This Week, In a Galaxy Far, Far Away: Checking In With How the Strikes Have Affected Star Wars, Vaughns Quote, and More

Happy Sunday, and welcome to a new edition of this weekly series of articles where I just go wild with my thoughts and try to connect with you, the reader, on a more personal note, as I look back at this past week in Star Wars. As always, feel free to drop your thoughts, suggestions, or criticisms in the comment section below.



This week was, how would we say it..., pretty darn quiet on the Star Wars front. At least as far as news goes. (Sorry to my friends who are big fans of the publishing side of the franchise, but Cavan Scott talking about Tales from the Death Star or an excerpt from The Eye of Darkness isn't enough for me to rant for 2,000 words.) Despite that, there have been a couple of topics that have come up, both in Star Wars land and elsewhere, that are quite interesting to discuss. But first, a programming note:

• I said last week we'd be doing more season-long reviews of Ahsoka this week, and even though Josh published his own thoughts, I decided to hold my own review, which I had sort of mapped out in my head. The reason why is that I would have liked to have a wider spectrum of opinions out there in the world, yet most of us landed on small variations around 'Good, but could have been so much better'. My own thoughts in a nutshell? It was a story spread too thin.

<hr />


<h2>Quote of the Week</h2>


There's really no way around this one, we have to address Matthew Vaughn's quote about the exciting possibility of rebooting Star Wars. In particular, he told Josh Horowitz during a recent episode of the Happy, Sad, Confused podcast:

First of all: What? It took me a long time to fully understand what he's really saying, but our own Nate Manning had a pretty good explanation in the recent episode of our YouTube show SWNN Live! Think of characters like James Bond, Batman, Spider-Man, Superman. They are characters ingrained in pop culture and each generation has had their own big-screen version of them. Studios have no problem rebooting the characters on a constant basis, so why isn't the same happening with Star Wars?



However, there are so many problems with Vaughn's approach, from a legal issue (Disney's deal with George Lucas may actually forbid the company from touching anything in the original trilogy, including remaking or rebooting the story) to a story issue. Why is Skywalker the only relevant name in the Star Wars franchise that, whenever we can't do anything else with it, we should reboot?



He's thinking of the new generations ('If you want a new generation, make the movie for them,' he also said), but why does that new movie have to use the same names, locations, and story as before? Isn't the sequel trilogy basically Disney's attempt at making what he's talking about? I mean, Rey has often been diminished as a knock-off Luke -- now Vaughn is saying 'not enough like Luke'? (If you have a more accurate interpretation of what he's saying, please let me know! I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around it.)



It's funny because what Vaughn is talking about when he mentions the 'new generation' is essentially the same argument I grab whenever I hear 'The sequel trilogy should have been about the original trilogy characters'. Sorry, no. This isn't your story anymore. No 13-year-old wants a story about a group of 60-year-olds, and remember, that's who Star Wars was originally made for.







<hr />


<h2>A Star Wars check-in with the strikes</h2>


On Friday, I wrote an extensive piece on our sister site, MovieNewsNet.com, about where things stand with the labor stoppages in Hollywood, which you can check out here. But here's the too-long-didn't-read version: The writers' strike concluded in early October when the members of the WGA ratified the contract proposal that the negotiating committee had reached with the Hollywood studios, and everyone got back to work. It was then time to go back to the actors, which the studios did promptly, but things didn't go well. (An announcement was made over the weekend that talks will restart on Tuesday, which coincided with the 100-day anniversary of the stoppage.)



After a couple of weeks of heavy negotiations, the studios exited the table after a new proposal by the actors that addressed the issue of streaming residuals. (Details in the link above.) There were also disagreements about the increase in minimum wages (the actors were asking for their salaries to keep up with inflation; much more than what the writers got) and also on the much-discussed topic of artificial intelligence.



So what does all of this mean for Star Wars? Well, at this point, Lucasfilm, much like most studios in Hollywood, is focused on restarting the entire pipeline. They want the writers working on the scripts so that they can roll cameras in a few months. In the case of Star Wars this especially affects the film side, as they wanted 2024 to be the year where they finally get a movie rolling, but there are TV implications as well. Let me quickly address most of them before I focus the most important one:

• Shawn Levy is focused on Deadpool 3, which has its own set of headaches, so don't expect to even think about Star Wars anytime soon.
• Dave Filoni will likely be working on the second season of Ahsoka before he puts pen to paper on his feature film, which I can't imagine will happen before the end of next summer.
• James Mangold, under normal circumstances, would have already shot his Bob Dylan biopic over the summer and even edited it by now. Reports from a few months ago said he would have started to script his Dawn of the Jedi film by now. Well, the actors' strike has prevented production on the Searchlight film from starting, but now that the writers are allowed back to work, he could actually start working on Star Wars, especially since Timmy Chalamet will be quite busy promoting Dune: Part Two once the SAG-AFTRA strike is settled, so production on that may be delayed for a few more months. Let's keep an eye on that one.
• Lando should be back to work as well. Donald Glover, who not only is starring in the series-turned-film, but also co-writing, has finished his work on Amazon's Mr. &amp; Mrs. Smith series, although with its January 2024 date he will likely be promoting it once the strike is lifted. But besides Star Wars, Dan Harmon is also waiting for him for the Community movie that was actually supposed to happen this year.
• Taika's Star Wars script is due another draft sooner rather than later; I actually believe this is the most far-along project Lucasfilm has on the feature side. According to reporter Jeff Sneider, he's also brought on additional writers. No names have been mentioned, but I'll raise Our Flag Means Death showrunner David Jenkins or Reservation Dogs co-creator Sterlin Harjo as possibilities.
• On the TV side, now that The Acolyte is in an advanced state on the post-production side, I imagine that it's about time Leslye Headland gathers back her writers to start thinking about a second season. We know they've planned a multiple-season arc and if the show will be as well received as I suspect, Disney will likely want new episodes out as soon as possible. My guess is that this will come out during next summer, and if they start writing now, they could actually be filming by then.
• The Mandalorian should be able to go back to work and shoot its fourth season shortly after the actors' strike is resolved. I imagine around January or February of 2024 they will start filming, and here, the scheduling headaches that Hollywood is about to suffer will not be a thing. Most actors in The Mandalorian aren't really working a lot elsewhere.
• Andor season 2 halted production back in July when the actors were on strike, just when they were a few weeks away from completion. Post-production has been happening ever since, and filming is expected to be completed once SAG-AFTRA reaches a deal with the studios. But this might be when the scheduling headaches affect Star Wars, if some of the series' stars are attached elsewhere -- though I don't think it will be a big deal, given the little time they have left and the fact that they were just filming when the strike was announced. The final season was targeting an August 2024 release date, but I doubt it will stick to that, mostly because of The Acolyte premiering later than expected (I assume). September/October seems more plausible.
• Skeleton Crew, outside of maybe some ADR work that was required in post-production, has not been affected by either strike. However, I wouldn't be surprised if part of the reason why Lucasfilm is no longer releasing it this year is because they don't have Jude Law around to promote it. I stick to my February 2024 prediction on this one, and if the actors are able to wrap up the strike by Thanksgiving, that should give them plenty of time to promote it.

We finally reach the golden project at this point, the New Jedi Order-era film written by Steven Knight and directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. A quick recap: Damon Lindelof and Justin Britt-Gibson pitched and subsequently wrote a story set decades after The Rise of Skywalker, which would have focused on two new Jedi training under an elder Rey. Shortly after they turned in their draft, Lucasfilm said 'Thanks but no thanks' and hired a new writer to go back to page one, with one condition. The new story was set to center around Daisy Ridley's Rey, 15 years after Episode IX.



That writer was Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, and I'm assuming Daisy got a lot more than a big fat check -- she should actually have a say in the story. I mean, I'm her agent and I'd be like: 'So you want my client back, now that she's actually landed a couple of really solid projects, one of which got solid reviews at Sundance, huh? Well, guess what, she'll do it, but not only will the movie revolve entirely around her, but she's also going to produce it.' Yeah, that's my prediction: Ridley will get a producer credit on the film. (I would even go as far as an actual 'Produced by' title, and not 'Executive Producer'.)



So Knight was hired and, as Kennedy said back in April, he was supposed to turn in his first draft by the end of May. But the strike halted those plans, and I'm assuming that window was moved to October, perhaps even extended to Thanksgiving to give the writer some time. Lucasfilm wants this movie off the ground as soon as possible, but they know that 1) they need to get it right, and 2) they can't really move into pre-production until the actors' strike is over and they can cast it.







This is where Ridley's hypothetical producing role may come in handy. If she's a producer on the project, she may actually be able to check in with the status and give her input without breaking SAG-AFTRA's rulebook. Hell, she could even give a call to her friend John Boyega to see if he'd be hypothetically interested in coming back once the strike is resolved; or, if those meetings already happened, to see if he'd be hypothetically satisfied with a hypothetical storyline. You see where I'm going?



Despite all of that, it seems extremely unlikely they will be able to hit the targeted April 2024 production start date they had before the strike. There is no way they will have a finished script before Christmas, and even if they move into pre-production a few drafts away from the shooting script, this thing is not going in front of the cameras before the summer.



And by that point, we may enter another strike nightmare, because the studios' contracts with IATSE and Teamsters are up and the threat of yet another strike will loom over Hollywood. These are the below-the-line workers: everyone from the hair and makeup artists to the plumbers or electricians. Now there's even an effort to unionize among the VFX workers (members of Marvel's and Disney's in-house VFX staff will be part of IATSE by then, and more are likely to follow). Bottom line: pay everyone fairly and let's be done with it already.



No release date has been announced, but I still have the feeling this will come out on May 22, 2026. The big problem with that date seemed to be the Avengers movie Marvel wanted to release three weeks before, but thanks to the strike, that is virtually impossible now. And even if they start filming in the fall of 2024, they should have enough time to mee that release date. I'm excited for this one, although I'm still not convinced they have the right people for the project. I've now seen the new Netflix series All The Light We Cannot See, which Knight scripted and Shawn Levy directed (comes out in early November, my review on MovieNewsNet.com will be out soon) and even though I liked it, my argument remains: Have we really seen Steven Knight get into fantasy adventures? I hope I'm wrong.



Daisy Ridley steps out on stage at Star Wars Celebration 2023 to announce she will be back as Rey in an upcoming film directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy.



<hr />


<h2>Jocasta Nu's Reading List</h2>


A lot of interesting stories to read this week. Here are a few of them:

• SWNN: Our own Jay Goodearl went back to the Bible looking for clues about Ahsoka's mysterious character, Captain Enoch.
• Screen Rant: Corey Larson argues that Carson Teva's presence is actually shrinking the Star Wars galaxy. Bold claim, but maybe some of our readers may relate to it.
• Spiel Times: Could Cal Kestis appear in Ahsoka season 2? Nobelle Borines thinks Dave Filoni hid a few clues in the first season.
• Collider: New amazing Funko Pops revealed from Ahsoka season 1. I'm particularly obsessed with Captain Enoch.
• CBR: Tom Wampach believes Cad Bane deserves his own series. I'm not fond of 'X character deserves his own series' type of rants but there may be something there for some of our readers.
• Inverse: Simon Kinberg, who worked on Star Wars: Rebels, among other things, celebrates the animated characters making the jump to live-action in Ahsoka.
• Game Rant: Could Jackie Chan ever appear in Star Wars? Apparently, Ahsoka opened the door for him, Adin Keshet argues.
• TheWrap: Is the Galactic Starcruiser planning to reverse course on its cancellation? Hopefully, not. But a recently sent survey has made TheWrap think it's actually possible.

What did you think of the second edition of “This Week, In a Galaxy Far, Far Away”? Let me know your comments, suggestions, and complaints in the comment section. You can also send them to us directly via our Contact page or by emailing us at starwarsnewsnet@gmail.com. Have a good week!



Note: A previous version of this article missed Andor season 2 and Skeleton Crew on the rundown. For other projects that may be missing, like the animated series, check out this article that goes into more detail. I mostly wanted to focus on the feature films here, with a couple of quick notes regarding the TV shows.




Click HERE to check out and comment on this topic on our main site