James Whitbrook is the Deputy Editor of io9, with an expertise in covering Stars of the Wars and Trek varieties, as well as anime, games, and collectibles. You can follow his coverage here, and email tips to james.whitbrook@gizmodo.com.
Star Wars is coming to a crossroads in 2023. It’s been just over three years since the end of the Skywalker Saga in the divisive The Rise of Skywalker, and in the meantime Lucasfilm has retreated to the security and cameo-laden nostalgia of a small streaming Empire of shows on Disney+. With high profile movie delays and project leads falling through time and time again, and an uncertain future on the silver screen, Star Wars is going to find its biggest challenge this year is proving that Lucasfilm is capable of capturing movie magic again.
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This is also going to be a big year for one of Lucasfilm’s other big ventures: the transmedia High Republic project, a prequel-prequel set 200 years before the events of the main Star Wars movie saga spread across books, comics, and now TV series like Young Jedi Adventures and The Acolyte. Coming into a rough start for its “Phase II” at the tail end of 2022—taking a herky-jerky leap back in time to another 150 years after the first wave of stories ended on a major cliffhanger—the initiative is already heralding the beginning of its end in 2023 as we head into a third and final phase. Will returning to the characters High Republic started with recapture some of the high attention around the initial rollout?
This is the year Lucasfilm and the fandom at large don’t exactly turn on, but perhaps demand more for Star Wars beyond, Dave Filoni’s executive production. Filoni is one of George Lucas’ scions at the studio, and has plenty of projects on the way in 2023, but series like Andor have proven an appetite beyond his house style of cramming Ahsoka Tano into every other story.
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Source: Gizmodo