This Week, In a Galaxy Far, Far Away: Star Wars News Breakdown, From Tales of the Empire To Dawn of the Jedi

Welcome back to a packed edition of “This Week, In a Galaxy Far, Far Away”. What a week! Lucasfilm may have taken an Easter break as we discussed in the last issue, but they’ve certainly let us know they are still very much awake. Today, we’ll be breaking down all of the Star Wars announcements and reports from this week, from the shocking announcement of a new Tales of the Empire animated series to Beau Willimon boarding Dawn of the Jedi.



It's been a pretty interesting week all across the entertainment business. Besides all of the news, in Star Wars we got a heartbreaking two-pack of The Bad Batch. Former SWNN lead editor and current Resistance Broadcast host John Hoey even said on Twitter 'I came close to turning it off a couple times because my kids were all I thought about.' You can read Josh's review here, in which he broke down everything that happened, and watch the latest SWNN Live! episode here, where Tyler, Jay, and Nate tried their best to understand what was going on. The score of the first eight episodes is now available to listen on your favorite music streaming service.



We also had the conclusion of the much-discussed proxy fight between Disney and Nelson Peltz's Trian Partners, with shareholders voting to keep the current Disney board and rejecting the new candidates. So everything stays the same... Right? I broke down the implications of this fight and its result for the company's future on our sister site, MovieNewsNet.com; check it out here if you're interested, and keep a regular eye on it if you enjoy general entertainment news.



Coming up this next week is the release of John Jackson Miller's The Living Force, which Penguin Random House pumped up this week with a new excerpt. Check it out here, as well as Nate's full review of the novel, here. Now let us begin.


<h2>Three Things That May Have Flown Casual (Video Game News Edition)</h2>

• It's alive! Saber Interactive CEO confirmed that the Knights of the Old Republic remake is still alive and well... Is it, though? Something's up with this one, for sure. It was announced 2.5 years ago, and there were rumors late last year about it being canned, which the companies in charge of it, including Embracer and Disney, didn't fully deny. Saber's 'trust me, bruh' message is coming a bit too late. I will believe this one when I see it in my hands.
• In other video game news... A new trailer for Star Wars: Outlaws, Lucasfilm Games' big bet on 2024 partnered with Ubisoft / Massive Entertainment, is coming out on Tuesday, April 9. I'm not a video game expert, but my understanding from talking to people who are is that this could also be when a release date for the game is announced. The package has been building momentum by getting rated in different countries, and there have even been spottings of 'Pre-order now' props set to go up this week.
• In more video game news... Bit Reactor's new Star Wars real-time strategy (RTS) game is actually not an RTS, and is being referred to simply as a strategy game. The company also discussed how they want this to be accessible for newcomers and a very broad overview of it. Most of this seems to be NDA'd for now, and with how long these games take to come out, who knows when we'll get more specific announcements. 2025 has an open spot for a big Star Wars game, though, and KOTOR doesn't seem to be it...

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<h2>Quote of the Week (The Acolyte Edition)</h2>

These are both excerpts from Leslye Headland's conversation with Empire Magazine, which are being slowly posted to the Internet until the new edition of the magazine hits the stands on Thursday. Per usual, new (though not groundbreaking) images are attached to these.



The first quote is Headland confirming that Carrie-Anne Moss' Master Indara is essentially a Force-wielder Trinity, which I guess we sort of suspected after reports of her Force-fu (a term also used by Headland) fight against Amandla's Mae came out of Star Wars Celebration 2023.



Jedi Padawan Jecki Lon (Dafne Keen) in Lucasfilm's THE ACOLYTE, exclusively on Disney+. ©2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. &amp; TM. All Rights Reserved.





What I'm more interested in, however, is her answer to the question 'What does the title The Acolyte mean?' She essentially said that this character, who I will assume is Mae (though in that same interview, Amandla Stenberg doesn't want us to rush to that conclusion), is the apprentice to a Sith's apprentice. So there are two more dark-side Force users we don't know much about. And I find that fascinating. She also elaborated on how this will play as a detective story, with each episode providing a new piece of the puzzle that will keep us guessing until the very end. Sign. Me. Up!



A rival publication, Entertainment Weekly, published two new photos a couple of days before focused on Dafne Keen's Jecki Lon. (Interesting note: the Disney press images site revealed that the picture below is from Episode 2, while the picture above is from Episode 5.) Her makeup has been a source of criticism in our private chats, and though I don't entirely disagree, I'm more interested in what she had to say in the complementary interview. It's a fascinating read, but I was particularly struck by one statement:

I get that she maybe didn't really think this one through, and I'm no fan of overinterpreting on-the-fly quotes from actors who probably don't keep up with this stuff as much as we do, but what exactly is she saying here? Does she not know that we've had the biggest Star Wars fans in the world, in Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, writing for the franchise? (Sure, the quality of the writing left much to be desired, especially in the dialogue, but that's not what she meant.)



I want to think that she's saying this without paying much attention to the specifics, but I'm surprised the Internet hasn't made a huge deal out of this one. What does 'a very fresh take' mean anyways? Rian Johnson may be accused of not being a big Star Wars fan (he is, but that's beside the point), but I don't think anyone is saying that his wasn't a fresh take. I'm overreading it here, I know.



One more Acolyte tidbit: a visual dictionary is coming on January 7 from DK Publishing. From what we can tell, it's the first solo edition for a Disney Plus Star Wars series.



Jedi Padawan Jecki Lon (Dafne Keen) in Lucasfilm's THE ACOLYTE, exclusively on Disney+. ©2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. &amp; TM. All Rights Reserved.



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<h2>Star Wars News Breakdown: From Tales of the Empire To Dawn of the Jedi</h2>


Waves of shock spread through social media on Thursday, when Lucasfilm announced, completely out of the blue, that a fully finished six-episode animated series of shorts titled Tales of the Empire will be coming to Disney Plus on May 4. The company had managed to keep the secret under lock and key, which made the announcement all the more special. (Yes, sure, a podcast had mentioned Tales of the Sith and Tales of the Bounty Hunters being in development earlier this year, but 1) they got part of it wrong, 2) the impression was that it was in early development, not ready to come out, and 3) it was kind of a 'well, duh'.)



Of course this is semi minor news, considering secrets on animated projects are usually better kept than those from live-action ones. But it was such a fun announcement that it doesn't even matter. Kudos to the entire team, which admittedly has been getting better at keeping the leaks under control. Aside from some late-year buzz, for instance, they almost managed to do the same for this January's The Mandalorian &amp; Grogu announcement as a feature film that would go into production this year. (Disney just dated it for May 22, 2026; we have a looong way to go...)



Tales of the Empire, they said, will follow the model first established by Tales of the Jedi (a series, by the way, they also nearly managed to keep under wraps until the schedule for Star Wars Celebration 2022 was announced -- up until then, there'd been a logo part of a holiday gift box but no more details), in which we will follow two Star Wars characters in three different moments of their lives.



Barriss Offee (center) and Clone guards in a scene from 'STAR WARS: TALES OF THE EMPIRE', exclusively on Disney+. © 2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. &amp; &#x2122;. All Rights Reserved.



In one case, we'll be filling in the blanks of Morgan Elsbeth's life before becoming The Magistrate, whom we met in The Mandalorian season 2 -- and perhaps we'll also learn what happened in between her meeting Din Djarin and her return in Ahsoka. In the other, we'll finally learn about what happened to Barriss Offee after the season 5 finale of The Clone Wars. It's been a minute!



The title is definitely intriguing to me. Why are both of their stories related? Yes, Morgan Elsbeth has a past with Thrawn, but as a Nightsister what are her ties to the Empire, exactly? And why is Barriss part of those tales of the Empire? I was very excited about Tales of the Jedi, but to be honest, I was mostly excited to find out more about Dooku -- we already know most of what's happend to Ahsoka over the years. Now, I can't wait to see what Dave Filoni (who is acting as supervising director and executive producer, along with Carrie Beck and Athena Yvette Portillo) has to say about both characters.



As far as we know, Tales of the Jedi season 2 is still on schedule to come out later this year. I'm still a bit baffled that Dave Filoni didn't announce Tales of the Empire when he said that Jedi would be getting another season, but in the end, I don't think it means anything for it, other than we'll be getting twice as many Star Wars Tales this year.



Morgan Elsbeth in a scene from 'STAR WARS: TALES OF THE EMPIRE', exclusively on Disney+. © 2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. &amp; &#x2122;. All Rights Reserved.



Here is my question, though: What's going to happen with the animated department from now on? I'm assuming that most of the people who worked on The Bad Batch, from Yvette Portillo to Jennifer Corbett to Brad Rau will continue to spearhead that division. But I doubt they'll be working on Tales of X for the foreseeable future, mostly because that still is Filoni's baby, and I bet they all want to stand on their own. We'll probably get an announcement shortly after The Bad Batch wraps on May 1.



After all, Dave Filoni is moving on to work more on live action. He's currently writing Ahsoka season 2, which Lucasfilm could shoot later this year. He'll be executive producing The Mandalorian &amp; Grogu first. And of course, he has his big event film after that. But as Chief Creative Officer, his attention span must go well beyond that and also focus on the next wave of feature films.



LONDON, ENGLAND - APRIL 07: James Mangold, Dave Filoni, and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy onstage during the studio panel at Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London at ExCel on April 07, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Kate Green/Getty Images for Disney)



We also learned this week that James Mangold has named a co-writer for Dawn of the Jedi, and it's none other than Andor's Beau Willimon, the writer behind arguably the best episode of the Tony Gilroy show, and possibly all of Star Wars TV. Yes, that one where there was only one way out, and where Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård) gave that gorgeous speech. Willimon also co-created House of Cards for Netflix and is returning for Andor season 2. Not sure if this was Mangold's choice or a Lucasfilm suggestion, but he's very well-liked inside those rooms so I'm sure Kathy Kennedy was pretty happy about it. Her two boys will be working together on the Star Wars movie she didn't let Benioff &amp; Wess direct.



But putting that topic aside, this is great news, not only for the quality of the final product but also for the momentum of the production. I didn't think they'd get around to writing this one until the fall, as Mangold is currently busy shooting A Complete Unknown, the Bob Dylan biopic starring Timothée Chalamet, and will probably be tied up with it until the end of the summer. Star Wars comes next, but even then, it would take another year or so of writing and rewriting and they probably wouldn't be able to shoot this before early 2026.



If Willimon is moving on to this immediately, with hopes that Mangold will join him after he's done with the Searchlight pic, they could theoretically have a first draft by Halloween or Thanksgiving, and possibly shoot this in the second half of 2025. All of that becomes kind of irrelevant, of course, once we look at the calendar. We now know that The Mandalorian &amp; Grogu is coming in May 2026, and the Dec. 18, 2026, slot is almost surely going to New Jedi Order.



Even if they wanted to, it's almost impossible for Dawn of the Jedi to hit that release date at this point, not if they don't want another Rise of Skywalker-type rushed production. So Mangold's movie, as I've always thought, is probably internally targeting Dec. 2027, which sounds like a good idea: going back to the beginnings of the Jedi right after the 50th anniversary of Star Wars. Poetic in a very George Lucas way -- and to add more to it, is there any universe in which Dave Filoni doesn't try to release his movie in May 2027? Might be too much theatrical Star Wars for our own good, though, and a lot of wishful thinking on my end. But hey, I'll be there no matter what.



LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 15: Beau Willimon arrives at the special 3-episode launch event for Lucasfilm's original series Andor at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California on September 15, 2022. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)



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Have a great week!



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