bobinator said:
So we basically think it's something like this?
- There's an army of the republic, but in classic Star Wars bureaucratic tradition they aren't doing anything about The First Order, who are amassing strength at the edge of the Galaxy, taking prisoners to turn into Stormtroopers, and also building a secret weapon.
- Leia, like her mother, gets upset that they aren't doing anything and decides to lead a rag tag band of people who can see the true threat of the First Order
- The First Order decides they're powerful enough to make a move and wipes out the entire republic and its military (the attack is super effective!) in one strike
- The Resistance attacks the First Order, wipes out their super secret weapon, and in response the First Order goes after The Resistance
- Now at this point, the First Order COULD just stop chasing the resistance and start taking over the galaxy or settling down to its favorite past-time with some hot and heavy trade negotiations, but they're (now led by Kylo Ren) obsessed with wiping out the Resistance first?
- So maybe TROS begins with a galaxy in chaos (are we even still using republic credits? did they bring those back? is it SithCoin now or what are we doing?), maybe Hux has control over most of the First Order and they're going around taking over systems while Ren is hunting down Rey? (Because at this point there really isn't a 'resistance' there's just 'a handful of people on this ship with Rey.')
That about the gist of it? Do we need any more than that?
Exactly. Except they should have actually shown those first couple bullet points, and made the FO just a bit more of a mystery at the outset.