When Disney promised to start releasing annual Star Wars films I imagine the plan was always for the franchise to operate like sister franchise Marvel with the Star Wars ‘episodes’ being the equivelent of the Avengers movies and the standalones Star Wars Story movies being the equivelent of the individual hero movies. I think that before the publisicised rewrites the plan was for Jyn Erso, Cassian Andor etc etc to survive Rogue One and for them to get a prequel to each of episodes 5 & 6 as a way of cashing in on nostalgia. Had The Last Jedi and The Rise Of Skywalker made FOrce Awakens money we would also be looking at Rey 1, 2 and 3 Po 1, 2 and 3 Finn 1, 2, and3 etc with a possible eye on episodes 10, 11 and 12. But with everdecrreasing box office, and film quality, all three actors have said, in one way or another, that they are done with Star Wars.

Solo was also clearly set up for further stories either with Solo or with Qira or with Maul in any and all combinations with Fett, Obi Wan and Yoda movies. Clearly The Last Jedi derailed the lot. Before The Last Jedi Rian Johnson was granted a trilogy of his own, about which nothing has been said for three years and the standalones have been all but axed. If Johnson had given us a fun barnstorming episode 8 then Solo would do a billion easy, which sets us up for a 2.5 billion episode 9 and mega money thrown at Isaac, Ridley, Boyega to do more. This would also set us up for Solo 2, 3 & Jabba 1 & Crimson Sun trilogy etc etc. I can easily see a situation where, like Marvel we would be getting 2, 3 star wars movies a year. With Rey and Chewie in the falcon and Solo in the falcon too can easily see the economics of reusing sets and planets and aliens and claiming they are easter eggs/story through lines. I reckon that if we took a look at Josh Trank’s Fett pitch we’d see something not a million miles away from Mandalorian Season 1.

“If ifs and ands were pots and pans” – obviously, and whether you like it or not, The Last Jedi destroyed the fanbase. The merch sales went through the floor as well as the following episode narratively and economically. Rian Johnson, thinking himself the auteur gave us anti Star Wars when the Star Wars revival was still in its fledgling state. The Force Awakens was a nostalgia laden remake, Rogue one a poor mess with a great finale to disguise its shortcomings but both were at least fun. The last thing we needed was a two hour FU to Luke in specific and to Star Wars in general. All the good will from episode 7 was lost nevermind a plot for episode 9 to follow. We all know what happened next three more firings, trilogies and standalones cancelled and 2 Star Wars theme parks under performing.

Youtube is brimming with rumour vids (wishful thinking more like), talking about Lucasfilm’s ‘plans’ to decaninise episodes 7-9. Whatever my opinions of episodes 7-9 I can’t imagine there is any legitimate plan to erase or undo them. They exist, the fanbase is broken and the merchandising well has been poisoned. A legacy, the final chapter of a a cultural epoch is reduced to a 2019 footnote. Compare with Avengers Endgame, the end of ten years of loose storytelling has essentially ruined Marvel but only in as much as that franchise its possibly shone its brightest. But lets be clear,, the worst Marvel movie (an arm wrestle between Thor 2/Ant Man & The Wasp) is significantly more competent than at least 5 of the mainline star wars episodes. Whilst episodes 4,5,6 are literally a religion to some (check the UK census) such is their power and mythological fit/gap. The Marvel movies by contrast have the luxury of being disposable on the journey to the next story or character. So whilst Marvel’s worst has inbuilt and immediate obsolescence Star Wars worst has a catastrophic impact on the whole.

In te streaming era Marvel seeks to prop up Disney plus with second tier content, all of which is allegedly required reading for the new movies, the result is a win win for Marvel and Disney plus. Meanwhile Star Wars movies feel as though they are in a creative and financial wilderness. To Date Kathleen Kennedy has hired and fired

• Josh Trank
• Gareth Edwards (partially)
• Colin Treverrow
• Phil Lord
• Chris Miller
• David Benioff
• DB Weiss

Lets also not forget James Mangoild’s Fett Script, the push back of the Obi Wan series, the fact that Rian Johnson was once on board to write (and possibly direct) episode 9 and this is just what we know about. Lets also not forget that for a producer who cares so much about representation, these hirings have been by and large an untested, white sausage party. Hanelle Culpepper and Patty Jenkins could surely have succeeded where so many of these men failed? Warner Bros and the Star Trek franchise certainly think so, to their success.

Unable to get a film project off the ground without sacking someone midway through this TV retreat feels like just that. It looks like a repurposing of existing material as a way of spinning gold from straw, and stepping up like Rumplestilskin is John Favrau and Dave Filoni. And for now its working. The Mandalorian is well loved but for me not exactly a classic, it seems to have succeeded by virtue of the fact it makes narrative sense and it doesn’t actively spit on the thing fans love. For me its the A Team, with a Star Wars lick of paint. but then the A team was a bit of fun, albeit never a religion. Obi Wan it feels will be a kitbash of movie proposals and mcquarrie sketches, its already been pushed back because, reportedly, it was essentially the same story as the Mandalorian. Its dangerous to undertake an artistic endeavour when there is no story to tell. For Obi Wan, the story is the announcement, its Kathleet Kennedy’s grandstanding with Ewan McGregor. Lets be clear Return of the Jedi was an amazing finale to teh original trilogy, redemption, personal arcs all satisfied, a huge battle and the triumph of good over evil. The story of the Sequel Trilogy was ‘lets redo Star Wars but with a woman’. The Star Wars sequels treated the original trilogy as disposable, when they were iconic, and so despite excellent casting and even good ideas for the lead characters the whole is very much less than the sum of its parts. It is this indifference to canon or legacy that means there is no plan to delegitimise the sequels. Not because of confidence in the project, its because they are too interested in tomorrow’s dollar instead of yesterday’s failures.

And so it seems that Disney Plus is propping up Star Wars, giving it space to lick its wounds and sell people Baby Yoda. And like the Clone Wars with the dismal prequels the Filoni/Favreau verse will tell the tale of Star Wars post Return of teh Jedi, eventually weaving in Ezra, Asoka and force visions of the back of Rey’s head in an attempt to refit the ST into something worthwhile, or at least palatable. A 5 year telly mission to undo and refine a terrible trilogy. I do suspect we will get episode 10 at some point when Ridley and Boyega need the cash and it will likely be a remake of TFA because it worked. If the Cassian Andor show gets made I’ll be surprised, if I am honest even the Obi Wan series too, maybe it will be a mini TV movie to save face. I Can’t help but feel the Asoka, Fett and Rex rumours are Disney product testing, looking at twitter trends and youtube videos for likes and hashtags before making a decision.

However passable the Mandalorian is, and however risk free the direction and even if you could cobble together a reason for an empire uprising again as teh First Order, the bottom line is the personal story arcs of the characters were brought to a satisfying end so why did Lucasfilm unpick them? (yeah why Rian) its like separating the eggs from a baked cake. What I will say though is that the original EU/Legends was that, extra material. The current books and comics all seem to be explanations of plot holes. Comic detailing where Maz Kanata got Luke’s saber from… check, YA novel talking about Po Dameron and Zori Bliss spice running Check, I am sure the knights of Ren have a Westlife cover album coming soon. The ancillary material exists as a narrative crutch to sloppy movies where in the past sloppy books rode on the coattails of 3 excellent movies. The new ‘high republic era books featuring superhero Jedi is about an incident much like the Holdo manoeuvre and how a ship exploding in hyperspace badly damaged hundreds of planets and ships, thereby explaining why an X Wing wasn’t just set to lightspeed to destroy the Death Star, or even why you need a Death Star because an X Wing at hyperspeed could probably destroy a planet as well. Any way a whole series of comics and books to effectively explain away and legitimise the single Holdo manoeuvre like spraying glade over a boxing day shit.