supposedly there are deleted scenes that go into those planets and whatnot. honestly wished they would have done more with the political landscape than that shitty men in black alien attack on Han's freighter sequence.
edit - although, I can see the reason why they did it. going to political would have taken the focus off the new characters and would have made the movie bloated as fuck
They didn't even have to show the damn superweapon blowing up anything and then there would be no need to even want to go into the politics of the Republic. It's the most throwaway scene of the movie and the only thing that redeems it is Space Hitler's speech before hand.