Throughout final Thursday’s presentation to buyers, Disney laid out its plans for numerous franchises, properties, and universes. Of explicit curiosity was the way forward for the Star Wars sequence: After the current disappointment of Solo, the beginning of a four-year characteristic movie hiatus, and the success of The Mandalorian, growth on many earlier plans went quiet as new rumors started to flow into a couple of main shift in route for the franchise.
Any discuss Disney pumping the brakes on Star Wars content material was quelled when the corporate introduced 10 new additions to the universe, seven live-action and three animated, all certain for Disney+. Along with The Mandalorian‘s third season, just a few sequence had already been introduced: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Andor, and The Bad Batch, whereas 4 exhibits have been introduced for the primary time: Lando, The Acolyte, and two Mandalorian spin-offs, Ahsoka and Rangers of the New Republic. Then there’s Visions, a sequence of 10 anime shorts, and final, and positively least, the straight-to-streaming animated characteristic, A Droid Story. The one little bit of non-TV information got here within the type of a 2023 movie: Rogue Squadron, directed by Patty Jenkins. Should you’re maintaining rating, that is 9 TV sequence, one TV film, and one theatrical characteristic.
They are saying you possibly can by no means have an excessive amount of of an excellent factor, and loads of die-hard Star Wars followers have voiced unequivocal enthusiasm for an enlargement within the route set by The Mandalorian. However for a lot of informal followers, it is beginning to really feel like Lucasfilm expects you to eat, drink, and breathe Star Wars 24 hours a day simply to maintain up.
Purely by way of episode depend, the upcoming Star Wars TV presence is gigantic, however removed from record-breaking. If The Mandalorian‘s eight-episode seasons are something to go by, we will anticipate particular person exhibits’ episode counts to be comparatively small. (Andor may have 12 in its first season, whereas Obi-Wan Kenobi will reportedly solely have 4 complete.) From our greatest guesses, as soon as the brand new live-action exhibits start dropping in 2022, we’ll nonetheless see at most 40 to 50 episodes per 12 months, throughout all sequence. That is about one episode for every time you wash your bedsheets. (You do wash your bedsheets weekly, proper?) For comparability, throughout Star Trek‘s prolific late-’90s interval, followers loved round 54 hour-long episodes per 12 months, break up between Deep Space Nine and Voyager. And in 2019 alone, The CW’s DC Comics-based Arrowverse aired a whopping 97 hour-long episodes throughout six linked titles. Marvel appears to be chasing that formulation with its slate of Disney+ exhibits. So what’s unsuitable with making use of that ultra-saturation formulation to Star Wars?
The Mandalorian
Nicely, for one, the above Arrowverse, Star Trek, and Marvel examples all inform tales taking place throughout the identical time interval, roughly concurrently. Should you watch the episodes within the order they arrive out, it is simple to grasp how they interconnect — with out even taking a look at Wikia! The varied Star Wars sequence, nevertheless, will span a number of totally different time durations. The Acolyte takes place centuries earlier than Episode I, whereas Unhealthy Batch is ready shortly after Episode III. We do not know when the occasions of Lando will happen, but when it ties into the Solo film, it could be round 10 years earlier than Episode IV. Obi-Wan Kenobi and Andor are set 9 years and 5 years earlier than Episode IV, respectively. The Mandalorian and its spin-offs, Ahsoka and Rangers of the New Republic, all happen concurrently, just a few years after Episode VI. Rogue Squadron will happen in one more time interval after Episode IX. Received all that? (Let’s not even begin on Visions, which can freely bounce across the timeline.)
For comparability, Trekkies may attempt to think about if the Original Series, The Next Generation, Enterprise, Discovery, the J.J. Abrams movies, First Contact, and Picard all premiered across the identical time. It will be simpler to maintain observe of tribbles than that timeline! The 9 Star Wars exhibits we heard about final week are simply the tip of the iceberg in relation to Lucasfilm’s future plans. Not solely are there nonetheless extra closely rumored exhibits in growth (a protracted awaited Rebels sequel), however three of those exhibits are described as restricted sequence (i.e. a one-season mini-series) and occasion sequence (a shorter however event-ier mini-series). Then there’s the TV film A Droid’s Story, which they’re going to most likely find yourself calling an “nearly sequence.”
If Disney+ desires to take care of a gradual circulation of Star Wars content material, Lucasfilm might want to maintain launching a stream of one-off exhibits indefinitely. It is easy to think about the cuts getting deeper and deeper: First, Yoda. Fairly quickly, Thrawn. Then, earlier than you realize it, a Therm Scissorpunch occasion sequence. (Observe: We legitimately need this. We all know we’re a part of the issue.) Not solely does this create much more timeline confusion, it probably exacerbates the dreaded backdoor pilot syndrome.
The primary story of The Mandalorian Season 2 steadily grinds to a halt for episode-long aspect missions that look an terrible lot like backdoor pilots, from Ahsoka to Bo Katan to Cobb Vanth to Boba Fett. Complete episodes sideline Child Yoda antics in favor of introducing a brand new viewers to aspect characters already established within the deeper canon, who’re ripe for a spin-off sequence. Whereas the primary season largely felt prefer it was doing its personal factor, Season 2 has usually been hamstrung in service of the franchise’s IP overlords. If the Star Wars TV universe continues increasing, we may anticipate a endless food regimen of backdoor pilot episodes continually threatening to derail the story.
However the Star Wars TV universe may do its personal factor! (To provide credit score the place credit score is due, The Acolyte is poised to do precisely that.) But, it is clear that Disney and Lucasfilm’s main aim is to take advantage of the IP it paid $four billion for, even when it means ignoring essentially the most elementary information of the universe. Nowhere is that this extra worrisome than within the information that Darth Vader (Hayden Christensen) will return for Obi-Wan Kenobi, which Lucasfilm CEO Kathleen Kennedy guarantees “would be the rematch of the century.”
Daisy Ridley, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Rematch of the century? Wasn’t the duel between Obi-Wan (Alec Guinness) and Darth Vader (James Earl Jones) in A New Hope the official rematch? We’re about as emotionally invested on this battle as we’re for the result of a rematch between Tom and Jerry. The dramatic energy of the duel between Obi-Wan and Vader in A New Hope wasn’t captured of their fancy clashing of blades however within the weight of a shared historical past, the revelation that two outdated associates have been reuniting after a tragic betrayal a long time prior. Obi-Wan was, for the primary time, witnessing the horror of what his pupil had develop into — a “grasp of evil.” Vader tells Kenobi, “We meet once more eventually. The circle is now full. Once I left you, I used to be however the learner. Now I’m the grasp.” That second is foreshadowed within the prequel Revenge of the Sith when Anakin says, “Do not make me destroy you, Grasp” — shortly earlier than Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) turns him right into a toasted raisin. George Lucas made it crystal clear: The Dying Star was the primary reunion of those two characters for the reason that Excessive Floor of Mustafar.
Now with (at the very least) yet one more reunion within the intervening years, what’s going to Lucasfilm do to protect continuity? Possibly a defeated Vader ends the duel by saying one thing like, “Nicely, Obi-Wan, I assume this confirms you are still the grasp and I am nonetheless the learner. I will get you subsequent time!” Possibly they store on the identical grocery retailer, and every time they stumble upon one another Vader says, “I sense one thing, a presence I’ve not felt since… final week.”
The extra Star Wars retreads the identical floor — repeating the identical characters, planets, and conflicts — the smaller the universe feels. And “including to” these authentic tales truly means taking away from them, contradicting narratives that have been instructed with a cohesive starting, center, and finish. Within the canonical Marvel Comics, that is modus operandi. Do you know that shortly after the occasions of A New Hope, however earlier than Empire Strikes Back, Luke dueled lightsabers with Darth Vader? That occurred! So when Luke fights Vader in The Empire Strikes Again, it is already spherical two. The low readership of comics means moments like this are ignored by the vast majority of the Star Wars viewers, even when they’re official canon. Nonetheless, now that the rapid way forward for Star Wars is TV sequence for the huge Disney+ viewers, it will be so much tougher to disregard these kinds of low-cost deja vu moments. Keep in mind the way you cringed in Solo while you heard Han (Alden Ehrenreich) casually reuse (or pre-use?) his iconic “I do know” line? Put together your self for extra of that.
Star Wars is finest when it is bizarre and new. From the primary time we set foot within the cantina, with the palpable sense that each background traveler had their very own backstory, to Luke’s thala-siren milk in The Last Jedi, the franchise thrives on moments that focus not on answering outdated questions, however on presenting new ones. There’s nothing unsuitable with the numerous books, comics, manuals, and guides to the Star Wars universe that reveal how each particular person within the bar had gone on some journey simply as fantastical as Luke’s, however the Lucas’s cinematic strategy was constructed on the concept of making and preserving destructive area for our imaginations to fill in, whereas Disney-era Lucasfilm is obsessively packing that destructive area like a hoarder.
Child Yoda (cease attempting to make Grogu occur) is nice. He is mysterious and cute and lovable and that is all the things he must be. All we actually need is to look at Mando (Pedro Pascal) take him on adventures and study to be an excellent dad, but an increasing number of, Child Yoda’s story has been derailed in favor of explaining the backstory for a personality that was on display for lower than 10 minutes. Apparently, the Imperial remnant wanted Child Yoda’s Midichlorians to assist make Snoke clones for the resurrected Emperor Palpatine — lest we neglect, Midichlorians are the microscopic creatures that reside in a single’s blood and make one Pressure delicate — and now this backstory-clutter has kidnapped Child Yoda out of his personal present: He did not seem as soon as in the latest episode, “Chapter 15: The Believer.”
Star Wars could be a launchpad to spark numerous fantasies. However this high-volume rehash mandate may make the Star Wars universe as acquainted as your yard. Do we’d like a proof for all the things? Lucas was a lot derided for introducing Midichlorians, his notorious over-explanation of the Pressure, and their reintroduction in The Mandalorian feels just like the canary within the coal mine. The notorious days of deciphering each thriller have returned with a vengeance, and followers are consuming it up… for now. However not even the Sarlaac may maintain Boba Fett down for lengthy.
Pedro Pascal, The Mandalorian