With a little over a week before Star Wars Celebration Anaheim 2022, Lucasfilm partnered with Vanity Fair on an article pulling back the first layers on what’s to come from its live-action slate of TV and movies. While the latest photoshoot and article don’t uncover anything largely new, besides the announcement of a new show already rumored, plenty of intriguing details about shows like Andor and The Acolyte, as well as what films are on tap, offer a refreshing and welcomed glimpse at what’s to come for the future of Star Wars. Here’s hoping the animation side of things gets just as much love next or sooner! Head below for all the new details and more from the photoshoot!
Before we dive into any news tidbits, two things I’d like to discuss first:
- For starters, the only reason why the case against Rosario Dawson (live-action Ahsoka) hasn’t gone forward or isn’t happening right now is due to the court’s unwillingness to reschedule around COVID issues, which sounds like an easy excuse to try to wipe justice under the rug. The charges were dismissed or dropped since, but Dedrek Finley, the trans man alleging wrong-doing against Dawson, vows to continue in court whenever they allow it. Trans rights are human rights, an even more important reminder as many politicians attack the rights of marginalized groups across the United States and the rest of the world.
- Secondly, there’s a moment in the article that has sparked a lot of concerns and outcry, and even after realizing most of the context is on the writer and not Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy, it’s still a worrisome quote. Anthony Breznican sets Solo: A Star Wars Story, and specifically Alden Ehrenreich, as the main reason recasting familiar faces with new actors is not something Lucasfilm seems to want to do, when really it’s the way Lucasfilm handled the release, marketing, and director switch that doomed Solo box-office-wise but it’s now clear fan reactions are more and more positive to it and the casts’ portrayal of beloved characters. Kennedy’s comment after Breznican’s writing seems to hint CGI/Deepfakes like Luke Skywalker in The Mandalorian are the future, but here’s hoping the quote is out of context due to the writer (and their potential bias/feeding into the minority, yet vocal darker parts of fandom, something that happens later in the article in reference to The Rise of Skywalker and The Last Jedi) and not Kennedy’s feelings on where the franchise goes next. Especially considering next week their big release is a show starring two actors recast in roles, what irony! Here’s the moment in the article: The film has its admirers, but it made less at the box office than any other live-action Star Wars movie. Solo’s swagger may be too singular for another actor to replicate. “There should be moments along the way when you learn things,” says Kennedy. “Now it does seem so abundantly clear that we can’t do that.” From this quote, one could see how it sounds like an almost attack on recasting, but the more I think on her words, it just seems like they wouldn’t do a film again like that, not necessarily the idea of telling stories of characters at different ages with different actors, but it’s hard not to be angry either way as it feels like they learned the very wrong lesson from this.
Now onto the news! Before we dive into any tidbits, a little clarity was made regarding the upcoming live-action TV releases: Andor will hit sometime later this summer, The Mandalorian S3 should be late 2022/early 2023, Ahsoka is for sure out in 2023, and The Acolyte is sometime after (I imagine no later than summer 2024), while the newly announced Grammar Rodeo probably sometime after even that.
Andor:
Andor has been the one show I’ve been low-key most excited for, considering I love the actor’s portrayal of the character and the idea of his story digging into one of the many fascinating aspects of Rogue One, that gritter, darker side of the Rebellion. In the article, both actor Diego Luna and showrunner Tony Gilroy, while not saying a lot, say more than enough about their approach to the story and characters of the multi-season show, though the real winner of the day for Andor hype is a simple one: Genevieve O’Reilly looking immaculate as Mon Mothma, like wow, what a look, while Gilroy promises her story will run parallel from Cassian’s. From Luna, he calls Andor a migrant’s journey, “That feeling of having to move is behind this story, very profoundly and very strong. That shapes you as a person. It defines you in many ways, and what you are willing to do,” something many people of our planet can unfortunately relate to, giving Cassian’s show a lot of heart and emotion at its core. It’s revealed the story of Andor starts with the character’s birth world destroyed, following him into adulthood as he decides he can’t run forever, with Gilroy saying, “His adopted home will become the base of our whole first season, and we watch that place become radicalized,” Gilroy says. “Then we see another planet that’s completely taken apart in a colonial kind of way. The Empire is expanding rapidly. They’re wiping out anybody who’s in their way.” If you enjoyed the boots on the ground approach of Rogue One, it’s focus on a small group of characters in the larger fight, Andor looks to take that up to 11 throughout, which is why I am even more stoked about it now than before. Hopefully at Anaheim 2022 we’ll get a new trailer and a solidified release date!
The Acolyte:
Andor is right up there, but The Acolyte takes the meiloorun for me in excitement. Set about 100 years before The Phantom Menace, showrunner Leslye Headland (Russian Doll) confirmed in the article, which is about an extra 50 years prior than earlier reports/50 years closer to the end of whatever The High Republic team has cooked up! She also confirmed Amandla Stenberg (The Hunger Games) is the lead of the show, making them the first non-binary actor in Saga! This is the type of rumor I love to see confirmed. While details are still light on what the show is about after this article, it is very clear The Acolyte must be regarding the Sith’s way of worming their way into galactic politics, to lead us to the scenario Darth Sidious manages to use to bring about the end of the Jedi in the prequels. From the article:
“We’re taking a look at the political and personal and spiritual things that came up in a time period that we don’t know much about. My question when watching The Phantom Menace was always like, ‘Well, how did things get to this point?’ How did we get to a point where a Sith lord can infiltrate the Senate and none of the Jedi pick up on it? Like, what went wrong? What are the scenarios that led us to this moment?” Headland describes The Acolyte as a mystery thriller set in a prosperous and seemingly peaceful era, when the galaxy is still sleek and glistening. “We actually use the term the Renaissance, or the Age of Enlightenment,” she says. Jedi were not always ascetic monk-like figures living selflessly and bravely. “The Jedi uniforms are gold and white, and it’s almost like they would never get dirty. They would never be out and about,” Headland says. “The idea is that they could have these types of uniforms because that’s how little they’re getting into skirmishes.”
The reference to the Jedi uniforms being gold and white gives this The High Republic fan a big, Death Star sized dosage of joy, as it’ll be very neat to see the looks from the era translated to screen sometime soon, though the idea they don’t get out and about anymore is the inevitable results of what’s to come in the era’s story. Meanwhile, we’ll learn more about THR’s blast to the past for its second Phase at Anaheim 2022, before a return to its ‘present’ for the final Phase, which could very well conclude or be in the middle of releasing when this show arrives!
Grammar Rodeo (Working Title):
Created and Executive-produced by Jon Watts (Spider-Man MCU films, and this might line up with his exiting the Fantastic Four flick) and writer Chris Ford (Spider-Man: Homecoming), the untitled show is set during the post-Return of the Jedi era like The Mandalorian is, though it’s going to be Lucasfilm’s “galactic version of the classic Amblin coming-of-age adventure films of the ’80s.” This was originally rumored to be a Stranger Things meets Star Wars, so that tracks, though it was said to be set in The High Republic era, but now we know at least that part isn’t true. Maybe we’ll get more details at Anaheim 2022, but I doubt it.
Obi-Wan Kenobi:
We’re almost a week from the show’s two episode premiere, so there’s not too much more here about it, besides some tidbits on Ewan McGregor’s eventual desire to come back to the role stemming from introducing one of the films for a marathon screening and director Deborah Chow recruiting and fighting more Darth Vader’s inclusion for the story. In fact, Chow’s description on why they needed Vader in this only adds to the emotional well this show looks to delve into:
“For me, across the prequels, through the original trilogy, there’s a love-story dynamic with these two that goes through the whole thing,” Chow says. “I felt like it was quite hard to not [include] the person who left Kenobi in such anguish in the series.” What intrigued her was the idea that despite what Vader had become, Kenobi might still care deeply about him. “I don’t know how you could not,” she says. “I don’t think he ever will not care about him. What’s special about that relationship is that they loved each other.”
“I loved you, Anakin.” Can never quite get that line from Obi-Wan in Revenge of the Sith out of my head, and nor could Chow, and I’m glad she couldn’t ask she’s looking to explore that. Hayden Christensen, returning to play Anakin/Vader, even says something from his conversations with Chow that hint on the show really getting to the core of their broken brotherhood/friendship/love: “A lot of my conversations with Deborah were about wanting to convey this feeling of strength, but also coupled with imprisonment. There is this power and vulnerability, and I think that’s an interesting space to explore.” Expect our hearts to be attacked on May 27!
Ahsoka:
In the opening moments of the article, Ewan let slip the rumored casting of his now wife, Mary Elizabeth Winstead for the show, so hopefully the other rumors on Sabine turn out to be true too! Not much else is explored here, especially since it just started production only a week or so ago, other than Dave Filoni says it’s a “continuous story, ” so expect a serialized story at least in 2023. As for the convention next week, I imagine casting rumors will all be laid to rest, especially for Sabine, Ezra, and Thrawn.
The Mandalorian:
There’s less about the upcoming season of the show and more about how it all came to be, from the fact Filoni and Jan Favreau both had Mandalorian-headed shows in mind and Kennedy brought them together to hash it out, leading to the show we have in front of us; I assume Filoni’s show was more about Sabine/Bo-Katan/Darksaber stuff we’re getting into and Favreau’s was more about Boba/gunslinger stuff season one was more heavily about. Favreau had the idea for Grogu and Filoni fought it fiercely, but he obviously came around and, as much as they worried about it, it seems like the best decision either of them had ever made considering the character’s ginormous popularity. And the articles goes on about the strides they’ve made with the Volume, the circular screens that’s revolutionized TV show/movie making, which they knew was really working when James Cameron, a technology pushing director, could barely tell it hadn’t been shot on location. If there’s any hint about where things are going, it’s in a quote from Pedro Pascal, Din Djarin himself, on how the helmet allows him to play the role in character and via voice, thus taking on other roles like Joel in The Last of Us TV show for HBO, “Maybe I’m a little bit of a commitment-phobe,” he says, “because the coolness of it really excites me, and the life span of it really intimidates me,” the final part hinting on the legs of the show. Could The Mandalorian be 6-7 seasons long? That would certainly scare an actor in demand like Pascal, so don’t expect the adventures of Din and Grogu to go away anytime soon. At the very least, expect some type of teaser or more for S3 at the convention next week!
Films:
After the shows, the article ends with details about the upcoming films set in the universe. Confirming rumors, Rogue Squadron is delayed, though in it’s place will be Taika Waititi and Krysty Wilson-Cairns’ film (not a The High Republic one, as rumored, but that was fun to guess on!), which feels like it will probably be a necessary reset for the big screen part of the franchise. Kennedy claims there’s no MCU head Kevin Feige produced film, even though Michael Waldron (Loki and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness) recently said he’s writing it right now (though maybe when Kennedy was interviewed she couldn’t say anything concrete yet), while Rian Johnson’s trilogy is on the backburner, considering his Knives Out/Netflix deal, but I’ll just be happy for him to return to the franchise on his own terms when he feels comfortable doing so. Regardless, she says they have a road map, so there’s that? I’m sort of ready for Star Wars to go the Star Trek route and focus on TV shows, so they can take their time with any of these films…I’ve got lots of TV (animated as well!), books, and comics to enjoy.
After this article, I’m curious how much more they’ll reveal at Celebration Anaheim next week?! I’m sure they’ll have some surprises in store, but this seems to set the expectations lower, either because they don’t have much or they have something even bigger in store…but I’m going with the former on this and expecting more trailers/details for these already announced shows. In the end, I just hope this signals they’ll be less secretive about what’s to come and maybe be more Marvel in promoting hype for what’s next.
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website on Twitter @MynockManor and Instagram @mynockmanor.