'The Last Jedi' Part 2: New Star Wars novel reveals what came next for the Resistance

There have been a handful of Lucasfilm-licensed books and comics that pick up a story immediately after the end of a particular Star Wars movie. But never have they done so with the latest movie in the Skywalker saga. Fans have never been in uncharted territory with a book, able to learn what happened to our heroes after the credits rolled, secure in the knowledge that the story is on the same official storytelling level as the movies.

That changes with the publication of Resistance Reborn. This novel, by award-winning speculative fiction newcomer Rebecca Roanhorse, picks up five minutes after the end of 2017's The Last Jedi. We already know that the on-screen successor to that film, The Rise of Skywalker, will pick up more than a year after the events of Jedi. So there's more than enough space in time to whet our appetite, prepare us for what's coming, and rendezvous with some old friends along the way who may or may not make it into the final episode.

Battle scars

When last we saw the Resistance, you may recall, it had been whittled down to a ragtag handful, prior to a desperate last stand on the planet Crait. A Force-projected Luke held the First Order at bay while Rey helped General Leia, Finn, Poe Dameron, the droids and a few dozen friends escape aboard the Millennium Falcon. Poe has his elite Black Squadron of ships, but otherwise pretty much the entire Resistance could fit in that room on the Falcon where they play Djarak (holographic chess).

Last Jedi ended on a relatively up beat, with Leia looking around and saying the friends had all they needed. But of course, that wasn't true. The Resistance desperately needs a base and more allies. They need to figure out why not one of their allies, save Luke's ghost, answered the distress call on Crait (the answer is not "because nobody cared"). Leia, meanwhile, has more grief than she can possibly process.

And speaking of processing, Poe has to wrestle with the fact that his mutiny against the late Vice Admiral Holdo caused the annihilation of much of the Resistance fleet.

All of this is dealt with — at a much more relaxed pace than the frenetic Last Jedi — in Resistance Reborn. Think of it as somewhere between an epilogue and The Last Jedi Part 2. Roanhorse also finds time to check in with old friends such as Maz Kanata, who helps Poe and team by sending them on another one of her heist-based quests, and really old friends such as Wedge Antilles, now the only pilot left in the galaxy who took part in the attack on the original Death Star. Read this extract where Wedge finds out what happened to his old buddy Red Five, a.k.a. Luke Skywalker, and weep.

Poe, faced

One aspect of the narrative that doesn't quite land, unfortunately, has to do with Poe. Roanhorse shows him trying to come to terms with the mess he made of the Resistance, and going to extraordinary lengths around the galaxy to make up for it. But at the same time, she can't help stuffing the narrative with references to legit snack Oscar Isaac.

The upshot is that Poe comes across as both deeply tortured and vain at the same time. He is both perpetually proud of and fussing with his hair, as in a scene where a new pilot challenges him to a race in which Poe will have to cut his locks if he loses "so I know you will really try." Poe "would win. He had to. He loved his hair."

And that's not even the weirdest moment of Poe fashion fandom. Let your eyes skim over this tweet if you don't want to be spoiled on what the hotshot pilot is required to wear with his suit during a mission in which he's posing as an arms dealer from Canto Bight:

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Good news for Finn-Poe 'shippers: Cravat-wearing Poe then has a bow-tie-tying moment with Finn as they stand chin-to-chin in tuxedos. Bad news: that's as steamy as things get.

Overall, Resistance Reborn is kind of an Avengers: Endgame situation, in that you will get more out of the book if you have been following the sequel trilogy-era novels all along.

For example, this book may not be as essential a story as the excellent Bloodline, a gripping novel where Princess Leia runs for chancellor of the New Republic and her true parentage is revealed to a shocked galaxy. But it does feature an old friend from that book, and your emotional experience will be enhanced if you know who they are and what they did.

It's going to be a long wait until Rise of Skywalker is released on December 20. For now, once Resistance Reborn is out next week, we have all we need.