Whatever your opinion on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, it did at least live up to its billing as the finale of the Skywalker saga. While we’ll see further projects that take place in the busy period between The Phantom Menace and The Rise of Skywalker, Disney and Lucasfilm are looking to expand their horizons and find new Star Wars stories to tell. The main new setting will be the High Republic, an era a few centuries before the movies take place. And everything that happens over this time period will apparently fall under the umbrella of Project Luminous.
According to our sources – the same ones who said Transformers is being rebooted and who told us [SPOILERS] would be revealed as a traitor in Rise months before the film released – Project Luminous will encompass books, films, games and comics (and any other media) that take place during the High Republic era. It appears that it’ll have its own story group to make sure continuity within this time period is maintained, too. But right now, creators pretty much have a blank sheet to work with. That’s got to feel liberating as well, after years of struggling to crowbar stories into the current continuity without contradicting something else.
So, what is the High Republic? Well, Lucasfilm first mentioned it in the 2019 audio drama Dooku: Jedi Lost, but recently spelt out more precisely what this era of Star Wars was like in two recent comic books. In Star Wars #2, Luke Skywalker explains that the High Republic “was a time of greatly expanded Jedi activity throughout the galaxy,” and in the latest issue of Rise of Kylo Ren, we learn the following:
“In the days of the High Republic, the galaxy was not as settled as it is now. Areas like the Outer Rim were dangerous, hard to navigate. So the people of that time built a huge space station at great effort and expense and placed it in the center of the dark zones. It sent out a signal that acted as a sort of beacon, helping travelers find their way. They gave that station an inspiring name, fitting its purpose.”
A setting with lots of Jedi, unexplored planets and distant travelers coming together on a massive space station sounds like fertile storytelling territory to me. Perhaps this will be the setting for Rian Johnson’s planned trilogy? If it goes ahead, that is.
In any case, we’ll be sure to bring you more on Star Wars‘ Project Luminous and exactly what it might consist of as and when it comes in, so stay tuned.
