Disney and Lucasfilm are hoping that the future of Star Wars is bright. That’s presumably why the next major phase of a galaxy, far, far away is codenamed Project Luminous. We’ve been hearing whispers of this new phase in the story for a few months, but now Lucasfilm has officially revealed what it’ll consist of.
The thinking behind its creation is that the period between The Phantom Menace and The Rise of Skywalker is tapped out for big events. It’s possible to tell a story like The Mandalorian that takes place on the margins of the Skywalker Saga, but your scope is ultimately limited by working within the continuity of the nine core movies.
Lucasfilm’s answer is to usher in a new era, then: the High Republic. This is set 200 years before The Phantom Menace, allowing it to be recognizable as Star Wars while having new characters and settings. One of the major factors is that this is a time period rich with Jedi, including what’s described as the Jedi Knights of the Round Table, who’ll be facing off against the Nihil, described as “space Vikings.”
This will probably be some kind of analogue of the Jedi Council seen in the Prequel Trilogy. But while that council was conservative and reactive, I’m hoping that this past era of Jedi Knights will be a lot more politically active. Given that 200 years later they’re careful about not intervening too much in galactic events, it makes sense that they once were more gung-ho. I’d love to see some tension between non-Force users and their benevolent wizard overlords, too. Sure, the Jedi mean well, but would you want to live under their mind-controlling, super-powered rule?
Project Luminous will get the ball rolling with Charles Soule’s novel Light of the Jedi on August 25th. That’ll will usher in a new line of Star Wars: The High Republic books and comics. And once those are fully underway, you’d have to imagine there are unannounced TV shows, video games and films being worked on that’ll be announced soon, too. Exciting times, indeed.
