Maître Corbeau, sur un arbre perché, Tenait en son bec un fromage. Maître Renard, par l'odeur alléché, Lui tint à peu près ce langage: Et bonjour, Monsieur du Corbeau, Que vous êtes joli ! que vous me semblez beau! Sans mentir, si votre ramage, Se rapporte à votre plumage,Vous êtes le Phénix des hôtes de ces bois. À ces mots le Corbeau ne se sent pas de joie, Et pour montrer sa belle voix,Il ouvre un large bec, laisse tomber sa proie. Le Renard s'en saisit, et dit : Mon bon Monsieur, Apprenez que tout flatteur, Vit aux dépens de celui qui l'écoute. Cette leçon vaut bien un fromage sans doute. Le Corbeau honteux et confus, Jura, mais un peu tard, qu'on ne l'y prendrait plus.
Which will be on a giant floating space station that resembles a moon...
It would be a far more compelling story if the bad guys would ever realize that simply disseminating themseleves EVERYWHERE works far better than putting all of their power players onto one giant explody thing. But they'd probably need more than 1 movie for the Resistance to rebuild and address a more widespread/less focused threat.
Not to mention that the entire GALACTIC Republic's Fleet was on a handful of planets in one star system? The first order should still be behind the 8 ball compared to the fleet needed to keep tabs on a society that stretches across an entire galaxy.
The whole ship thing is weird to me - ostensibly, the Resistance was utilizing the Republic's remaining fleet for many of the bigger vessels (crew transports, medical frigates, etc.), as well as their lightweight combat ships. Meanwhile, the First Order was buying/sourcing their fleet en masse from ...somewhere large, presumably? Then in TLJ, while on the stolen ship, Finn, Rose, and Benicio discover that the oligarchs are selling ships to both sides, but logically, how does that work?
The Resistance would be acquiring any ships on a limited basis, given their few numbers (and presumably somewhat scant financial resources) whereas the First Order would be placing giant orders from large companies, and would likely not take kindly to discovering that a supplier was also providing ships to their enemy. What possible purpose could there be in one corporation/seller risking the sale of a few ships to the Resistance while the First Order is breathing down their neck?
Unless it's meant to be taken more literally, and the owner of the stolen shuttle was selling
individual TIE fighter and X wing units, but that makes even
less sense - it's not like the First Order is buying one TIE fighter at a time! (Though, actually, it *would* make sense if they'd sold both First Order and Resistance ships to someone in the Resistance - they're always sneaking past the defenses on enemy ships!) I suppose at some point one must simply shrug it off as "don't think about the movie logic too hard or it will break." And of course that whole bit was really meant to deliver the general message of "rich/bad people make money off of war, while innocent people die fighting said war."
General (admiral? I dunno) Leia used her personal code for the distress signal. There was no response. Radio silence. I don't think they can recover the rebellion from this, and all the talk of "balance", particularly the idea that Rey's immense power only exists to counter Kylo's immense power, and that had Kylo not risen (from the skywalker line) Rey would not have been this superpower, suggests to me that there's a similar balance in the galaxy for the federation/first order/rebellion/etc.
...
I suspect the rebellion is going to have to be reborn, probably as something else.
For all the "we've put out distress signals to all our friends in all the places" talk, when they said that, my immediate thought was "Whom are they trying to signal? Everyone we (the audience) know about is either hiding out there in the Alamo, or dead. If someone comes in to rescue them, it'll have to be someone entirely new (or Lando, I guess?) and it's
awfully late in the movie to introduce new friends..." So, they were always going to be on their own to save themselves and try to rebuild their ranks.
In TLJ, we see the seeds of the new rebellion forming with the Force-sensitive kids, but it'll take a decade or more for them to be useful. Unless there is a (very) significant timeskip for IX, they're going to have to recruit help from their contemporaries, but maybe that will be the impetus to reforming a more balanced Galactic senate?
. But it all turned out in the end!