Western Animation / Star Wars Resistance

Some heroes stick to the plan, others just wing it.

"We are the Resistance now."

— Kazuda Xiono, "Descent"

Star Wars Resistance is an animated science-fiction comedy television series set in the Star Wars franchise. It is created by Dave Filoni (Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels) and executive-produced by Filoni, Athena Portillo, Justin Ridge and Brandon Auman (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Iron Man: Armored Adventures).

Beginning six months prior to the events of The Force Awakens, Resistance depicts the story of young Resistance pilot Kazuda Xiono (Christopher Sean), who is given a top-secret mission by Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) and General Organa (Carolyn Hennessy) to spy on the First Order at the Outer Rim fuelling station Colossus. Working undercover as a mechanic, Poe stations him with an old friend of his, a veteran pilot named Jarek Yeager (Scott Lawrence), who runs a starship repair shop on the Colossus with his crewmembers Tamara "Tam" Ryvora (Suzie McGrath), Neeku Vozo (Josh Brener), and Bucket. Along the way, Kazuda befriends starfighter racer Torra Doza (Myrna Velasco), and accompanied by BB-8, he keeps his true mission a secret from his newfound friends — after all, you never know who's a friend in the Outer Rim.

The show premiered on Disney Channel on October 7, 2018 and then moved to Disney XD. The second and final season aired from October 6, 2019 to January 26, 2020.

Star Wars Resistance is followed in production order by the seventh season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

Please move any character tropes to the proper Character page.

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Star Wars Resistance provides examples of:

• Aborted Arc:
  • In "The High Tower", the First Order threatens to reveal Doza's connections to the Galactic Underworld if he reports them to the New Republic, explaining why Doza can't just do that. What these connections are is never explained.
  • When Kaz gets back in contact with his father in early Season 2, he warns him that there might be bounty hunters going after him because of the First Order. Though he does encounter Tagrin who tries to turn him in, this was a coincidental meeting and no bounty hunters are seen going after him during the show.
  • "The Engineer" seems to set up a Sequel Hook for Nena's return considering her status as the Love-Interest Traitor, as well as Pyre and Tierny voicing intents to kill her for failing them if they ever see her again. However, the show ends without Nena returning, with Pyre and Tierny also being killed in the finale.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: Neeku's design is much softer and cuter than most examples of the reptilian Kadas'sa'Nikto race. This is mostly a combination of the art style, and the fact that Neeku is a lot younger than most examples of the species seen so far. The same applies to Oplock, a Esral'sa'Nikto.
• Adopt the Food: Flix and Orka make the gorg Kaz got them in the first episode, originally intended as lunch, into their pet, and name him Bitey.
• Adventure Town: The series is set on the Colossus, an old refueling platform on the Outer Rim ocean world of Castilon, a haven for smugglers, fighter pilots, and criminals that's now of interest to both the Resistance and the First Order.
• Agony of the Feet: BB-8 has a distinct tendency to roll over Kaz's feet.
• All-CGI Cartoon: Like the previous Star Wars animated series, the show uses CG animation. Unlike them it uses cel-shading, making it look significantly different.
• The Alleged Car:
  • The Fireball, the ship Kaz is loaned to race in, is old and has a distinct tendency to malfunction and fall apart while it's being flown. It seems Resistance mechanics were able to fix most of the ship with Tam none the wiser.
  • In season 2, the Colossus itself takes this role, as an old Imperial refuelling platform that hasn't moved, let alone been in space, for 20 years before the escape from Castilon, with a multitude of mechanical problems as a result. Torra is surprised it can still fly.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: Synara is a purple-skinned member of the Mirialan species, of which most examples seen up until now were green.
• Animesque: It has been described as being anime-like, as evidenced by the show's cel-shaded art style, character design, and the more over-the-top expressive way the characters are animated when compared to the more realistic The Clone Wars and Rebels. It tends towards a Studio Ghibli style more than mainstream anime, though, with many settings and characters that would look right at home in one of their films.
• Apathetic Citizens: Many residents of the Colossus are blind to the dangers of the First Order, even after they take over the platform and begin taking away people's rights. Tam, one of the main characters, has a particularly bad case of this.
• Artificial Gravity: "Into the Unknown" takes place almost entirely in zero-G as Kaz, Torra, Neeku and CB-23 try to repair the Colossus' broken gravity generators.
• Artistic License – Gun Safety: In "Signal from Sector Six", Poe, a trained soldier, fires his gun at the ceiling without checking to see what's up there (in an unfamiliar environment) to get the attention of some Kowakian monkey-lizards that are attacking Kazuda. A few seconds later, a dead one falls from the ceiling.
• Asteroid Thicket:
  • Kaz and Poe enter one to find a freighter transmitting a distress signal in "Signal from Sector Six".
  • Station Theta-Black is also located in one of these.
  • The season 2 trailer also has a couple of these as settings for battles.
• Author Appeal: Filoni has said that he partially started working on the show due to his love of sky battles.
• Beneath Notice:
  • The Chelidae act as maintenance workers and custodians for the station. They look slow and unassuming, but they are everywhere on the station and they know just about everything going on in the station.
  • As is commonplace in the franchise, droids usually go unnoticed during battles and subsequently wind up playing major roles.
• Beyond Redemption:
  • After Tam joins the First Order, Kaz tries to apologize for his actions and reach out to them, but Yeager accepts that there's nothing else they can do for her and Synara later convinces Kaz to do the same because his attempts are both futile and putting the Colossus at risk. And Neeku unpersons her after that. However, as we see from Tam's perspective, there's still hope for her.
  • However, the same can't be said for Rucklin, who is too far gone and winds up paying for it with his life in the finale.
• Big Bad: Captain Phasma is initially the primary antagonist of the series, directing proxy forces, like Kragan Gorr's pirates, to act in the First Order's stead, so that she may station an occupational force on the Colossus. However, she departs halfway through the first season when the show crosses over with The Force Awakens, leaving Commander Pyre as one of the new Big Bads for the rest of the season.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Commander Pyre and Agent Tierny are presented as the main antagonists from the first season finale through the second season as they hunt down the fleeing Colossus, though they're acting under General Hux and Kylo Ren.
• Bilingual Bonus: The sponsors on Hype's droid read a snow cone chain called "Snoke Cones" and a food company called "Admiral Snackbar". Why two food companies would be called those is anyone's guess.
• Bit Character: Due to the show's emphasis on its enclosed setting, the background cast is much more consistent rather than having Palette Swaps of the same handful of models reappearing throughout The Clone Wars and Rebels. Almost all of the bit characters have names and don't usually have clones. A few examples from these bunch are Al (the old man frequently seen drinking at Aunt Z's), Glem (the large Rodian resident), Skreek (the Trandoshan pirate), and Tierny and Pyre's fleet lieutenant (seen throughout Season 2).
• Black Comedy:
  • There’s quite a few jokes about racers dying by having their ship explode/crash or getting thrown off the Colossus if they back out of a race, in which either they die from falling headfirst or getting eaten by the various sea monsters that lurk in Castilon's waters.
  • Black Comedy Pet Death: In "The Triple Dark", Neeku mentions he once had a pet named "Lucky", but then it died. Then enthusiastically mentions he ate it afterward and that it was delicious, but his mood goes down again when he mentions it gave him gas.
  • Black Comedy Animal Cruelty: In "Bibo", Neeku is forced to give up his new pet after its mother wreaks destruction on the Colossus, and is clearly still depressed about it a few days later. To cheer him up, Kaz gifts him a new pet gorg. Neeku promptly eats it alive and then perks up, thanking Kaz for the delicious meal and saying that he's happier now. In "Rendezvous Point", Neeku makes a a birthday cake for Torra, which is basically a giant blob of jello with a live gorg in the center.
• Bling of War: Commander Pyre is a First Order stormtrooper officer with gold-plated armor.
• Breather Episode: Being released between the releases of Rebels and The Clone Wars Season 7, Resistance is notably more simpler and calmer. Most of the characters aren't troubled by their Dark and Troubled Pasts nor are they active fighters on the frontline, and there's more emphasis on lighter moments and comedy. That isn't to say the show is without serious moments or emotional depth, however.
• Call-Back: In Poe Dameron #26, Poe says that "[he] had to make a quick detour to pick up BB-8" right before he had to head for Jakku. Towards the end of Season 1, BB-8 returns to Poe's possession in time for this.
• Canon Immigrant: Oplock is a Mountain Nikto, one of the four Nikto species that originated in Legends.
• Cassandra Truth: Kaz's attempts to warn his co-workers about the threat of the First Order are initially dismissed, much to his frustration.
• Casting Gag: The voice of Venisa, Tasia Valenza, previously played a pilot in Space: Above and Beyond who was a member of the Wild Cards flight squadron, whose callsigns were based on each of the playing card suits and non-numerical ranks (ex. her character's callsign was "Queen of Spades"). Now here, her family's flight squadron is called Ace Squadron.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Starting in the second half of Season 1, the show begins to get quite serious.
• Character as Himself: Bucket. Like Chopper before him, he secretly has a voice actor, who is revealed in the finale's end credits to be one of the show's creators, Justin Ridge.
• Cel Shading: A major part of the show's art style, courtesy of Polygon Pictures.
• Chrome Champion: In addition to Phasma and Vonreg, there's the golden stormtrooper Commander Pyre.
• Close on Title: Each episode's title is, like Rebels, only shown early in the credits.
• Continuity Nod:
  • One of the banners in Aunt Z's Tavern is the symbol of the Protector of Concord Dawn. There's also a Mandalorian Protector helmet and an Imperial Supercommando helmet there on display.
  • Torra's racer number is 5, which is decorated on her shoulder pads, similar to Sabine. Also, this is the fourth time the number 5 has been prominently associated with a character, the other times being with Fives, and Luke Skywalker/Red 5.
  • Aunt Z has a space waffle tattoo. Space waffles were first seen in Rebels.
  • Poe mentions the battles of Scarif and Jakku. Yeager also served at the Battle of Jakku.
  • Yeager and his family took a picture on Batuu, the setting of the Galaxy's Edge attraction. Thrawn: Alliances, released prior to Resistance, used Batuu as a setting, introducing it to canon for the first time as a tie-in to Galaxy's Edge.
  • Torra has a poster of Sabine's starbird in her bedroom.
  • Marcus gets in debt to the Guavian Death Gang because he destroyed one of their ships on Rishi.
  • Kragan buys a bunch of Clone Wars-era Super Battle Droids from the Crimson Corsair, who has been raiding and salvaging old Clone Wars military bases and installations with the help of Kix.
  • Some assets are reused from The Clone Wars and Rebels, such as the posters in Rucklin's hangar or the company sponsors listed on Hype's droid.
• Contrasting Sequel Setting: Downplayed, as most of episodes are set aboard the Colossus in both seasons.However, in the fist season, the Colossus is repurposed as an old Imperial refuelling off-shore platform that doesn't move from Castilon, meaning that once Kazuda lands on the platform, all the season 1 episodes (but one) are set on Castillon, and generally on the Colossus and its vicinity. Meanwhile, after the Colossus is reactivated and becomes a space station again, one of the major plots of season 2 is to find a place away from the First Order, where land or orbite, meaning that almost every episode will show at least one new planet - Castillon reappearing only once in the entire season 2.
• Cool Starship:
  • All of the Aces' various racers.
  • The Fireball eventually qualifies by the end of season 1, once it's been fixed up enough.
  • The Colossus turns out to be a mobile space station, and once it's been launched back into space at the end of season 1...
• Cover Identity Anomaly: Kaz's cover is that he's a mechanic and aspiring pilot. So his distinct lack of mechanical skills is enough of a problem to make Tam suspicious. He's slowly picking up skill, though.
• Cowardly Lion: Kaz is almost always this when he gets involved in a fight or has to do something really dangerous. Despite being visibly terrified, he will still see the situation through to the end.
• Dark and Troubled Past:
  • Yeager's wife and daughter were killed in a racing accident some years prior to the start of the show and he clearly misses them dearly. And just to rub salt into the wound, the racer responsible for the accident was Yeager's brother Marcus. Yeager estranged himself from Marcus and the two don't meet again until ten years later during the show.
  • Tierny grew up scraping by and blamed her circumstances on the New Republic, leading to her joining the First Order.
  • As a child, Nena was captured by pirates and enslaved to the Hutts. It took years for her to escape.
  • Synara was a street orphan on Vanqor until Kragan found her and took her in, raising her as his own daughter.
• Day of the Jackboot: From "The First Order Occupation" on, the First Order's presence becomes increasingly oppressive as they slowly take control of the Colossus in the name of "security". By "The Disappeared", they have started arresting and removing citizens who protest their authority, lock down the platform, and post pro-First Order propaganda in the public areas of the station.
• Denser and Wackier: Compared to its predecessor shows, Resistance has more emphasis on the cartoonish and whimsical sides of The Clone Wars and Rebels. For starters, the Running Gag of the show's Series Mascot animal being Eaten Alive, Kaz's clumsiness causing problems, the Non Standard Character Designs, and so on.
• Doesn't Like Guns: Not explicitly stated, but a poster seen in the background at the entrance of the Colossus states that blasters are banned from the platform as a safety precaution. As a result, blasters are used a lot less in this show than previous entries. The only characters seen carrying blasters are Yeager (who was probably permitted), Poe (who isn't a permanent resident), the pirates, and the First Order (who actually made Captain Doza mad when they fired at Kaz, and he later requests them to follow his rules, in which they only shoot at Kaz and co. when it was clear they were enemies and they were in a space without civilians). This means that when threats like the pirates or the First Order come by, the cast usually are forced to run or be creative.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • Kaz is concerned that the Colossus is letting the First Order go there, despite being a cult that follows The Empire. Tam simply states that just like anyone else, they’re allowed to come here. Many people are uncomfortable with it, but ultimately assume that they're just harmless and that they should be treated fairly like everyone else.
  • Kaz and Tam get into an argument about whether or not the First Order's growing presence on the Colossus is a good thing. Kaz argues that they're Obviously Evil because of their origins, as well as forcing them to stay on the platform and placing unreasonably strict rules on them, while Tam counters that the First Order is here to keep them safe and that they have to sacrifice some of their values for the greater good. Political discussions like these (besides the audience already knowing that the First Order is definitely evil) are not uncommon in real life.
• Dramatic Irony: Poe describes Station Theta-Black as the largest First Order facility he's ever heard of. An establishing shot of Starkiller Base is shown shortly after this.
• Dressing as the Enemy:
  • "The New Trooper" involves Kaz impersonating stormtrooper CS-515 to see if he reported Kaz and Eila's presence on the Colossus.
  • Kaz and Neeku infiltrate the Titan as First Order technicians in Season 2, but their disguises were poorly thought out because their faces are practically visible and recognizable to anyone who's personally familiar with them.
• Eaten Alive: Played for laughs. Gorgs are only seen being served alive and never cooked. Evidently, this is quite normal on the Colossus (or at least among the more alien residents), as Kaz finds this strange and is disturbed when he sees Neeku munching down on one. A Nikto cake made by Neeku for Torra's birthday also consists of a living gorg encased in gelatin.
• Enemy Mine: In the season 1 finale, the Warbird gang allies with the Colossus against the First Order as revenge for being backstabbed by them earlier. The alliance continues into season 2, but on fairly uneasy terms.
• Engineered Heroics: The First Order ends their partnership with Kragan's pirate crew (and further cements their position on the Colossus) in this way, manipulating them into kidnapping Torra for triple the payment, but then rescuing her after she's captured and delivering her safely back home in order to gain Captain Doza's trust.
• Extremely Short Timespan: The final episodes of Season 1 take place during the same few days as The Force Awakens, with "The Core Problem" starting the day before Poe's mission to Jakku. "The Disappeared" lasts from morning to the next morning, leading straight into "Descent". "No Escape, Part I" and "Part II" take place the same day as "Descent" or the next day.
• Face–Heel Turn: Tam is manipulated by Agent Tierny into believing that the Resistance is evil and so are Kaz and Yeager, who have been using her and Neeku solely to advance their own goals without any genuine regard for their well-being. When Tierny gives her an offer to join the First Order as a pilot, she takes it up in the Season 1 finale.
• The Faceless: Captain Doza's droids, which makes their presence feel unnerving, cold, and intimidating.
• Failure Is the Only Option: The crew will never get the Fireball in a condition where it won't literally crash and burn, no matter how much they try. Or so they say. Finally subverted when it actually manages to hold together long enough for an entire battle in "Bibo", likely due to the handiwork of the Resistance mechanics in the previous episode, "Station Theta-Black". As for Tam, she'll never achieve her dream to become a racer.
• Famed In-Story: Marcus, Yeager's younger brother, is such a famous professional racer that Kaz and Tam visibly freak when they meet him. They're also shocked that Yeager and Marcus even know each other, let alone that they're related.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Jarek Yeager and Marcus "Speedstar" Yeager. Marcus is a glory-hound out for fame and fortune who also ended up getting involved in gang activity and organized crime. Meanwhile, Jarek would rather stay out of racing and stick to a quieter life as a mechanic and shop owner.
• Foregone Conclusion:
  • Zigzagged. Resistance eventually catches up to The Force Awakens (and therefore The Last Jedi), that point of time being the Season 1 finale. But other than that, The Rise of Skywalker will come out during Season 2, so viewers have no idea how post-The Last Jedi content in Resistance will go, similar to how Clone Wars led up to the release of Revenge of the Sith.
  • Obviously, the crew aren't going to make it to D'Qar before the Resistance evacuates when they take off in that direction in "No Escape, Part II". At the end, Neeku tells Kaz and Yeager that he ran out of time to input the entire coordinates. In "Into the Unknown", they drop out of hyperspace 3 parsecs from their destination and have to stop for repairs to the Artificial Gravity, and when they finally make it to D'Qar in "A Quick Salvage Run", the battle and evacuation have already happened.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Tam's lack of concern about the First Order in earlier episodes like "The High Tower" is an early hint at her eventual path by the end of the season.
  • The truth about the Colossus is hinted at early:
    • In several early episodes, lights are visible in the ocean that seem to just be reflections from the station... but are actually coming from the submerged sections of the Colossus.
    • In "The First Order Occupation", it turns out that the Colossus has escape pods, in the newly-introduced underwater section. Now, what would a stationary depot need with a bank of underwater escape pods, especially as there's only one left? A Space Station, on the other hand...

• Greater-Scope Villain: While Phasma is The Heavy, Snoke and Kylo Ren act behind the scenes. The first we hear of Kylo Ren, he attacked a village on Tehar and killed off a prominent family as revealed in "The Children from Tehar", and Captain Phasma was under orders to capture the surviving children. "The Relic Raiders" then has Kaz encounter the First Order Raiders, who are collecting Sith artifacts for the Supreme Leader, and the finale has the man himself threaten and kill the show's main villains for failing him for the last time.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Averted, with plenty of lampshades in all directions. Kaz is a terrible shot and basically useless in combat if he's not flying, so when he needs a fighter, he calls on Synara, who handles both the smashing and the shooting.
• Hard Truth Aesop: Tam's Face–Heel Turn in the Season 1 finale shows that genuinely good people can still be so biased to wrongly support evil causes that you won't be able to successfully talk them out of it.
• Hated by All: Unsurprisingly, no one in the Colossus likes the First Order anytime they come to visit. But no one does anything about it because the First Order is allowed to come there like anyone else and they're not perceived as being any worse than groups like the Guavian Death Gang. However, disdain for them sets in full force among most residents after they occupy the platform and begin to curtail freedoms.
• Hero of Another Story: The days of the Galactic Civil War in the backstories of Yeager, Marcus, Doza ^note  and by extension Griff, since it was one of his soldier who defected from the Empire by personal loyalty toward him, and Venisa could well work as stories told outside of the show. It particularly works well with Venisa and Doza, whose story of Starcrossed Lovers and Love Redeems may bring to mind a Lost Stars-esque tale.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Kazuda's clumsiness and naivete towards how things work on the Colossus earn him a reputation of being a complete numnoid. At least it means he's the last person anybody would suspect of being a spy.
• If It Swims, It Flies: The Colossus is not just an oceanic depot that can sink beneath the water. It's a hyperspace-capable mobile space station.
• Infraction Distraction: Part of why Kaz being a spy works. Nobody would suspect a dummy like Kaz to be able to perform espionage and perform it well.
• Intelligent Gerbil: The Chelidae are pretty much intelligent turtles.
• Interquel: It's set after the founding of the Resistance in Bloodline, but before the Sequel Trilogy. It starts taking place simultaneously with the movies late in Season 1.
• In the End, You Are on Your Own: Towards the end of Season 1, the First Order takes over the Colossus during the events of The Force Awakens, meaning that the people of the Colossus have to save the station themselves without help from the Resistance. They do however, get Kragan's pirates for reinforcements instead of the Resistance.
• Irony: The main First Order villains (or at least Tierny, as far as we know) are more loyal and dedicated to the First Order than Kylo (who is only doing this out of an obsession to be like his grandfather), Phasma (who only joined because Ambition Is Evil and ends up betraying them a couple of times for her own preservation), and Hux (who likewise betrays the First Order to spite Kylo) are.
• Knight of Cerebus:
  • The First Order cast are played completely seriously and their appearance usually involves developments in the plot.
  • General Hux when he gives his speech preceding the destruction of Hosnian Prime, and with the same chilling effect as he did in The Force Awakens (especially considering it's the same audio of Domhnall Gleeson's menacing performance).
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Season 2 promotional material, starting with the official poster, doesn't make any effort to hide the Colossus' status as a Space Station and its departure from Castilon or Tam's Face–Heel Turn.
• Lead You Can Relate To: A young space-Asian boy who wants to be an Ace Pilot, a young space-Latina girl who is an Ace Pilot, a feisty black girl who also wants to be an Ace Pilot, an alien dude with an ambiguous disorder (voiced by a Jewish actor), and their boss is an older black man who is a war veteran.
• Left Hanging: The show ends with Tam rejoining the Colossus, but a number of things are left open-ended/unanswered, such as how Kazuda's family survived Hosnian Prime's destruction, how the Colossus meets up with the Resistance, and so on.
• Leave No Witnesses: The First Order doesn't want the New Republic to know about its violations of the various treaties, its expansion in the Unknown Regions and the various atrocities it has committed. So in one episode, Commander Pyre is dispatched to the Colossus to eliminate the two remaining witnesses to the First Order's operations on Tehar.
• Lighter and Softer: Compared to both of the previous shows, as well as the Disney-era movies. Justified, since unlike The Clone Wars and Rebels, which were both set during periods of galactic civil war, Resistance begins in a period of relative peacetime shortly before the Cold War between the Resistance and the First Order fully ignites into open conflict. While the series does begin to get darker as it approaches the end of Season 1, and darker still as it reaches the end of Season 2, overall it remains a more easygoing tale than Rebels, and especially The Clone Wars.
• Limited Wardrobe: Poe is the only character who wears more than one change of clothes on a regular basis, and he's only a recurring character.
• Luke Nounverber: Parodied. After finding out that Marcus' real last name is Yeager and Speedstar is simply a stage name he took up, Yeager asks Neeku if he thought "Speedstar" was an actual name.
• The Man Behind the Man: Much like they have done in other stories, the First Order is using proxy forces to get what it wants, in this case Kragan's pirate gang.
• Meaningful Name: Kaz's ship, the Fireball, according to Yeager and Neeku.
  Yeager: It's called the Fireball because it has this habit of bursting into flames.
  Neeku: Only when you accelerate, or shift or steer or land...
• The Mentor: Kaz gets two in Yeager and Poe. Yeager is his day to day guide, while Poe gives him tips in piloting and combat in the first season. Yeager fills both roles in the second season as Poe disappears and the Colossus gets engulfed in the First Order's invasion of the New Republic.
• The Mole: Synara San, one of the high-ranking members of Kragan's pirate gang, ends up working undercover as a dock worker so that she can assess the Colossus' defenses.
• Mythology Gag:
  • A piece of Kazuda's ship comes off while he's flying it, much like Poe's ski-speeder in the climax of The Last Jedi.
  • One of the droids on the Colossus appears to be based on the T3 droid model or may possibly be a successor in that line. We also saw a similar droid under Jaxxon's ownership in Adventures.
  • Torra's ship has design elements of the classic A-Wing interceptor and the older R-41 Starchaser from the X-Wing games.
  • In "Signal from Sector Six", Poe says the inverse of one of Anakin's lines from Revenge of the Sith:
    Poe: Looks like the fun's over.
  • The music playing in the background of Aunt Z's during "The Platform Classic" is the same song playing in Jayvar's Cantina.
  • The season 2 trailer shows Kaz and Neeku disguising themselves in the same First Order uniforms as Matt the radar technician.
• Never My Fault: Rucklin blames Kaz for destroying his racer. However, Rucklin was the one who stole and then used unstable hyperfuel in his racer, which is what led to its destruction.
• Never Say "Die": In "The Children from Tehar", after he thinks that the kids are dead, Commander Pyre simply tells Phasma that they are "no more".
• Never Trust a Trailer: Downplayed, but the first trailer for the show made at least the first season out to be purely a lighthearted Denser and Wackier slapstick comedy with bits of action, while in reality, Resistance (although dealing with less heavy subject matter than the previous two shows) isn't much different in tone from an early episode of Rebels or The Clone Wars.
• No Hugging, No Kissing:
  • Most of the moments that could be read as Ship Tease could also be taken as just really good friendships. Kaz has a fondness for Synara that is hindered from being anything beyond a crush if only because Kaz denies this exists and Synara can see it but doesn't seem to reciprocate, Torra turns down Kaz when she thinks he's into her, Nena seems to have a thing for Neeku but Neeku acts like this towards anyone he likes, and Flix and Orka's relationship is only described as them being "good find[s]" for each other and had to be confirmed as a homosexual romance by Word of Gay.
  • As the only explicitly romantic relationship on the show, Captain Doza and Venisa never hug or kiss in their more personal moments, but instead share a Headbutt of Love.
• Nobody Poops:
  • Subverted in the first episode. Kaz asks for the refresher, but it's an excuse to cut the scene from Poe telling Kaz to stay where he is to Kaz disobeying Poe's order to look around.
  • In "The Triple Dark", Neeku mentions that after he ate his pet, he got an extreme case of something before Kaz cuts him off.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: After the Season 1 finale, the status quo is different with the Colossus being on the run; Tam is no longer with the main cast and has joined the First Order, Yeager is Doza's second-in-command and made the Ace Squadron's new commanding officer to focus them on defense against the First Order, and Kaz has officially joined the Aces.
• Old-School Dogfight: Before the series premiered, Dave Filoni stated that air/space battles would be central to the series, and indeed there are plenty of them featured.
• Old Soldier:
  • Yeager is a former Rebel Alliance and New Republic veteran of the Galactic Civil War.
  • One of the Aces, Griff Halloran, is a former TIE pilot for the Empire who also fought in the Galactic Civil War.
  • We find out in "Secrets and Holograms" that Captain Doza is a former Imperial Navy officer.
• Overt Operative: Kaz is technically supposed to be undercover on the Colossus. He is still using his real name. The idea that anybody could simply look up background information on him doesn't dawn on Kaz until Captain Doza does it.
• Perpetual Poverty: Early on, a recurring problem for Kaz is that he's constantly broke since the repair shop doesn't get a lot of customers and Yeager pays him based on how much good work he's done (which is not very much). This leads to Kaz trying to seek out easier ways to make more money or get to a better situation, but he ends up not going through with these for one reason or another. Since Kaz is from a privileged background, this is part of his Character Development into becoming an independent hard worker who can hold financial stability. By the middle of Season 1, he's become capable enough to carry his own weight, and it's implied Marcus gave the shop part of his prize money at the end of "The Platform Classic".
• Properly Paranoid: Captain Doza is this a lot of times. For example, he is sure there is more to Kaz than him simply being a new mechanic and wanna-be racer; he just doesn't know the details yet. He also tells Yeager not to tell anyone that his crew is repairing the targeting computer for the Colossus' defense cannons because he is a afraid that if they do the information would make its way back to the pirates rather quickly. He proves to be very much right about that assumption.
• Psychic-Assisted Suicide: Late in the second season, Kylo Ren shows up as the new Supreme Leader and, in order to emphasize the price of failure, forces Tierny and Pyre to draw their weapons and aim at one another. In the season finale, he merely force chokes Tierny to death.
• Ramming Always Works: After Kaz realigns the targeting computer him and Yeager are trying to install while being attacked by pirates, it's still not far enough into its dock and he can't get it to go in. Yeager's forklift accidentally ramming the computer gets it to go in.
• Recurring Element:
  • The primary setting being a barren, plain-looking planet.
  • Kazuda looking out at Castilon's twin moons in the night sky and later the sunset in the series premiere, just like Luke looking out at Tatooine's twin suns at sunset and Ezra looking out at Lothal's twin moons at night.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: MB-13A, the First Order BB droid, all black, with a big red eye. Acts as an informant for the First Order.
• Redemption Rejection: Rucklin, in spite of Venisa's Hope Spot and Tam's efforts, continues to side with the First Order even after they've turned against him, resulting in Tam giving up on him and leaving him to die when their Star Destroyer is destroyed.
• Red Baron: Major Vonreg, an ace First Order TIE Interceptor pilot and recurring antagonist. For added comparison, his armour and ship are also coloured red.
• The Unreveal: Neither Vonreg or Pyre are shown unmasked before their deaths.
• Robot Buddy:
  • BB-8 sticks with Kaz to keep an eye on him at Poe's request while CB-23 stays with Poe. Towards the end of Season 1, BB-8 and CB-23 switch places in time for The Force Awakens.
  • Each Ace has their own unique astromech droid co-pilot, with paint schemes that match their fighters.
• Sea Monster: Several different species live in the waters of Castilon, most notably the gigantic rokkna.
• Shout-Out:
  • Torra's racer looks like it is based off of the Ford GT40 and/or the Porsche 917.
  • The Fireball's design is a cross between the Original Trilogy's X-Wing and the Chance-Vought F4U Corsair from World War II. A very deliberate choice by the creators, who wanted Team Fireball to be the underdogs flying an old bucket of a "propeller plane" against the sleek modern "jet-fighters" of the Aces.
  • Torra's name is a reference to Tora! Tora! Tora!, a biographical film about Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II. The film's name is based on the alleged Japanese radio codeword used to report that the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was a success, itself a portmanteau of the Japanese words "totsugeki raigeki", or "lightning attack".
  • Jarek Yeager is almost certainly a reference to legendary pilot Chuck Yeager, the first man to break the sound barrier.
  • Various to Transformers: Prime, which the show has a Production Posse from.
    • Torra's hairstyle is the same as Miko's.
    • In one scene, Torra cartwheels out of a scene, a joke that was also used with Miko.
    • Agent Tierny, voiced by Sumalee Montano, uses Guns Akimbo, just like Arcee.
  • Given the cartoons have previously shown a penchant for referencing Studio Ghibli films, perhaps it's not a coincidence that the Colossus is technically an elusive moving castle in the sky for the entirety of Season 2... Helps that Castilon is derived from castillo, the Spanish word for "castle".
  • Likewise, Synara's surname, San, is the name of one of the protagonists of Princess Mononoke.
  • Tam Ryvora's name is basically the same thing as River Tam.
• "Shut Up!" Gunshot: In one episode, Poe Dameron fires a shot from his blaster in the air to scare off some Kowakian monkey-lizards. A lizard falls from the ceiling, dead.
• Single-Biome Planet: Castilon, the Outer Rim ocean planet where the Colossus is located. At least for the first season, anyway.
• Space Pirates: Kragan's Warbird pirate gang. They were hired by the First Order to perform regular attacks on the Colossus to pressure Captain Doza into inviting the FO onboard as security. Once they've served their purpose, the First Order backstabs them.
• Space Station: The Colossus' true nature, although before the Season 1 finale it hasn't been in space for at least 20 years.
• Spectator Casualty: Yeager's wife and daughter were killed while watching a race.
• Stern Chase: Season 2 involves the Colossus on the run from the First Order and trying to find a new home.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Kaz doesn't change his name when Poe assigns him to spy on the Colossus. So guess what? Captain Doza is eventually able to find out that he used to be a pilot for the New Republic Navy.
  • Unlike in The Clone Wars and Rebels, most of the cast are not fighters. Combined with the Colossus's ban on blasters unless you have a permit (like Yeager), this means most of the characters have to flee and hide when they get into a violent encounter. At the very least, Yeager is a retired veteran soldier, Tam knows some self-defense, and Kaz had military training (although his klutziness and lack of experience often keeps him from effectively engaging in direct physical combat).
  • Kazuda not only being one of the leaders in the Colossus' rebellion against the First Order, but also being the son of a surviving Hosnian Prime senator as well as his connections to Poe and Leia (who are both high-ranking Resistance leaders) make him a highly valuable fugitive to the First Order, who will pay whatever expense to bounty hunters to catch or kill him.
  • The first few episodes of Season 2 involve the crew and community of the Colossus having to adjust to the fact that it is no longer on Castilon, and almost nobody on the station was prepared for it. First, the Colossus hasn't been mobile for two decades, forcing them to repair systems that weren't planned to be used again such as artificial gravity. After that, the station being on the run means that resources many living there took for granted — namely food, water, fuel, and money — are now finite due to the economic disruption (whether it be the lack of outside traders coming in or fishermen being put out of a job), which becomes a problem when there are many mouths to feed and you are a target of the oppressive First Order. Some of the civilians also suffer from Cabin Fever as a result of being in space when they were used to enjoying Castilon's outdoor scenery, which gets remedied by Neeku building a holographic simulation of Castilon's sky.
  • You can't force people to change, they have to make that decision themselves. Tam eventually comes around by the series finale, but she is unable to convince Rucklin to join her and leaves him to eventually die when he continues to use her efforts to be problematic.
• Synchronous Episodes: After "The Core Problem", the last several episodes of Season 1 take place during The Force Awakens. At one point, Kaz and Torra secretly watch a First Order meeting broadcasting General Hux's speech at Starkiller Base before the destruction of the Hosnian system.
• The Teaser: Every episode has one.
• Tempting Fate:
  • Kaz asks Neeku what the odds are of a pirate attack while the Aces are away on a mission and the targeting computer for the defense guns are down. Naturally this is when Kragan's pirates arrive.
  • While investigating an abandoned First Order mining facility, Station Theta-Black, Kaz is constantly worried the First Order is going to show up and that they will get lost in the huge facility. Poe responds by telling Kaz that he worries too much. Right after he says this, BB-8 rolls up to inform them that the First Order has arrived.
• They Know Too Much:
  • The reason the First Order are going after the last survivors of Tehar. They don't want them to reveal to the rest of the galaxy what the First Order is doing in the Unknown Regions.
  • Kragan's Warbird gang is subjected to this after the First Order is done with them.
• Those Two Guys: The titular store owners of Flix and Orka's Office of Acquisitions.
• Thrown Out the Airlock: In the Season 2 premiere, how Kaz and Torra deal with a stowaway First Order BB unit.
• Title-Only Opening: Episodes open, as in Rebels, with the show's title and logo after a teaser.
• Trailers Always Spoil: The Season 2 trailer revealed Senator Xiono survived the destruction of Hosnian Prime.
• Tyop on the Cover:
  • "Buggle's Day Out", starring Torra's pet Voorpak, Buggles.
  • The preview clip for "No Escape, Part I" is, like all of them, titled after a line of dialogue in the clip, specifically Agent Tierny saying "I Beg to Differ"... but on its YouTube listing, it's "I Bet to Differ".
• Wham Episode: Both halves of "No Escape". The Colossus is actually a mobile space station, and Kaz and company eventually launch it into space to escape the First Order. Tam, meanwhile, is persuaded by Agent Tierny to betray her friends and join the First Order, and Kaz and Yeager aren't able to stop her. Kaz watches his homeworld get blown up on a live hologram transmission.
• Wham Shot:
  • "Secrets and Holograms": Captain Doza's closet has an Imperial Navy officer's uniform in it.
  • "No Escape, Part I":
    • After helping Kaz escape some scuba troopers, Neeku is excitedly wondering what else can be controlled from the control room he, Eila, and Kel are in. Eila wordlessly points up at the ceiling, where Neeku and Kel look to see... a hyperdrive.
    • We get a combo with Wham Line as we see a broadcast of the speech General Hux gives in The Force Awakens just before Starkiller Base fires on the Hosnian system.
  • The Season 2 trailer ends with Tierny and Pyre being addressed by Kylo Ren via hologram, and he tells them that if they can't deal with the Resistance, he'll find someone who will... while using the Force to make Tierny reach for her blaster.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • Lin, the only girl in Rucklin's posse, is seen at the end of Season 1 and the beginning of Season 2 having also accepted the First Order's offer to be a TIE pilot, but she's never seen or addressed again, especially odd since Rucklin seems to attach himself to Tam despite her past association with Kaz because they're both from the Colossus.
  • Mia, Kaz's female squadmate, is never seen or brought up again, even though their other squadmate, Hugh, comes Back for the Finale.
  • It's never revealed if the Xiono family ever reunites.

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