(01-09-2016, 03:54 PM)Highland Laddie Wrote: Also, what the heck was the Republic doing for 30 years while these guys were building this thing? You'd think somebody would have noticed.
As I said in my post (and I've now seen a couple of reviewers bring up the same point), they actually needed to include more politics/galactic background for the last thirty years; maybe not to Phantom Menace levels though.
Purely from the film, no-one would have any idea about the Republic having trouble trying to save costs and using the disarmament of the fleet as a positive symbol of the peace process working (obviously the Imperial Remnant did not like the peace terms, and hence some of them became the First Order).