After countless hiccups, promises made and broken, false starts and just flat-out lies and mistruths, the mega-popular and culture touchstone that is the Star Wars franchise is finally (promise, this time!) ready to come to a theater near you. Lucasfilm is announcing that there will be three new upcoming, stand-alone movies. The announcement was made at the opening of Star Wars Celebration 2023, and the new films will include a story about (hold your breath) the origins of the Jedi (breathe!). There will also a script that serves as the finale to the current era of interstitial Disney + shows as well as the character of Rey, played by Daisy Ridley.
Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy revealed the three directors, all big names in their own right, will have their hand at directing a movie in the Star Wars compendium. James Mangold (Logan, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny), Dave Filoni (The Mandalorian, Ahsoka), Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (Ms. Marvel, Saving Face) have all been tapped to direct these new movies, hopefully not in a galaxy far, far away.
While Lucasfilm shared few official details about the films, even the most casual Star Wars fan will be able to glean a lot from the breadcrumbs that are in the press release.
James Mangold’s New Star Wars Movie Tells the Story of the Force
James Mangold’s “will go back to the dawn of the Jedi,” a time set tens of thousands of years earlier in a universe that will be new and fresh because fans have never seen anything like it before on the silver screen. There is speculation that this could mean, fans will meet the figure known as Prime Jedi. That’s the person who founded the Order on Ahch-To sometime around 25,000 years before the events of A New Hope. Fans first saw Ahch-To in The Last Jedi when it served as Luke Skywalker’s hideaway. Another piece of information that could have big possibilities is “James Mangold will take audiences deep into the past, telling the tale of the first Jedi to wield the Force and harness it as a liberating power in an era of chaos and oppression.”
Mangold further noted to Empire that his new Star Wars movie “takes place 25,000 years before Episode IV, and it’s about the discovery of the Force.” He further shares, “I told Kathy [Kennedy, head of Lucasfilm] I wanted to make a kind of Bible movie, a kind of Ten Commandments of Star Wars – kind of a Cecil B DeMille film about the arrival of the Force, and that’s what I’ve been pecking away at between press events. That’s the idea.”
Dave Filoni’s Film Will Bring Together Many Current Disney+ Series
The second new Star Wars movie will come from franchise veteran Dave Filoni who has worked on the Mandalorian among other franchises. His film “will focus on the New Republic and close out the interconnected stories told in The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka, and other Disney+ series.” The nexus of plotline will bridge the gap between the theater movies with the franchise releases on Disney + and should tie up many loose strings. The release date for Filoni’s film hasn’t been released, but when it is, fans will know just how many more seasons of The Mandalorian we might see. It’s pretty evident there’s already an end in sight to Din Djarin and Grogu’s story. Although, we suppose they could continue on beyond a culminating movie. The Lucasfilm release also states that, “Dave Filoni will orchestrate the escalating war between the Imperial Remnant and the fledgling New Republic.”
Rey Will Return in Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’sStar Wars Movie
The third and final new Star Wars movie that was announced will focus on the future as Obaid-Chinoy’s movie will take place after The Rise of Skywalker. The storyline will mark the return of Daisy Ridley as Rey as it is set 15 years after the ultimate defeat of the Sith. Rey will be trying to build a new Jedi Order and hopefully, that goes a lot better than her mentor Luke Skywalker’s attempts.
Kathleen Kennedy is sharing more about the movie with Variety. She noted: “Well, we’re 15 years out from ‘Rise of Skywalker,’ so we’re post-war, post-First Order, and the Jedi are in disarray. There’s a lot of discussion around, ‘Who are the Jedi? What are they doing? What’s the state of the galaxy?’ 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.”
Speaking to Empire, Kennedy added, “The First Order has fallen, the Jedi are in chaos – there’s even a question of how many exist anymore – and Rey’s building the New Jedi Order, based on the text that she was given and that Luke imparted on her.”
But what about the possibility of Luke Skywalker returning and having a presence in the new Star Wars movie? Kennedy says, “I don’t know if we’ll spend a lot of time in flashbacks or [on] Force ghosts or things like that, but certainly, the spirit of what he represents to her is going to be significant.”
The dark side of the Force has a way of always creating shadows over the galaxy far, far away, especially in theaters and that doesn’t bode well for Rey.
