ''Anime/ValvraveTheLiberator's'' final episode was not so much an episode as a breakneck rush to resolve as many plot threads as possible. The going theory is that the show's creators were expecting it to get a third season, which would explain the pacing for much of the second season and the buildup where S2 would end on a {{Cliffhanger}} with TheMasquerade being publicly exposed to the entire world. In the final product, the unmasking happens at the end of the 2nd-to-last episode, and then the finale just rushes through tons of plot points in its runtime, and ''still'' ends with plenty of questions left to ask, including new questions that are brought up in its last minutes (such as [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere mysterious gelatin-like aliens that wander in out of nowhere]]).
* ''Manga/BlackKnight'' was forced to cobble together a loose, over-dramatic story when publication was cancelled, with the rebel prince suddenly revealing he was an evil overlord all along, the love interest getting permanently crippled when she was tortured to near-death, the protagonist killing all of the remaining Saints at once, the sidekick suddenly deciding she was no longer an ethical slut, etc.

* Creator/GeoffJohns' run on ''ComicBook/TheFlash'' was concluded with a six-part arc entitled "Rogue War." The jump between plots in the final arc (a civil war between the Flash's rogues and a rematch with the [[BigBad new Zoom]]) is very sudden and very noticeable. These two plotlines were almost completely unrelated and if anything were likely intended to be two separate arcs, but with him leaving the title were likely compressed into one story so he could end his work on the title by its 225th issue.
* ''ComicBook/DeathOfTheFamily'''s finale is a special extra long issue. Nothing out of the ordinary. Then [[spoiler:''Batman Incorporated'' #8 came out a week later and saw the death of Robin. Which was leaked a few days before release, the fact that every Bat book the following month was a mini BatfamilyCrossover dedicated to Robin suggests Batman writer Creator/ScottSnyder was forced to wrap up his epic Joker story sooner than planned]].
* When Creator/DanDiDio was fired from Creator/DCComics and his "5G" initiative was cancelled, DC scrambled to figure out what the new direction was going to be. Dozens of people were fired and a significant number of books were cancelled at very short notice with their final issues set for November 2020, in what was termed the "DC Bloodbath". Reading stories from around that time, you can visibly see the writers rush to conclude their existing storylines. ''ComicBook/{{Aquaman}}'' in particular basically resorts to a montage in its final issue.

[[folder:Fanfiction]]
* ''Fanfic/TealovesSteamyAdventure'' spends about 13000 words escalating the conflict, and then just 500 words resolving it (with a blatant DeusExMachina, no less). This came about because it was a RoundRobin fic, and a bunch of the authors who had signed up wound up dropping out at the last minute. So almost all of the authors were planning for the story to be several chapters longer, except for the guy who got "You're the last author so find some way to wrap all this up," dropped in his lap. And ''that'' guy was working under a real-life time crunch. Fortunately, everything up to that point was a bizarre RandomEventsPlot, so the abrupt ending was oddly appropriate.
* While ''Fanfic/ThePrayerWarriors'' is not a fic that can be considered consistent or well-written, it seems to run into this trope from time to time.
** In ''[[Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians The Evil Gods]]'', which is 20 chapters long, the first 9 chapters are spent fighting against (and eventually converting) Percy Jackson, while the next six chapters after that involve Percy converting his former allies to Christianity. With Percy's help, the Prayer Warriors kill the entire Greek pantheon, or at least the seven gods the author bothered to show, in the space of the last quarter of the fic.
** In ''[[Franchise/HarryPotter Battle With the Witches]]''. Michael spends much of the fic trying to convince Ginny to give him her key, one of five needed to enter Dumbledore's office, only to have her be mysteriously murdered. Michael finds Ginny's key in her grave in Chapter 15, Ebony kills Harry and Ron for their keys in Chapter 16, and Ebony persuades Hermione to convert and give up her key in Chapter 17. With three chapters to go (and, if you're counting, one more key, since the protagonists never get the fifth key), Dumbledore's killed in Chapter 18, and the last two chapters deal with the final battle against Harry, who's [[UnexplainedRecovery inexplicably]] BackFromTheDead.

* ''[[Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker]]'' is an entire movie plagued by this issue. The start of the trilogy, ''Film/TheForceAwakens'', was directed by Creator/JJAbrams, and its sequel, ''Film/TheLastJedi'', was directed by Creator/RianJohnson. However, Johnson had a very different approach to the trilogy than Abrams, so its planned BigBad was killed off, Luke Skywalker was portrayed in a very different and controversial manner and then killed off, and the Resistance was reduced to a dozen people or so with no-one willing to help them. Abrams was back on the saddle for the conclusion, and he was obviously not happy with what Johnson did to the story he envisaged. To make matters worse, ''The Rise of Skywalker'' was planned to focus on Leia, whose actress, Creator/CarrieFisher, died between movies. As such, it had to establish a new BigBad [[spoiler:which ended up being the old one from the previous trilogies]], give the Resistance a viable path to defeating him, give Rey a backstory (that ended up contradicting the one in the previous movie), and resolve her relationship with Kylo Ren (that was already resolved), all under a director whose vision directly contradicted with the film's predecessor (further compounded by the fact that the original director of the movie, Creator/ColinTerevorrow, had been dropped taking his own vision of the film with him). The result is a movie that quickly jumps between locations and relies on [[ContrivedCoincidence coincidences]] to rush characters along their plotlines, as well as creating [[ContinuitySnarl Continuity Snarls]] between it and the rest of the trilogy.

** {{Downplayed}} with ''Series/KamenRiderZiO'', in which almost each Rider gets their appropriate tribute/Another Rider with no need to rush through them. The reason it's downplayed is because, close to the end, the remaining two Another Riders make their debut in the same arc. They still get their respective tribute appearance from alumni, though.

* ''VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}} Episode III'' is written as if the creators sat there with a checklist of every major plot thread that needed to be resolved by the end. Considering that this was supposed to be a six-part series that suddenly found itself cancelled due to poor sales, this probably was the case. And they may have only learned this partway through production as well, if the rate at which the villains collect the Vessels of Anima. One is collected early on, another presumably just after, cut ahead a long time, and the rest are collected within the span of two or three hours. There are ''twelve'' of them in total. Naturally, the villains can't take the four being used by the heroes for obvious reasons, but ''still''.

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'': The third and last Goddess Pearl is given to Link directly by the Sea Spirit Jabun, without the former having to go through a dungeon beforehand as in the case of other ''Zelda'' games with three or more {{Plot Coupon}}s. A third dungeon was planned, but had to be scrapped to time constraints, with one of the producers saying the said the dungeon concept was eventually reused in a subsequent ''Zelda'' entry, though he'd never specify.

Other times, the TroubledProduction is just ''that'' troubled everyone just wants to be ''done'' with it.

* The whole ''Literature/HarryPotter'' series. We only learn what Horcruxes are in Book 6 (out of 7). As a result, while only two Horcruxes have been found and destroyed by the end of book 6, the heroes must find and destroy four of them over the course of ONE book. ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows Deathly Hallows]]'' then continues this trend: After too many pages detailing a camping trip and other hairsbreadth escapes, suddenly the Trio arrives at [[spoiler: Hogwarts]] and [[spoiler: Horcruxes are destroyed lickety-split (even ''offscreen'')]], ''truckloads'' of important, nay, essential information is revealed, and the plot relevant (or irrelevant) deaths start cropping up all over the place.

* Creator Alex Hirsch was adamant about wrapping up the show in its second season, resulting in the back half of said season needing to quickly introduce and conclude a story arc about TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt, with any lingering plot points and conclusions to character arcs having to be relegated to post-series books ''Literature/GravityFallsJournal3'' and ''ComicBook/GravityFallsLostLegends'' in the following years. For years, [[PopCultureUrbanLegends some fans were certain]] that the plotline was actually a condensed version of a planned Season 3.

* ''[[Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker]]'' is an entire movie plagued by this issue. The start of the trilogy, ''Film/TheForceAwakens'', was directed by Creator/JJAbrams, and its sequel, ''Film/TheLastJedi'', was directed by Creator/RianJohnson. However, Johnson had a very different approach to the trilogy than Abrams, so its planned BigBad was killed off, Luke Skywalker was portrayed in a very different and controversial manner and then killed off, and the Resistance was reduced to a dozen people or so with no-one willing to help them. Abrams was back on the saddle for the conclusion, and he was obviously not happy with what Johnson did to the story he envisaged. To make matters worse, ''The Rise of Skywalker'' was planned to focus on Leia, whose actress, Creator/CarrieFisher, died between movies. As such, it had to establish a new BigBad [[ Spoiler: which ended up being the old one from the previous trilogies]] give the Resistance a viable path to defeating him, give Rey a backstory (that ended up contradicting the one in the previous movie), and resolve her relationship with Kylo Ren (that was already resolved), all under a director whose vision directly contradicted with the film's predecessor (further compounded by the fact that the original director of IX Creator/Colin Terevorrow had been dropped taking his own vision of the film with him). The result is a movie that quickly jumps between locations and relies on [[ContrivedCoincidence coincidences]] to rush characters along their plotlines, as well as creating [[ContinuitySnarl Continuity Snarls]] between it and the rest of the trilogy.
[[/folder]] leading many to wish the saga had still stopped with Episode 6. Much of this is ultimately attributed to the fact that the trilogy as a whole was written without any kind of pre-planned arc for its characters and event, something Abrams would later admit.

* ''[[Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker]]'' is an entire movie plagued by this issue. The start of the trilogy, ''Film/TheForceAwakens'', was directed by Creator/JJAbrams, and its sequel, ''Film/TheLastJedi'', was directed by Creator/RianJohnson. However, Johnson had a very different approach to the trilogy than Abrams, so its planned BigBad was killed off, Luke Skywalker was portrayed in a very different and controversial manner and then killed off, and the Resistance was reduced to a dozen people or so with no-one willing to help them. Abrams was back on the saddle for the conclusion, and he was obviously not happy with what Johnson did to the story he envisaged. To make matters worse, ''The Rise of Skywalker'' was planned to focus on Leia, whose actress, Creator/CarrieFisher, died between movies. As such, it had to establish a new BigBad, give the Resistance a viable path to defeating them, give Rey a backstory (that ended up contradicting the one in the previous movie), and resolve her relationship with Kylo Ren (that was already resolved), all under a director whose vision directly contradicted with the film's predecessor. The result is a movie that quickly jumps between locations and relies on [[ContrivedCoincidence coincidences]] to rush characters along their plotlines, as well as creating [[ContinuitySnarl Continuity Snarls]] between it and the rest of the trilogy.
[[/folder]]