Rian Johnson’s Star Wars trilogy will step “beyond the legacy characters”

Love it or hate it, Star Wars: The Last Jedi made Disney a Death Star-sized amount of cash: $1.3 billion at the box office, to be exact. Among the reasons for the film’s success are director Rian Johnson’s vision and passion for all things Star Wars. The House of Mouse was so pleased with the results that it offered Johnson the chance to create an all-new Star Wars trilogy. He recently talked with the Observer about his approach to these new movies.

“I think that the fun and challenging part of it is to dive in, figure out what’s exciting and then figure out what it’s going to be,” Johnson said. “We’re doing something that steps beyond the legacy characters. What does that look like? To me, the blue sky element of it is what was most striking about it.”

December’s The Rise of Skywalker will be the final movie in the Skywalker Saga, the story that began way back in 1977 with A New Hope. Every movie since has had to have a connection to “legacy characters” like Luke and Leia Skywalker, Han Solo and Chewbacca, or Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine.

It makes sense that Johnson, who made an effort to break with tradition with The Last Jedi, would be excited by the possibility of no longer having to feature those figures. “I know the way that I’m coming at it and what’s fun about it for everyone in Lucasfilm is figuring out, ‘what’s the next step?’” he continued. “It really makes you think and figure out what the essence of Star Wars is for me and what that will look like moving forward.”

All that said, we still don’t know what Johnson’s trilogy will be about, although he doesn’t lack for options. For instance, thousands of years before the Skywalker Saga timeline, the Jedi and the Sith warred for the galaxy. Word is that Disney is making at least one movie set in that time period, and we are on board.

Thanks to novels and games and more, many fans are already familiar with this time period and familiar with beloved characters like Revan, Bastila Shan and HK-47. But Johnson’s trilogy doesn’t have to be about these “Legends” characters anymore than it must be about “Legacy” characters. And that’s fine by me, because with a universe the size of Star Wars, the possibilities are endless.

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