The Clock Starts for Star Wars: Episode X
Reading all the posts about Kathleen Kennedy's (drawn-out) exit from Lucasfilm,1 handing over the reins of the Star Wars universe to Dave Filoni (and technically, Lynwen Brennan – but Filoni for creative purposes),2 they all sort of dance around the big question: where is he going to take it? They all note the work that's already well underway or in the pipeline, but they're all tangential elements at best. What everyone really wants to know is: when and how he'll do the next Star Wars trilogy?
Because it's obviously coming. It has to be. You don't give someone the power at Lucasfilm and not let them continue the main stories that everyone cares most about. It would be like taking over Nintendo and never doing another Mario game.
And Filoni, famously, was hired and mentored by George Lucas himself before he sold Lucasfilm to Disney. And Filoni wasn't a production/operations person like Kennedy, he was a full-on creative, cutting his teeth in animation and screenwriting. He must be champing at the bit to continue what Lucas started...
At the same time, he's also well known to be in-the-weeds when it comes to Star Wars. Perhaps (and probably) too much. That has worked with a lot of the animation projects because those are both less mainstream and in a way, animation gives you cover to try more things.
Disney had previously announced that the first live-action Star Wars movie that Filoni would direct would be a cross-over between The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka, and The Skeleton Crew – all Disney+ series – but Kennedy clearly back-burnered it in favor of this summer's Mandalorian & Grogu movie (co-written by Filoni but directed by Jon Favreau). And that was undoubtedly a smart move. While The Mandalorian has been a hit, the other three are bigger question marks. Releasing a feature film relying on knowledge from each of those shows was potentially a recipe for disaster. Better to stick with what works and throw in a sweetener by putting Grogu – aka "Baby Yoda" – right there in the title and marketing.3
So the question now is if Filoni will be able to make such calls without Kennedy around to check his tendencies. And to be clear and fair, Kennedy clearly had her own tendencies which could have used some checking over these past many years.
Beyond Solo, which she's taking a new round of flack for in the press with the retirement cycle – FWIW, I didn't think it was awful, just totally unnecessary – there was Obi-Wan, which was sloppy and almost tedious. And The Acolyte, which was legitimately bad at points. And that one points back to a Filoni concern in a way because the driving force there, Leslye Headland, was also clearly an in-the-weeds nerd for this stuff. Before the show hit, I wondered if that might be a problem and well, it was.
Which brings it back to Star Wars, the main timeline and trilogies. Again, it's clearly going to happen. Beyond Filoni taking over Lucasfilm, Disney itself is also on the verge of getting a new CEO. That person is clearly going to want to/need to play the new Star Wars trilogy card at some point. The question is how Filoni approaches and handles it...
Does he try to take them on himself? Perhaps bringing in some of the ideas Lucas passed on to Disney (perhaps written up to juice the sale price) at the time of sale? A couple elements made it into Episodes VII, VIII, and IX, but for the most part, everything was thrown out. It does seem like Filoni is on the verge of restoring some of those plot points with the forthcoming Maul – Shadow Lord show. Yes, another animated series for Disney+. As the title implies, it centers around yes, Darth Maul. Yes, after his – 27 year spoiler alert! – mauling by Obi-Wan Kenobi in Episode I. And yes, continuing on from what was teased in – 8 year spoiler alert! – Solo. And yes – spoiler for the animated series – The Clone Wars and Rebels too. Or maybe this new series is simply a way to wink to those Lucas ideas for 'Darth Talon' and whatnot.
Does Filoni view the Simon Kinberg project(s) as the potential continuation of the main cannon? They're still being written – "very good, but not there" to quote Kennedy herself – but the plan was said to be for three movies... Lucasfilm apparently pushed back on the notion in the past that these would be a continuation of the Skywalker Saga but there's some fuzziness there. And again, it's a work very much in progress...
Then there's the new Rey movie, which would obviously be a continuation of the Saga, but apparently wasn't intended to be the start of the next trilogy and more just an offshoot. But no one knows since not only is it not written, it has seemingly been in pre-production hell for years now without a clear status.
Does Filoni (re)approach Steven Soderbergh and Adam Driver to resurrect their Ben Solo sequel which Kennedy apparently liked but Disney itself cut down? Taika Waititi's take is still clearly top of mind for him, but sounds... different. Could next year's Starfighter evolve into something more...
There are clearly a lot of options, but the best one may be to keep it simple and just write a series of sequels to The Rise of Skywalker. Luke is gone. Leia is gone. Han is gone. But we're getting to the point that there may be some nostalgia building for the newer characters that remain – at least from The Force Awakens. Get a great writer in there, perhaps a fresh set of eyes, Tony Gilroy-style.4 Focus on the characters and a good story. Decent dialog is pure icing on the cake in this universe.
Yes, maybe somehow, Ben Solo can return. Snoke? Plagueis? Brad Bird? Colin Trevorrow?! Just, for the love of god, not Palpatine.5
1 I didn't realize that she got her start as Spielberg's assistant – technically the assistant as someone who worked in the same building as Spielberg and he poached her! To its credit, that is often how Hollywood works! ↩
2 As expected/predicted... ↩
3 And even then, it's far from a sure thing this will be a huge hit – and I suspect that's exactly why they're leveraging Baby Yoda in the title and marketing, he's the viral hit. But that was also a long time ago... ↩
4 Perhaps the biggest concern with Dave Filoni going forward in this role is the report he apparently disliked Andor, undoubtedly the best bit of Star Wars content in years. ↩
5 Also ideally not Robert Downey Jr. ↩