Star Wars Gets New Trilogy AND Live Action TV Series!
As I’m sure many of you have heard by now, Disney’s money printing machine ‘Star Wars’ is getting a brand new movie trilogy from ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ director Rian Johnson. What seems to have been less widely reported is that they also have a new live-action ‘Star Wars’ tv series in the works too!
Disney released the news last night that Johnson had been given command of the movie franchise to write and direct 3 brand new ‘Star Wars’ films, alongside his longtime collaborator Ram Bergman, who will produce. The new films will be “separate from the episodic Skywalker saga,” and will “introduce new characters from a corner of the galaxy that Star Wars lore has never before explored.”
“We all loved working with Rian on The Last Jedi,” commented Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm. “He’s a creative force, and watching him craft The Last Jedi from start to finish was one of the great joys of my career. Rian will do amazing things with the blank canvas of this new trilogy.”
Of course, the moment this was announced, speculation started as to where and when this new trilogy would be based. It’s interesting the way the press release is phrased, as it says nothing about the Skywalker story coming to an end, just this trilogy will be separate, and a “blank canvas.” If it was to be set post-Skywalker, that could lead to issues further down the line, so the sensible thing would be to set it before. The Jedi (and Sith) have been around for thousands of years, so there is a lot of untapped history to pick from. Could we be getting a trilogy set in The Old Republic time period?
For those that don’t know their Star Wars history, The Old Republic was the setting for Bioware’s hugely popular series of video games, and takes place thousands of years before Luke complains about not being about to go to Toshi Station to pick up some power converters, and Anakin develops a bad case of asthma. There are some established characters in the period, such as Revan, Darth Malak, and the legendary assassin droid HK-47 who refers to humans as “meatbags.” Johnson could, potentially use that as history, or tell those stories in live action for the first time. The good thing about going back in Star Wars history, apart from not stepping on the toes of the Skywalker movies, is you have a lot of Jedi and Sith to play with, where are you don’t in the current movie franchise. Like I said, this is pure speculation at this point, but there are thousands of years to fill between The Old Republic of the prequel movies, so he has a lot of sandbox in which to play.
On top of the film announcement, Disney also announced a new ‘Star Wars’ live-action tv series, which will come to their new digital streaming service. Taking a leaf out of CBS’s book, who leveraged ‘Star Trek’ to boost their CBS All Access service, Disney is planning to do the same. They’re not only leveraged ‘Star Wars’, but also planning another live-action Marvel series, a ‘Monsters Inc.’ tv show, and possibly a ‘High School Musical’ series.
This announcement comes after Disney cut it’s ties to Netflix in the US and said it would be creating its own streaming service a few months ago. This makes it sound like the streaming service may be a US only system, meaning that, in the UK, we’re likely to get these shows on more traditional channels.
Not much is known about Rian Johnson’s new trilogy yet, or the new ‘Star Wars’ live-action tv show, but we will keep you updated as we hear more!
