A major shake-up is coming to the galaxy far, far away. According to The Hollywood Reporter, a new Star Wars trilogy is underway which will act as the "next chapter" of the Skywalker Saga — that would be the main run of Star Wars films, which includes the original and prequel trilogies from George Lucas as well as the sequel trilogy released in the 2010s by Disney. Jon Watts, the director behind the Marvel Cinematic Universe's first three Spider-Man films, is slated to direct the first in this trilogy, while the whole thing is being penned by Simon Kinberg, a veteran producer and writer of sci-fi fare including credits on many of Fox's X-Men movies.
Watts has proven his mettle on movies like Spider-Man: No Way Home, which grossed nearly $2 billion at the box office and featured a complex web of returning legacy characters that took expert precision to navigate in a way that was comprehensible for audiences. This also wouldn't be his first experience with Star Wars, either; Watts co-created Skeleton Crew, the Jude Law-starring spinoff about a group of kids trying to get back to their home planet in spite of the roguish space pirates on their tail. While Skeleton Crew seems like it may have been quietly canceled following poor viewership numbers, it was still one of the stronger Star Wars TV shows that Lucasfilm has produced, at least in my opinion.
All this is to say, a new Star Wars trilogy from Simon Kinberg with Jon Watts helping it get off the ground should be cause for celebration. THR even reports that Daisy Ridley's Rey would return in some capacity for the film, likely in a smaller role that could grow over the course of the trilogy, which would primarily focus on a new cast of unknown characters. All the makings for a promising return for the franchise seem to be there.
Yet for as much as I went to meet this announcement with excitement, I can't help but feel cynicism creeping in instead. The idea of continuing the "Skywalker Saga" — a marketing term invented by Disney to tie their sequel trilogy more closely to Lucas' iconic films in the minds of audiences — calls to mind another recent film reboot that sought to build off a seemingly finished story arc: Jurassic World Rebirth. And I'm already dreading the idea that Star Wars might be making the same uninspired mistakes.
What is an epic saga without an ending?
On the surface, I have no problem with Disney continuing the story it laid out in the sequel trilogy. Rey and Finn (John Boyega) are wonderful characters, and many fans (myself included) would love to see more of them. In that respect, following the threads left hanging at the end of Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker doesn't feel like a bad idea at all.
The rub comes from a previous mistake Lucasfilm and Disney made in the marketing for its sequel trilogy: it pushed it as the "end of the Skywalker Saga." At the time, this left a weird taste in many fans' mouths, since "concluding" George Lucas' saga with a bunch of new, original movies didn't necessarily feel artistically sound. Instead, as I mentioned, this was mainly done to create a sense of familiarity with audiences. You really want to see these movies, because they conclude a story that's been decades-in-the-making; even if they largely tossed Lucas' original outline for his own sequel trilogy storyline aside. Had Disney not gone this route with the marketing, it wouldn't feel so disingenuous to launch another run of movies that will, inevitably, be billed as the continuation of the saga.
Part of why this gets me so immediately up in arms is because we saw it happen once already in the recent past, with Jurassic World Rebirth. Like the Star Wars sequel trilogy, Universal Pictures billed its third Jurassic World film, 2022's Jurassic World Dominion, as the "epic conclusion" of the saga. That actually felt more warranted than the Skywalker Saga's marketing tie-in marketing, because the third Jurassic World brought back all three of the original Jurassic Park's stars in one movie for the first time since 1993, where they navigated a globe-trotting adventure alongside the new stars played by Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard.
Fast forward a mere three years, and Universal put out Jurassic World Rebirth, a reboot for the series that took place after Jurassic World Dominion. While it did utilize all new characters and have a slightly fresh tone thanks to having franchise newcomer Gareth Edwards in the director's chair, Rebirth still built off of Dominion in ways that tied the two films together. The set up for the world, and how dinosaurs spread across the globe before their incompatability with its current climate forced them into isolated pockets like the film's central island setting, is entirely dependent on the worldbuilding from Dominion.
Then as now, my strong feeling was that the Jurassic franchise needed a little more time to let Dominion's "epic conclusion" breathe before throwing viewers back in with another movie. That feeling was validated when I actually saw Jurassic World Rebirth, which had some fun scenes but was all over the place storywise, to the point where its signature mutant dinosaurs barely had any impact on the plot whatsoever. It smelled like a cash grab when it was announced, and that's exactly what it felt like watching it in the theater, despite the excitement of its stars and director to be entering the franchise.
Can Star Wars: Episode X avoid the mistakes of other franchises?
My fear here is that fans will experience something similar with Kinberg's new Star Wars trilogy. If it truly is going to be billed as a continuation of the Skywalker Saga, starting with a movie subtitled Episode X, then that stands to undermine parts of the ending from The Rise of Skywalker. That movie may have been the weakest of the sequel trilogy, but it did have a finite ending. And there is something to be said for that. When movies become never-ending franchises meant to keep people invested for the rest of their lives, they miss out on the fact that a good ending can elevate an entire story. Lucas' films got this, and I'm already bracing myself to feel like the new era of Disney Star Wars films opted to avoid it in favor of feeding that ever-insatiable bottom line.
Perhaps I'll be surprised; after all, the time gap between Episode IX and Watts' Episode X will be much longer than the gap between Jurassic World Dominion and Jurassic World Rebirth. And hey, my opinion aside, Rebirth was a massive success at the box office, pulling in over $872 million globally. That's well enough that Universal greenlit a sequel, though Edwards will not be returning to direct it. Clearly, people went to see this movie, so whether I think it was a step down for the franchise's quality is neither here nor there. Dinosaurs and lightsabers will always put butts in movie theater seats, end of story.
Ultimately, time will tell whether Jon Watts' new Star Wars movie becomes another classic entry in the saga, or a disheartening reminder of how mediocre the never-ending content being produced in George Lucas' beloved galaxy has become — that's if it gets made at all. This news must come with a caveat that has become somewhat standard for Star Wars movie announcements: take it with a grain of salt until something more substantial materializes. Over the past several years, Lucasfilm has announced a slew of movie projects set in this universe which haven't panned out, including a trilogy from Thor:Ragnarok director Taika Waititi, a Rogue Squadron movie from Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins, another trilogy from The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson, a movie about the dawn of the Jedi from Logan director James Mangold, a Rey sequel movie and more. It's become best to take a wait-and-see approach with Star Wars movies.
Fortunately, there is another Star Wars film on the horizon that seems promising in its own right: Star Wars: Starfighter, an original story directed by Shawn Levy that stars Ryan Gosling, set after the sequel trilogy. That one has a release date of May 27, 2027. As of right now, it's the only upcoming Star Wars film we're guaranteed to get.
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