The truth... - Lemmy.World

One reason for this is these shows don’t tend to show the morally questionable things a resistance has to do to be able to win. So it’s a lot easier to side with the resistance in Star Wars when they’re just fighting conventionally against the empire. I think a much better depiction of resistance can be seen in Star Trek Deep Space Nine with the Bajorans. They fought the Cardasians in a guerilla war which often led to civilians on both sides being killed. It’s a lot more murky but the Bajorans are still unequivocally viewed as the good guys since it was the only way to resist and get rid of the Cardasians and stop them from killing their people.
The Palestinian struggle is one source of inspiration for the Bajorans. It boggles my mind when I read comments that ‘Bajoran’ episodes are boring.

I love the Bajorans and their struggles, both externally and within their own politics and religion. I think most people who got bored with the Bajorans were just hoping for more battles against the Borg.

They might’ve even been turned off by the focus on religion in the first place. Roddenberry was famously outspoken against religion (due to rejecting his upbringing). I think TOS and TNG went pretty far towards cultivating a large audience of atheist and agnostic fans. Many of these would’ve been pretty turned off by the depiction of religious characters in anything but a negative light. When you go from being raised religious to being an atheist who rejects all that, it’s hard to walk back to being neutral or open-minded about religion once again.