History TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot / StarWars

** Plenty were hoping Starkiller Base would be a super weapon that lasts the entire new trilogy. This was the original plan for the Death Star but Lucas was sure the first film would flop and, since he needed an exciting ending for Episode IV, he moved the destruction forward.
* Starkiller Base was a pale imitation of the Death Star from a storytelling standpoint. The Death Star was the main narrative focal plot of ''A New Hope'' (to say nothing of ''Film/RogueOne'' later), with it being the reason Leia was chased by Vader and what the MacGuffin of the film was entirely about. In ''The Force Awakens'', the Death Star plans were substituted for the map to Luke. However, Starkiller Base is brought in in the third act without any foreshadowing, is completely unrelated to the map, and its appearance wound up hijacking the original plot to find Luke. Because the final battle ended up being all about Starkiller Base, the initial plot thread of Luke's appearance is resolved by R2 acting as a DeusExMachina. It might have been more interesting if the final battle was about raiding a First Order base to steal the plans, with the tension instead about whether the First Order would get the location before the Resistance was able to.

* ''The Last Jedi'' featured Kylo Ren ascending to be Supreme Leader of the First Order [[KlingonPromotion after he killed Snoke]], clearly setting him up to be the BigBad of the trilogy's third film. Rather than continuing with this trajectory and exploring how his rule has affected both the First Order internally and the galaxy-at-large, this film [[DemotedToDragon instantly drops him back into the role of The Dragon]], this time to Palpatine.
* J.J. Abrams has said that ''Finn has the Force''. If this is canon (WordOfGod isn’t always reliable in the Star Wars canon- only published material is considered 100% legit), it means the original male lead, played by a charismatic actor, has the same special power as the main protagonist, down to being able to intuitively pinpoint where his ground assault team needs to go, and we need new Jedi, ''and'' she’s taking on the most powerful Sith Lord of all time... and it’s a barely revealed subplot of a subplot.
* C-3PO’s memory is wiped for the sake of the mission, as it is the only way to allow the dagger’s inscription to be translated. While this comes across as a clever tearjerker to lose a beloved character without actually killing him, they later have R2-D2 restore his memory from a backup. While this was foreshadowed at the time of erasure, it still makes one wonder why they bothered including the erasure at all if they were just going to undo it thirty minutes later. Messing with 3PO's memories also brings up the possibility of restoring the memories that were wiped at the end of ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'', which would be a nice way to end the saga as it would put 3PO into his originally intended role of being the one character [[GreekChorus who could recall and comment on]] the entire ''Star Wars'' saga, but this potential development was also ignored.

* Palpatine reveals his big evil plan is to have Rey strike him down, at which point he will pull a GrandTheftMe and take her body for himself to continue the Sith. This creates a SadisticChoice for both Rey and Ben during the finale; if they kill Palpatine, he'll simply possess Rey (or even perhaps Ben), at which point TheBadGuyWins, but they know they ''have'' to stop him somehow. This plot point makes the entire finale have a layer of complexity because there is no good answer for solving it: if one of them gets possessed, the other will have to kill them to stop him, or else Palpatine will win. This actually ties well into the idea of Rey needing the assistance of the previous Jedi, leading to perhaps a [[FightingFromTheInside mental fight against Palpatine]] with aid from the past Jedi while a possessed Rey tries to kill Ben. Despite this, and the film making it very clear if Rey strikes him down this will occur, Rey somehow kills Palpatine completely and isn't possessed, simply by redirecting his Force Lightning back at him, and the plot point is never addressed.

* This film reveals (via a flashback) that Luke did in fact train Leia as a Jedi; she even had her own lightsaber and serves as Rey's Jedi Master. While in this film they couldn't have done much more with it due to Carrie Fisher's death, this does raise the question of why they didn't just have Leia as a Jedi right from the start of the Sequel Trilogy, especially as ''Return of the Jedi'' established that Leia had the potential to be just as powerful as Luke and he was tasked with passing on what he'd learned, perfectly setting up Leia to become a Jedi too. The film briefly explains that Leia stopped her training because she had foreseen it would somehow result in Ben's death, but this isn't explored in any depth either and it only really seems to have been added to handwave why Leia having Jedi training wasn't mentioned before. This underused plotline was particularly annoying for some fans, as in the ''Legends'' continuity Leia did in fact become a fully-fledged Jedi.

* In the first chapter of the OriginStory of one of the most iconic villains in movie history, we learn that he was born into slavery on a backwater desert world, and had to win his freedom from his owners. While this ''could'' have been an interesting way to explore Vader's StartOfDarkness -- and a convincing explanation for his anger and hatred -- his actual experiences as a slave are quickly glossed over, and they're not shown to be particularly harsh. When Anakin's anger ''does'' begin to show itself in ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'' it's only directed towards the Tusken Raiders who killed his mother; he doesn't seem to bear any ill will towards the people who bought and sold him as property. However, this is averted with a ''vengeance'' in ''[[WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars The Clone Wars]]''.

* Starkiller Base was a pale imitation of the Death Star from a storytelling standpoint. The Death Star was the main narrative focal plot of ''A New Hope''(to say nothing of ''Film/RogueOne'' later), with it being the reason Leia was chased by Vader and what the MacGuffin of the film was entirely about. In ''The Force Awakens'', the Death Star plans were substituted for the map to Luke. However, Starkiller Base is brought in in the third act without any foreshadowing, is completely unrelated to the map, and its appearance wound up hijacking the original plot to find Luke. Because the final battle ended up being all about Starkiller Base, the initial plot thread of Luke's appearance is resolved by R2 acting as a DeusExMachina. It might have been more interesting if the final battle was about raiding a First Order base to steal the plans, with the tension instead about whether the First Order would get the location before the Resistance was able to.

* The story of a character from a villainous family choosing to be good is certainly compelling fiction; but there's also something to be said for the tale set up in ''The Last Jedi'' where bloodlines don't matter. If we're going to stick with ''Rise of Skywalker'''s {{aesop}} -- you know, the one where choices matter more than family, and therefore heroes are made rather than born -- then Rey, the nobody from Jakku, being RandomlyGifted enough to master the legacy characters' futures is a pretty good way to illustrate it. In a similar vein, some people think that it would've been more emotionally resonating (and would've made more sense in-universe) if instead of calling herself "Rey Skywalker", Rey instead says she's "Just Rey"; a CallBack to the same response she had on Pasaana, but now stated with pride and confidence rather than uncertainty.
** Similarly others have pointed out it would have been more meaningful and powerful if Rey decided to go by "Rey Palpatine" in order to redeem the family name and destroy the original Palpatine's legacy.

* As mentioned above under TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter, the film doesn't show a whole lot of what the other Jedi were up to during the Clone Wars (to be fair, it took [[WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars an entire series]] along with several non-canon video games, novels, and comics to un-waste that). And perhaps most egregiously, it shows next to nothing of Anakin fighting the other Jedi in the Temple, instead showing only a couple of brief scenes of clone troopers fighting Jedi and one notoriously saddening scene where Anakin prepares to murder a group of younglings. There were plans to show more of him killing adult Jedi as ''Film/ANewHope'' describes, but these were also cut.

* The film never follows up on the story potential from ''The Last Jedi'' where Kylo frames Rey for the death of Snoke. No one on either side ever brings it up, even though having some First Order members suspecting that Kylo killed the previous Supreme Leader could be used to create or exacerbate tension between them.

* If they were going to bring Palpatine BackFromTheDead, one wonders why they didn't just have the main plot revolve around the First Order and/or Sith cultists trying to [[ResurrectTheVillain resurrect Palpatine]] and the Resistance trying to stop it, as opposed to Palpatine randomly being back with minimal explanation. They could even have incorporated Palpatine needing Rey and Kylo to fully restore himself, as he does in the film, such as them needing a blood relative of Palpatine and/or a blood relative of the person who killed Palpatine to resurrect him (''a la'' Voldemort's resurrection in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire''). Within the film itself, Palpatine's return is completely glossed over and not even addressed after the first five-ten minutes, nor is it really explained how Palpatine can use Rey and Ben's Force dyad to restore his power.

* Despite being the film's big twist, Rey being Palpatine's granddaughter has no lasting impact on her or the story beyond offering an explanation as to why she's so powerful (and potentially to appeal to fans who didn't like the 'Rey Nobody' explanation); Palpatine could've easily attempted to corrupt or possess Rey even if they weren't related, as he did just that to Anakin, Luke and numerous other people. We never get much complex insight into how Rey feels about her family now she knows the truth; she immediately rejects her grandfather (so there was never any real risk of her joining him) and seems to quickly get over her lifelong abandonment issues. She never attempts to actively find out more about her family; she finds most of the (scarce) information about her parents by accident/coincidence, or from what Kylo tells her (which she quickly accepts in spite of the source). It doesn't much affect Rey's relationships with other characters; Kylo treats her the same, Leia still trained Rey despite knowing the truth (and it's never explained how and when Leia found this out), Finn [[AmbiguousSituation possibly]] knows [[note]] he tells Poe that he doesn't know what Rey is going through, but he and Leia do [[/note]] but doesn't care about it or mention this to Rey, and Poe never finds out onscreen. Palpatine's feelings towards his family is also never explored in much depth and adds nothing to his characterization (not that this is too surprising as Palpatine was never a very complex character). The closest we get is Palpatine trying to persuade Rey to embrace her 'birthright' as his heir, but it only lasts a few scenes and seems to be merely a manipulation tactic. They could even have explored Palpatine trying to manipulate Rey by appealing to her compassion and their familial relationship, playing up the 'weak old man/doting father figure' act which he's done in the past to great effect, but instead he is [[ObviouslyEvil very blatant]] about his evil plans to her. J.J Abrams has stated that one of the main reasons he wrote Rey as being Palpatine's grandchild is because he thought it was even worse than hearing her parents were lowlife nobodies, but beyond adding more angst to Rey's backstory, not a lot else is done with it.

* The story of a character from a villainous family choosing to be good is certainly compelling fiction; but there's also something to be said for the tale set up in ''The Last Jedi'' where bloodlines don't matter. If we're going to stick with ''Rise of Skywalker'''s {{aesop}} -- you know, the one where choices matter more than family, and therefore heroes are made rather than born -- then Rey, the nobody from Jakku, being strong enough to master the legacy characters' futures is a pretty good way to illustrate it. In a similar vein, some people think that it would've been more emotionally resonating (and would've made more sense in-universe) if instead of calling herself "Rey Skywalker", Rey instead says she's "Just Rey"; a CallBack to the same response she had on Pasaana, but now stated with pride and confidence rather than uncertainty.

* Overlapping with WhatCouldHaveBeen, many people wish we could've seen more of Colin Trevorrow's original Episode IX script, ''Duel of the Fates'', incorporated into ''The Rise of Skywalker''. Some people go even further and think that the plotlines of ''Duel of the Fates'' sound better overall than the entirety of ''Rise'' and that they should've stuck more closely to that script. You can read plot details [[StarWars/WhatCouldHaveBeen here]].

* As controversial as "Reylo" is, Rey and Kylo's [[FoeRomanceSubtext complex relationship]] has a lot of dramatic potential, such as Rey feeling confused about her compassion (and potential attraction) for him and what it means for her own morality, Kylo feeling more conflicted or hesitant about his path on account of his affection for her, exploring whether Kylo feels remorse for harming her and what it would take for Rey to consider forgiving him. Then there's the fact that Rey has just found out she has an evil relative ''and'' a relative that apparently wanted her dead, giving her yet another thing in common with Kylo, while Kylo has found out he's been manipulated his whole life (again); Rey is reluctant to open up to her friends about this while Kylo doesn't ''have'' friends, which sets up an opportunity for them to confide in each other about their troubles (due to a lack of any other confidants if nothing else). In the film, however, their interactions are exclusively antagonistic until the third act; Rey heals a wound she dealt him, they attempt to take on Palpatine together after Ben's HeelFaceTurn, and Rey kisses him shortly before dies via a HeroicSacrifice. They don't have a single conversation following Ben's HeelFaceTurn, or any conversation that doesn't just dissolve into hostility, for that matter. For many viewers, Rey healing and later kissing Ben comes off as [[StrangledByTheRedString out-of-left-field]], as they weren't remotely close to being lovers or even friends based on their interactions up to this point.

* The film never follows up on the story potential from ''The Last Jedi'' where Kylo frames Rey for the death of Snoke. No one on either side ever brings it up, even though having some First Order members finding out or suspecting that Kylo killed the previous Supreme Leader could be used to create or exacerbate tension between them.

* [[WhatCouldHaveBeen The rough draft of the movie]] is considered by many to be superior to the final product: Obi-Wan is the main character rather than Qui-Gon (whose role is much smaller), Anakin has a less irritating and more mystical personality, Padmé and her plight are more interesting, Darth Maul has more dialogue, and ''Jar Jar Binks is actually tolerable'', as he and the other Gungans speak in plain English and actually receives CharacterDevelopment (becoming a wiser person through his experiences and even being a BadassNormal hero in the end battle rather than bumbling his way into victory).
* In the first chapter of the OriginStory of one of the most iconic villains in movie history, we learn that he was born into slavery on a backwater desert world, and had to win his freedom from his owners. While this ''could'' have been an interesting way to explore Vader's StartOfDarkness -- and a convincing explanation for his anger and hatred -- his actual experiences as a slave are quickly glossed over, and they're not shown to be particularly harsh. When Anakin's anger ''does'' begin to show itself in ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'' it's only directed towards the Tusken Raiders who killed his mother; he doesn't seem to bear any ill will towards the people who bought and sold him as property. However, this is averted with a ''vengeance'' in ''The Clone Wars''.

* Anakin's massacre of the Sand People, the first step he takes into the Dark Side. How will the other Jedi react to this atrocity? How will Obi-Wan? Could he be cast out, shunned, pushed further down the path to Vader? Well, no, because nobody ever finds out about it even in the next movie, and there aren't any direct consequences for it.
* Obi-Wan captures Zam Wessel! Now the Jedi have a lead for tracking down that mysterious assassin, someone who knows his identity and motivations, but someone they obviously can't fully trust. Intrigue ensues!... or would, if Wessel didn't die immediately upon capture. Instead Obi-Wan gets a lead rather clumsily from a one-scene pal at the diner, and we never really get to hear about Jango Fett's motivations.

* Related to the above: Padme's decoys are used for a non-reveal in ''Film/ThePhantomMenace'', for a LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt moment in ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'', and then completely forgotten. Rather than have Padme suicidally confront Anakin ''while pregnant'', why not use the decoys to let her escape after she and Obi-Wan realize he really can't be saved? If one of them actually died in such a way Vader and the Emperor think she's dead, that would resolve the gaping PlotHole created in ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' by Leia's memory of her mother by having Padme hide ''as her own decoy'' on Alderaan? At least do something other than create the decoys and then never use them in situations where it would actually make sense.
* As mentioned above under TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter, the film doesn't show a whole lot of what the other Jedi were up to during the Clone Wars(to be fair, it took several comics, video games, novels, and [[WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars an entire series]] to un-waste that). And perhaps most egregiously, it shows next to nothing of Anakin fighting the other Jedi in the Temple, instead showing only a couple of brief scenes of clone troops fighting Jedi and one notoriously saddening scene where Anakin prepares to murder a bunch of kids. There were plans to show more of him killing adult Jedi as ''Film/ANewHope'' describes, but these were also cut.

* Starkiller Base was a pale imitation of the Death Star from a storytelling standpoint. The Death Star was the main narrative focal plot of ''A New Hope''(to say nothing of ''Film/RogueOne'' later), with it being the reason Leia was chased by Vader and what the MacGuffin of the movie was entirely about. In ''The Force Awakens'', the Death Star plans were substituted for the map to Luke. However, Starkiller Base is brought in in the third act without any foreshadowing, is completely unrelated to the map, and its appearance wound up hijacking the original plot to find Luke. Because the final battle ended up being all about Starkiller Base, the initial plot thread of Luke's appearance is resolved by R2 acting as a DeusExMachina. It might have been more interesting if the final battle was about raiding a First Order base to steal the plans, with the tension instead about whether the First Order would get the location before the Resistance was able to.

* The movie opens with a crawl revealing that Palpatine is alive and back, completely throwing away any attempts at build up and mystery. There is no time for the galaxy to learn and react, no time for the heroes to debate what to do now, and there is no chance to explore the reaction of the First Order members, who might have been completely startled that the Emperor is back.

* Rey builds a new lightsaber for herself with a unique, personalized design; it's the first golden-bladed lightsaber seen in a theatrical ''Star Wars'' film and its handle is constructed from Rey's trusty staff. However, she never actually uses it onscreen and we only see it for a few seconds in the final scene of the movie. She continues using Anakin's repaired lightsaber - and it's never shown or explained how she managed to fix it either - even though its destruction at the end of the previous film sets up a perfect opportunity for Rey to build and use a new saber throughout ''The Rise of Skywalker''. It's possible the reason for this was because they needed to use Anakin's lightsaber to match up with the footage they still had of Carrie Fisher, but seeing Rey building her own saber as part of her Jedi training could've been interesting as well (and used to contrast her with Kylo reforging his helmet); however, we never see this either.

* Palpatine reveals his big evil plan is to have Rey strike him down, at which point he will pull a GrandTheftMe and take her body for himself to continue the Sith. This creates a SadisticChoice for both Rey and Ben during the finale; if they kill Palpatine, he'll simply possess Rey (or even perhaps Ben), at which point TheBadGuyWins, but they know they ''have'' to stop him somehow. This plot point makes the entire finale have a layer of complexity because there is no good answer for solving it: if one of them gets possessed, the other will have to kill them to stop him, or else Palpatine will win. This actually ties well into the idea of Rey needing the assistance of the previous Jedi, leading to perhaps a [[FightingFromTheInside mental fight against Palpatine]] with aid from the past Jedi while a possessed Rey tries to kill Ben. Despite this, and the movie making it very clear if Rey strikes him down this will occur, Rey somehow kills Palpatine completely and isn't possessed, simply by redirecting his Force Lightning back at him, and the plot point is never addressed.
* Despite being the movie's big twist, Rey being Palpatine's granddaughter has no lasting impact on her or the story beyond offering an explanation as to why she's so powerful (and potentially to appeal to fans who didn't like the 'Rey Nobody' explanation); Palpatine could've easily attempted to corrupt or possess Rey even if they weren't related, as he did just that to Anakin, Luke and numerous other people. We never get much complex insight into how Rey feels about her family now she knows the truth; she immediately rejects her grandfather (so there was never any real risk of her joining him) and seems to quickly get over her lifelong abandonment issues. She never attempts to actively find out more about her family; she finds most of the (scarce) information about her parents by accident/coincidence, or from what Kylo tells her (which she quickly accepts in spite of the source). It doesn't much affect Rey's relationships with other characters; Kylo treats her the same, Leia still trained Rey despite knowing the truth (and it's never explained how and when Leia found this out), Finn [[AmbiguousSituation possibly]] knows [[note]] he tells Poe that he doesn't know what Rey is going through, but he and Leia do [[/note]] but doesn't care about it or mention this to Rey, and Poe never finds out onscreen. Palpatine's feelings towards his family is also never explored in much depth and adds nothing to his characterization (not that this is too surprising as Palpatine was never a very complex character). The closest we get is Palpatine trying to persuade Rey to embrace her 'birthright' as his heir, but it only lasts a few scenes and seems to be merely a manipulation tactic. They could even have explored Palpatine trying to manipulate Rey by appealing to her compassion and their familial relationship, playing up the 'weak old man/doting father figure' act which he's done in the past to great effect, but instead he is [[ObviouslyEvil very blatant]] about his evil plans to her. J.J Abrams has stated that one of the main reasons he wrote Rey as being Palpatine's grandchild is because he thought it was even worse than hearing her parents were lowlife nobodies, but beyond adding more angst to Rey's backstory, not a lot else is done with it.
* This film reveals (via a flashback) that Luke did in fact train Leia as a Jedi; she even had her own lightsaber and serves as Rey's Jedi Master. While in this movie they couldn't have done much more with it due to Carrie Fisher's death, this does raise the question of why they didn't just have Leia as a Jedi right from the start of the Sequel Trilogy, especially as ''Return of the Jedi'' established that Leia had the potential to be just as powerful as Luke and he was tasked with passing on what he'd learned, perfectly setting up Leia to become a Jedi too. The film briefly explains that Leia stopped her training because she had foreseen it would somehow result in Ben's death, but this isn't explored in any depth either and it only really seems to have been added to handwave why Leia having Jedi training wasn't mentioned before. This underused plotline was particularly annoying for some fans, as in the ''Legends'' continuity Leia did in fact become a fully-fledged Jedi.

[[folder:''The Phantom Menance'']]

* Hux's role as the mole for the Resistance is revealed in a tense moment, and then he’s shot by Pryde soon after and it's never brought up again. No attempt is made to explain this choice beyond Hux telling Poe and Finn he hates Kylo, and Kylo himself gets no chance to react to it despite the small rivalry they had going.

* The fact that all the First Order stormtroopers are ChildSoldiers who were kidnapped and {{Brainwashed}} into is brought up as a plot point (and foreshadowed by the much larger collection of voices -- and death screams -- from troopers as Poe and Finn [[RedShirt blow them away]]), and then ''never mentioned again''... not even as a justification for taking down the bad guys. Having Finn and Jannah liberate other stormtroopers and/or persuade them to turn on the First Order could've made a cool subplot and would've been a great way to round off Finn's story arc, but this opportunity is never explored.

* The story of a character from a villainous family choosing to be good is certainly compelling fiction; but there's also something to be said for the tale set up in ''The Last Jedi'' where bloodlines don't matter. If we're going to stick with ''Rise of Skywalker'''s {{aesop}} -- you know, the one where choices matter more than family, and therefore heroes are made rather than born -- then Rey, the nobody from Jakku, being strong enough to master the legacy characters' futures is a pretty good way to illustrate it.

* As mentioned above under TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter, the film doesn't show a whole lot of what the other Jedi were up to during the Clone Wars. And perhaps most egregiously, it shows next to nothing of Anakin fighting the other Jedi in the Temple, instead showing only a couple of brief scenes of clone troops fighting Jedi and one notoriously saddening scene where Anakin prepares to murder a bunch of kids. There were plans to show more of him killing adult Jedi as ''Film/ANewHope'' describes, but these were also cut.

* Starkiller Base was a pale imitation of the Death Star from a storytelling standpoint. The Death Star was the main narrative focal plot of ''A New Hope'', with it being the reason Leia was chased by Vader and what the MacGuffin of the movie was entirely about. In ''The Force Awakens'', the Death Star plans were substituted for the map to Luke. However, Starkiller Base is brought in in the third act without any foreshadowing, is completely unrelated to the map, and its appearance wound up hijacking the original plot to find Luke. Because the final battle ended up being all about Starkiller Base, the initial plot thread of Luke's appearance is resolved by R2 acting as a DeusExMachina. It might have been more interesting if the final battle was about raiding a First Order base to steal the plans, with the tension instead about whether the First Order would get the location before the Resistance was able to.
* The conflict between the [[TheRepublic New Republic]] and the [[TheRemnant First Order]]. When the film opens, the former Rebel Alliance has apparently become a galaxy-wide superpower, while the remnants of the [[TheEmpire Galactic Empire]] have apparently become [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything a small band of rebel militants hiding out in a secret base]]--essentially [[HourglassPlot reversing their roles in the original trilogy]]. Despite potentially being pretty interesting, this angle is never really explored; we never get to see the New Republic in action before [[spoiler: the First Order destroys their capital]], and we only get to see the First Order battling [[LaResistance the Resistance]]--''another'' small band of guerrilla militants.

* The story of a character from a villainous family choosing to be good is certainly compelling fiction. But is the main character of that story Rey Palpatine? Or that of her father, the failed clone who fell in love, escaped and did his best to save the galaxy? There's a ''Rogue One''-style story begging to be told there.
* This one almost goes without saying, but: the story of a character from a villainous family choosing to be good is certainly compelling fiction; but there's also something to be said for the tale set up in ''The Last Jedi'' where bloodlines don't matter. If we're going to stick with ''Rise of Skywalker'''s {{aesop}} -- you know, the one where choices matter more than family, and therefore heroes are made rather than born -- then Rey From Nowhere (Jakku) (Okay, That's Pretty Much Nowhere) being strong enough to master not only House Palpatine but House Skywalker too is a pretty good way to illustrate it.

** A highly important plot point brought up in the film is that the Resistance are still clearly outmatched and outnumbered by the First Order, and so they [[GondorCallsForAid desperately need to persuade the rest of the galaxy to join the cause to achieve victory]]. This ends up being largely glossed over; it's only really addressed by having Lando recruit a whole bunch of random, mostly unidentified people offscreen in time for [[TheCavalry the climax]] and it receives no further elaboration. Some viewers even argue that focusing on recruiting allies would've made a better central plot or at least B-plot, as opposed to the convoluted {{fetch quest}} that dominates the film (which is ultimately [[AllForNothing rendered mostly pointless]] anyway when Kylo destroys Rey's Wayfinder).