“Thank you, Kathleen and Sharmeen, for having me back. I’m very thrilled to be continuing this journey. My heart is pounding!” — Daisy Ridley at Star Wars Celebration 2023
A couple weeks ago, I posted “This Is Not the News You’re Looking For…”, in which I discussed some generally negative news items about the Star Wars franchise from the past few months. This week, I have some more positive Star Wars news to review, most of which comes from announcements early last month (Apr. 2023). Shall we…?
At Star Wars Celebration 2023, Disney/Lucasfilm revealed a revamped official timeline for the Star Wars franchise, really nine eras: Dawn of the Jedi, The Old Republic, The High Republic, Fall of the Jedi (the prequel films), Reign of the Empire (“The Bad Batch”), Age of Rebellion (“Andor”, “Star Wars Rebels”, Rogue One, the original trilogy), The New Republic (“The Mandalorian”, “The Book of Boba Fett”, “Ahsoka”), Rise of the First Order (“Star Wars: Resistance”, the sequel trilogy), New Jedi Order.
They also talked about three Star Wars films in the offing, the first being Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s Star Wars: New Jedi Order. This film (which I mentioned in my previous post) takes place 15 years after The Rise of Skywalker and focuses on Jedi Master Rey’s efforts to re-form the Jedi Order, much as Luke wanted to do. According to Kathleen Kennedy,
“She’s attempting to rebuild the Jedi Order, based on the books, based on what she promised Luke, so that’s where we’re going. I don’t know as we’ll spend a lot of time in flashbacks or Force ghosts or things like that, but certainly, the spirit of what he represents to her is gonna be significant.”
It’s a quasi-sequel, but they prefer to call it a “standalone” — but one that could “grow”. In other words, they are hoping these new films will be successful enough to expand into sequels but don’t want to commit to trilogies at this point.
So far, Daisy Ridley is the only star from the sequel trilogy confirmed to be returning for Star Wars: New Jedi Order. The film’s premiere is currently set for either Dec. 19, 2025 (as I read in one article not long ago) or Dec. 17, 2027 (as per IMDB).
Confirming popular rumor, the second film in development will be helmed by James Mangold (Logan, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny). But, rather than a Boba Fett spinoff (which Lucasfilm denied back in 2018, anyway), the film will be about “the first Jedi in the earliest past.” Logic dictates that it will be set in the era now called ‘Dawn of the Jedi’. Will fans finally get an official story about the foundations of the Jedi religion?
The third film discussed will be from David Filoni — writer, director, and/or executive producer on multiple Star Wars projects (including “The Mandalorian” and “Ahsoka”). It will “culminate the story of ‘The Mandalorian’ and its respective spin-offs [as well as animated projects], likely in a battle between the New Republic and Grand Admiral Thrawn.”
Since they are much earlier in the development stages, there have been no announcements about casting, production, or release dates for the Mangold and Filoni projects. (Though, of course, Filoni’s will assuredly bring in characters from ‘The New Republic’ era TV series.)
Now, you may be wondering about the previously-announced SW film from Taika Waititi. While not a main topic at the Star Wars Celebration, Waititi’s project did get a mention from Kathleen Kennedy:
“Taika is still working away. He’s writing the script himself. He doesn’t really want to bring others into that process and I don’t blame him. He has a very, very unique voice. So we want to protect that and that’s what he’s doing. But we’re going to make that one day.”
Finally, we have a little something regarding “The Mandalorian” TV series. (If you haven’t yet watched the third season finale, you might want to skip the next couple paragraphs, as they contain SPOILERS.)
As many of you will remember, there was at one point going to be a “Rangers of the New Republic” spin-off series starring Gina Carano as Cara Dune, a freshly-badged New Republic marshal. But, Carano was fired and the show canceled before it got off the ground. So, Season 3 of “The Mandalorian” incorporated a few elements originally planned for the canceled series — i.e., the subplots of Elia Kane, Dr. Pershing, and Capt. Carson Teva. (That’s why the Kane/Pershing stuff seemed oddly out of place.)
As per Variety, writer/co-creator Jon Favreau says that Season 4 of “The Mandalorian” has already been written and will continue with more plot elements from “Rangers of the New Republic”. In fact, this was further set up in the Season 3 finale, when Mando visited Teva and arranged to not only get bounty-hunting assignments from him but to secretly work at hunting down Imperial warlords in the Outer Rim on behalf of the New Republic. (Something Cara Dune would have been doing, apparently.) This will in turn likely lead up to the events of Filoni’s film.
Sounds good to me.