Rian Johnson to develop next Star Wars Trilogy

[Hilden B. Lade]

http://www.starwars.com/news/rian-jo...c%7C1147744441

For director Rian Johnson, Star Wars: The Last Jedi was just the beginning of his journey in a galaxy far, far away.

Lucasfilm is excited to announce that Johnson will create a brand-new Star Wars trilogy, the first of which he is also set to write and direct, with longtime collaborator Ram Bergman onboard to produce.

As writer-director of The Last Jedi, Johnson conceived and realized a powerful film of which Lucasfilm and Disney are immensely proud. In shepherding this new trilogy, which is separate from the episodic Skywalker saga, Johnson will introduce new characters from a corner of the galaxy that Star Wars lore has never before explored.

“We all loved working with Rian on The Last Jedi,” said Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm. “He’s a creative force, and watching him craft The Last Jedi from start to finish was one of the great joys of my career. Rian will do amazing things with the blank canvas of this new trilogy.”

“We had the time of our lives collaborating with Lucasfilm and Disney on The Last Jedi,” Johnson and Bergman said in a joint statement. “Star Wars is the greatest modern mythology and we feel very lucky to have contributed to it. We can’t wait to continue with this new series of films.”

Johnson’s upcoming Star Wars: The Last Jedi arrives in U.S. theaters on Dec. 15, 2017.

No release dates have been set for the new films, and no porgs were available for comment.

[Frontier]

So we'll have two concurrent trilogies going on ?

[BeastieRunner]

I was just coming here to post about this!

This is awesome. I was disappointed to hear he wasn’t going to direct Episode IX but this more than makes up for it.

[Punisher007]

Also there's a live action SW TV Show coming in 2019 as well.

[Sacred Knight]

I'd put one in the days of the Old Republic and one in the days of the New Republic some generations after VII-IX. Which is which I don't really care.

[WebLurker]

I'll have to wait and see if I like Last Jedi before deciding if I want more of his version of Star Wars, but if LucasFilm wants him to do more, that's a good sign.

A trilogy of non-Saga movies actually sounds like a good idea; the main series could easily get pretty bogged down with sequel trilogy after sequel trilogy, although I do have to admit that I would like to see the adventures of the sequel trilogy's leads go in in some form, either in other movies (or the tie-ins, if nothing else).

[Carabas]

Are there really any unexplored corners of the Star Wars verse left?

[EmrysM]

I feel that I would potentially have found this announcement more exciting if they'd waited a month so we would have a better idea of what a Rian Johnson Star Wars actually is.

That said, I personally was hoping for more new things in The Force Awakens, and it sounds like this trilogy is what I was after! I'd also like to see something based around the Old Republic.

[Punisher007]

If they started talking about the origins of the Jedi/The Force/etc in TLJ, then I'm 90% sure that it'll be Old Republic-based. Not the same story, but set in that time period at least.

Also just a little personal thing, but if they do delve into the background stuff, then I'd love to FINALLY get a female Sith Lord in these films. Pretty please Rian?

[SuperiorIronman]

Makes sense they would start planning now.
For unexplored areas I could imagine that going back in time for a saga might be a good idea. Give more Jedi and Sith so writers don't have to stretch the rules regarding whats going on, or what the status quo is at a given time. And even if it is a prequel to the other three trilogies, they can be disconnected by a couple thousand years or so and still have impact so a Sith Empire still has real consequences. Even if we know it's going to be gone a thousand years before the Prequels it still has a lasting affect on the story.
I hope it's old Republic based.

Just watch the conflict center on the Vong.

[ChrisIII]

Are there really any unexplored corners of the Star Wars verse left?

Although it was covered quite heavily in past EU (Tales of the Jedi, Bioware's and Dark Horse Old Republic stuff, Bane and Knight Errant etc.) I think Disney could probably do their own take on the 'ancient' Star Wars universe. It certainly could provide for a saga; the "final" battle between the Jedi and the Sith, perhaps the formation of the Republic (The films seem to state that the Republic formed out of that war a thousand years before the films; earlier books tried to fix that with their timeline with a retcon: that by saying the Republic simply re-organized, it's army disbanded etc.

Of course Darth Bane is kind of 'locked' into continuity by his appearence in "Clone Wars" (Although with a more Vaderish look than the bald guy/organic armor look of the novels).


Here's a thought; while a lot of fiction has addressed that the Sith rose from schism within the Jedi, what if it was the other way around? ROTS's dialogue strongly hints that the Sith ruled the galaxy before the Republic....("The opression of the Sith will never return"...."Once more the Sith will rule the galaxy!") Maybe the Jedi were the original "rebels"? It'd provide an interesting parrarel to the conflicts in the other films.

[Carabas]

Here's a thought; while a lot of fiction has addressed that the Sith rose from schism within the Jedi, what if it was the other way around? ROTS's dialogue strongly hints that the Sith ruled the galaxy before the Republic....("The opression of the Sith will never return"...."Once more the Sith will rule the galaxy!") Maybe the Jedi were the original "rebels"? It'd provide an interesting parrarel to the conflicts in the other films.

Well, in the old EU the Sith split off from the Jedi and then went on to rule the galaxy before they were brought down by Jedi and/or infighting. And then ruled the galaxy again, were defeated again, ruled the galaxy again etcetera...

Sith Empires seem to have been a dime a dozen.

[godisawesome]

Well, in the old EU the Sith split off from the Jedi and then went on to rule the galaxy before they were brought down by Jedi and/or infighting. And then ruled the galaxy again, were defeated again, ruled the galaxy again etcetera...

Sith Empires seem to have been a dime a dozen.

Empires, especially; Palpatine's pronouncement in ROTS seems to imply the his is the "FIRST! GALACTIC! EMPIRE!" in the singular. Personally, I've always loved the idea that before Bane reformed the Sith into the Rule of Two, the Sith never fully managed to consolidate their holdings into one, single, centralized power structure; that their fiefdoms existed in a perpetual state of internecine civil war which, at its most peaceful, would have resembled the Sengoku Period in Japan, with stagnation existing in the moments before a new series of wars crashes over everything again.

And that's part of the reason I'd love to see the new trilogy set in that chaos. In the Hundred Years Darkness.

[SuperiorIronman]

We do know the Sith had a sizeable amount of control over the galaxy so maybe not exactly an Empire but it was definite Sith space. The in-fighting didn't start to happen until around the time of Bane so I'm not sure if Sith would've always been at each others throats all the time. However it may be that Sith had been in control but it lacked a central figure and was more akin to governors who would convene when needed. I don't think we've even been told who was in control then, only that the Darth title was in usage and it predates Bane so the Sith title is bestowed, but we aren't given any indicator of which Darth is in charge or if something else is higher than it. Basically the problem of not knowing anything about Sith hierarchy.

[Jekyll]

Boy Disney is going to milk Star Wars to death.