Star Wars Celebration London kicked off this year’s event with the news that Dave Filoni and James Mangold are both directing new Star Wars movies. And in the aftermath of those announcements, the duo are shedding some light on what they have planned.
As reported earlier, Filoni’s film is the cinematic event that will bring characters from The Mandalorian, Ahsoka, and The Book of Boba Fett together. And according to Filoni, it also represents the conclusion of the story he began telling years ago.
“On a base level, I would just say the coming conflict, the growing idea that the empire wasn’t as defeated as a lot of people want to believe and that the remnant is out there,” said Filoni while speaking with Variety. “We saw that from the very beginning with The Mandalorian and how Giancarlo’s [Esposito] character Gideon was plotting. There are always people that are willing to undermine something that the Republic is trying to build and put back on its feet.”
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“I grew up with a lot of stories in the expanding universe that were exploring what happened after Return of the Jedi,” continued Filoni. “There has been this, for fans, idea that there was a new Republic and a remnant Empire and the conflict persisted after Return of the Jedi, even though the heroes won and were more in control. What did that control look like? And since Force Awakens is 30 years on out from Return of the Jedi, we have room then to tell another story. That’s what I’m coalescing into this time period.”
Variety also spoke with Mangold, who shared the genesis of his film, which will take place at the dawn of the Jedi, 25,000 years before the original trilogy.
“It’s a chance to tell the entire story of its own, the birth of the force,” said Mangold. “When I first talked to Kathy Kennedy about it, I just said, ‘I just see this opening to make kind of a Ben-Hur or The 10 Commandments about the birth of the Force.’ The Force has become a kind of religious legend that spans through all these movies. But where did it come from? How is it found? Who found it? Who was the first Jedi? And that’s what I’m writing right now.”
For now, neither one of these films has been given a release date.
Which of these two Star Wars projects are you more intrigued by? Let us know in the comment section below!
Photo Credits: Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images and Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for Disney
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