Adam B. Vary on the latest strategy for the Star Wars franchise, as Disney/Lucasfilm announced at the Star Wars Celebration Fan Convention last week — first with regard to both The Acolyte, a new show about the earlier days of the Sith, and director James Mangold’s new feature about the origin of The Force itself, and the Jedi:
Both of these projects push well beyond what audiences have come to think of as Star Wars, not just in terms of when they’re set, but in what they’re about: No Skywalkers, no Empire, focusing on characters who live within darkness and chaos. For the core fandom, it’s enormously exciting, filled with the promise of bringing to life time periods that have only existed on the arcane periphery of the franchise. But Star Wars became a decades-spanning pop-culture phenomenon not because of the dense sprawl of its mythology, but because of the imaginative spark of its storytelling and the lovable verve of its characters.
In general, I like this approach. By the end of The Rise of Skywalker, it was pretty clear that the original narrative had played itself out.¹ The newer, tangential IP in the form of The Mandalorian and Rogue One/Andor have proven to be far more interesting than the last batch of sequels (and, of course, the wholly unnecessary backstory of Solo and the wayward adventure of Obi-Wan). It’s pretty obvious that what the IP universe needs is fresh blood and stories.
Things get a little more murky with this:
Those kinds of reactions will only grow louder and messier as Lucasfilm continues to expand the definition of what a Star Wars project can be. “Skeleton Crew” will be the first Star Wars title with a cast made up almost entirely of children (alongside Jude Law), while “Ahsoka” will pull extensively from the animated “Clone Wars” series that first introduced its title character (played by Rosario Dawson). Both of those shows, along with “The Mandalorian” and “The Book of Boba Fett,” will then climax in an upcoming feature film directed by Lucasfilm veteran Dave Filoni — a clear attempt to bring the Marvel Studios model of mutli-threaded franchise building to a galaxy far, far away.
That means that each of these shows must seed storylines into the others, which is how “The Book of Boba Fett” wound up spending two episodes focused on resolving the massive Season 2 cliffhanger from “The Mandalorian.” On Friday, Lucasfilm hinted that the seaweed-y pirate Gorian Shard from “Mandalorian’s” third season will show up on “Skeleton Crew,” and it appears the Season 3 finale of “The Mandalorian” will set up the major conflict on “Ahsoka.” Even “Andor” — the show that has, to great acclaim, set itself apart from all the other Star Wars series, narratively and creatively — isn’t exempt: Rebel leader Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) will appear on “Ahsoka,” set roughly a decade after her run on “Andor.”
All of these intertwining storylines leaves the overall feeling that these aren’t individual shows as much as they’re all one big “Star Wars” series with different logos attached. That’s music to the ears of Disney executives who need a constant feed of content to keep Disney+ subscribers on board, but it’s an increasingly daunting prospect for anyone dedicated to keeping up with it all.
If they can pull it off, it will be powerful. But they lack the historical backbone which the Marvel Cinematic Universe had in the form of the comic books. So it’s going to be harder to pull this off seamlessly. And that’s especially true because they lack a Kevin Feige-type (or James Gunn, as recently announced for the DC Studios) to pull this all together. It doesn’t feel like Kathleen Kennedy is that person, as she oversees all of the Lucasfilm slate. It could end up being Filoni or his Mandalorian brother Jon Favreau (who, of course, also helped kickstart the MCU by directing Iron Man), but that hasn’t been explicitly stated to date.
Lastly:
Meanwhile, Lucasfilm is also focusing on the literal future of the franchise by bringing Daisy Ridley back to reprise her performance as Rey from the sequel trilogy of films, as she builds back the Jedi while facing down a new threat. The studio is calculating that, despite widespread antipathy for “The Rise of Skywalker,” audiences are keen to follow Rey’s story into uncharted narrative territory.
In director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Lucasfilm is also banking that the Oscar-winning documentarian — who has never directed a live-action narrative feature — is the right filmmaker to forge Star Wars into a new horizon.
“I’ve spent the better part of my life by meeting real heroes who are overcoming oppressive regimes and battling impossible odds,” Obaid-Chinoy said on Friday. “I think that’s the heart of Star Wars. And that’s why I’m attracted to the promise of a new Jedi order and I’m attracted to the idea of immersing myself in a Jedi Academy with a powerful Jedi Master.”
The director then brought Ridley to the stage, to thunderous cheers.
The continuation of the Rey storyline would seem to go against everything I said above. There’s hope that someone completely outside the box, in the form of a documentarian filmmaker, can right the ship. But it’s also very risky, of course. Far more risky than say, hiring an auteur like Rian Johnson. It could be an interesting new path, or it could absolutely not work. Regardless, it will have the brightest lightsaber on it.
¹ “Somehow, Palpatine returned.” Perhaps the most lazy piece of dialogue in a series sort of famous for its truly awful dialogue.
