Return of the Jedi ends on such a high note. The Rebels are victorious. The Emperor is dead. The Empire is on the verge of collapse. It was the dawn of a New Republic.

But when we rejoin our heroes in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, everything has fallen apart. The First Order is rising. Luke Skywalker is missing. Han Solo’s quit the Republic and he’s hanging out with Chewbacca and smuggling again like a dad from the suburbs who buys a Mustang and starts dressing like he did in college.

Despite the mega-happy-ending in Return of a Jedi, the New Republic was always doomed to fail. The new video from ScreenCrush’s Ryan Arey uses the long history of Star Wars novels to explain what went wrong — and why it was basically a foregone conclusion that this would happen:

If you liked this video about why the New Republic from the original Star Wars trilogy was doomed to fail, check out some of our other videos, including our theory about the possible time travel in The Empire Strikes Back, our recap of the entire series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and our bigger recap of all of Star Wars. Plus, there’s tons more over at ScreenCrush’s YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe to catch all our future episodes.

Gallery — Our Favorite Rise of Skywalker Easter Eggs:

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