On Tuesday, Vanity Fair published a sprawling piece on the future of the Star Wars franchise. Short version: It’s mostly a TV thing now. There are lots of Disney+-bound shows en route, but a noticeable dearth of multiplex-bound movie theaters. Taika Waititi has some under-wraps project, but that might see the light until the other 10,000 projects on his pipeline are completed. And no matter what they are, they won’t star young actors playing established characters, as Solo: A Star Wars Story semi-infamously did.
The next day VF ran a solo interview with Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, who went even further: They don’t want anything to do with the original Skywalker Saga, which is to say the nine-film, three-trilogy run of movies spanning from The Phantom Menace through The Rise of Skywalker (though, of course, they weren’t made in that order).
“Just staying within the construct of George [Lucas]’s storytelling, to keep chipping away at that, I think would be wrong,” Kathleen told VF. “It’s our job to step away now, but still have a connection to the mythology that George created. That won’t stop. But we are moving on from the Skywalker saga. That’s what’s taking a lot of time, discussion, and thought right now.”
Mind you, Lucas did create a whole, bountiful galaxy, replete with endless characters and peoples and stories. Kennedy and team don’t have to keep returning to the Luke/Han/Leia (or Annakin/Obi-wan/Amidala, or Rey/Finn/Rylo-Ken) well. Which is why they’re doing it at least one more time, with Obi-Wan Kenobi, the forthcoming show that catches back up with one of the most iconic characters from the Skywalker Saga. But that’s different from the Han Solo prequel because, a) it’s not a prequel and b) they actually did get the original actor (or, well, the second actor, in three prequels) to return.
“We also can’t go do something with Luke Skywalker that isn’t Mark Hamill. We’re not going to suddenly go try to do that,” Kennedy said. “The beauty of Obi-Wan Kenobi is Ewan [McGregor] desperately wanted to do this. He has been so engaged in the entire process, and our excitement and reason for doing this is that the real Obi-Wan wanted to tell this story. We got excited by the idea that Ewan McGregor wanted to come back, and Hayden Christensen wanted to come back.”
But if you’re lamenting the possibility of no new Star Wars movie anytime soon, or even ever, fret not: Kennedy also discussed taking Star Wars into different mediums, such as Fortnite. She rhapsodized on “the ability to immerse people in stories, building avatars around your character that could actually participate in some way.” In other words, it’s like the computer games Lucasfilm has been making since the ‘90s (or even the arcade games in the ‘80s), but, you know, next level.
In the meantime, Obi-Wan Kenobi begins streaming on Disney+ on May 27, starring the guy who likes the prequels now but wasn’t so sure about them while they were being made.
(Via Vanity Fair)