The Future of ‘Star Wars' May Not Be as Connected as We Expect
Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy had some encouraging yet surprising thoughts about the future of the franchise.
One of the best, and worst, things about Star Wars in recent years is just how connected everything has been. It meant characters who may have at first seemed tangential, like Cassian Andor in Rogue One, could be greatly expanded in something like Andor. It also meant audiences who had never watched an animated show like Clone Wars or Rebels might be left confused with the stories in something like Ahsoka. In those cases and others, there always seemed to be some kind of guardrails on what was possible in a galaxy far, far away. But, if a new quote is to be believed, that may be changing.
Recently, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy spoke at a screening of the original Star Wars in London (you can read about the event here) and she commented on how the future of Star Wars is moving from the interconnectivity that has driven the recent history of Star Wars.
'I really think that now we're in a position where it's broadened the possibility of stories and filmmakers we can bring in to tell stories that mean something to them,' Kennedy said at the event. 'It doesn't necessarily have to connect to every little thing thats been done in Star Wars; it can actually be a standalone story that then builds into many, many other stories.'
The first example of this is Star Wars: Starfighter, the 2027 release that starts filming in September. Shawn Levy directs, Ryan Gosling and Mia Goth star, and while we don't know the specifics of the plot just yet, everyone has been insistent that the story is standalone and is unlikely to connect to anything else in the Star Wars universe. Which is easy since it takes place five years after the events of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
That'll be harder for other upcoming Star Wars projects such as Ahsoka season two, which is currently filming, and The Mandalorian & Grogu, which will be out in May. Those will, clearly, be connected to other stories, as will other confirmed projects such as the Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy Rey movie and Dave Filoni's Shadow of the Empire movie. The films that seem to speak more to Kennedy's statement are James Mangold's Dawn of the Jedi movie, which will take place millennia before any other Star Wars story, and Simon Kinberg's trilogy, which is said to be the next phase of the overall Star Wars story. Also, maybe the Taika Waititi movie that is still in the works.
The key to Kennedy's statement, though, is the end of it. To reset itself, to make itself into the power it once was, Star Wars needs fresh faces and stories, which can only be achieved through unique, original. standalone stories. From there, though, those ideas will have to 'build into many, many other stories.' So the idea is almost a reset so that they can get back to where we have been the last 10 years or so. The interconnective nature of Star Wars isn't going away, it's just being rebuilt.
Are you confident Kennedy is telling the truth here? Will these new Star Wars movies be standalone? Or will that, in some way, hurt the franchise? Let us know below.
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Geek Girl Authority
38 minutes ago
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Each time someone looks through the crystal, it takes more memories and grows in strength. Connor asks when Charlie would've looked through the crystal. Vikram remembers that she looked through the telescope when they visited Stanaris in the observatory. Filip and Dr. Kirch also looked through the telescope. The crystal must be in the telescope's viewer. Dr. Stanaris suddenly appears at the vault door and locks them in. Lysa tries to appeal to his conscience, but he proudly declares that he doesn't care about the effects of his plan and expresses his rage and disdain for those who have undervalued his intellect. RELATED: TV Review: Resident Alien Season 4 While they try to figure out a way to escape the vault, Lysa shares that erasing past events takes time to catch up to the present. So when Charlie's lost memory of joining the team catches up with the present, no one will save them from the drekavac (in The Librarians: The Next Chapter series premiere), and they'll be dead. 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He holds onto what he needs and gives away meaningless memories to the crystal's appetite for energy. It's still a struggle, though. He stumbles closer to Stanaris and the telescope's viewer. Stanaris suddenly asks what Vikram values most in the world. Involuntarily, Vikram thinks of Anya, and the crystal consumes his memory of her. An Upper Hand Losing Anya breaks Vikram mentally, and he falls to the ground. Stanaris smiles in victory, asking Vikram innocently if he forgot something. Downstairs, in the mechanical room, Charlie shows Connor and Lysa that her hand is phasing out of existence. Connor runs outside and climbs to the top of the observatory. In the bubble, Stanaris pulls out the John Dee papers he kept, which explain that wearing the crystal's necklace protects the wearer from the crystal's effects. Down in the mechanical room, Lysa holds Charlie as other parts of the Guardian's body begin to fade. She begs Charlie to fight the effects. 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Running down to the mechanical room, Vikram and Connor are relieved to see Charlie whole and happy. The next day, Lysa sits down with Dr. Kirch, who describes the sensation of disappearing, then remembering the moment when she developed her hypothesis. Lysa notes that Kirch has erased the solution to the Millennium Prize Puzzle equation. Kirch tells her she didn't trust the equation, not knowing how it popped into her head. 'Scientific advancement,' she tells Lysa, 'should come through replication of scientific method.' RELATED: Read our recaps of The Librarians: The Next Chapter Back at the Annex, the team debriefs on everyone affected by the crystal as Vikram packs it and John Dee's papers into a lockbox. Charlie reports she's feeling better. Vikram asks her what vision of the future she saw. She unconvincingly claims it disappeared once the crystal was contained. Connor wonders where Stanaris ended up. In a white room, Stanaris lectures on the reverse amplified view of the universe, claiming it proves that the great minds of science added nothing to the world compared to him and his glimpse into the future. He rants that he'd still be viewing the future if it wasn't for those meddling Librarians. New episodes of The Librarians: The Next Chapter air on TNT on Mondays at 9 pm ET. REVIVAL: Co-Creators Aaron B. Koontz and Luke Boyce on Crafting 'Weird' New Series Diana lives in Vancouver, BC, Canada, where she invests her time and energy in teaching, writing, parenting, and indulging her love of all Trek and a myriad of other fandoms. She is a lifelong fan of smart sci-fi and fantasy media, an upstanding citizen of the United Federation of Planets, and a supporter of AFC Richmond 'til she dies. Her guilty pleasures include female-led procedurals, old-school sitcoms, and Bluey. She teaches, knits, and dreams big. You can also find her writing at The Televixen, Women at Warp, TV Fanatic, and TV Goodness.
Yahoo
an hour ago
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