Today, Disney launches Star Wars: The High Republic, its attempt to do for books what Marvel has done for movies. Viva the Star Wars Literary Universe!
Today marks the debut of Star Wars: The High Republic, a barrage of written Star Wars content that will span novels, comic books, magazines and more. Set hundreds of years before the prequel movies, The High Republic will tell the story of the Jedi at the height of their power, when they discovery an enemy none of them are prepared for.
“It is a time of peace and it is the Jedi Knights at their height,” said Lucasfilm Publishing creative director MIchael Siglain during a virtual panel the other day. “It is a golden age of the Jedi that we’ve seen hinted about we’ve never seen in current fiction.”
"When we were up at the ramps, there were two things that really drove us once we hit upon High Republic. The first one was a quote from Obi-Wan Kenobi where he says, ‘For over 1000 generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic … What does that look like? While we were kicking around those ideas, it was Cavan [Scott] who asked the question: ‘What scares the Jedi?’ And we thought, ‘Ooo, that’s an interesting question.’ You put both of those together and run with it, and that became the basis for The High Republic."
But you don’t just have to read about it. Check out the trailer below:
The first High Republic works are officially out, including Charles Soule’s novel The Light of the Jedi, Justina Ireland’s A Test of Courage, and Cavan Scott’s children’s book The Great Jedi Rescue. Claudia Gray’s Into the Dark lands on Tuesday, February 2. There are also two comic book series on the way: Marvel’s Star Wars: The High Republic by Cavan Scott and Ario Anindito is coming on January 6; and IDW’s Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures lands on Sunday, February 21. You can get an exclusive look inside the Marvel series right here. Another novel by Scott, The Rising Storm, hits in July.
All of this is part of “Phase I” of The High Republic, called “Light of the Jedi,” which will run through 2021 and into 2022, according to Siglain. “I’m not going to tell you how far it goes into ’22, but I can say that there will be a steady stream of books, comics, and magazines coming your way on a monthly basis, which is really exciting,” he said. “When we talk about this being a multi-year initiative, that is true. We are absolutely playing the long game here.” After that, we’ve got “Phase 2: Quest of the Jedi” and “Phase 3: Trials of the Jedi.”
Basically, it looks like Disney wants this to be a literary version of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but for Star Wars: a never-ending stream of interconnected content that go on for as long as they want it to. We’ll see if it finds similar success.
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h/t SyFy Wire