Lucasfilms Reveals Plans For Star Wars: The High Republic
February 25, 2020 by brennon
The team at Lucasfilms have outlined their new plans to take us back in time before the Skywalker Saga with Star Wars: The High Republic. This new epic publishing adventure will see stories being told of the golden age of the Jedi.
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The announcement trailer for this new venture went live this week and you can watch it below. A group of well-renowned artists and writers all met up to share their diverse visions of Star Wars and what they could bring to the table for fans of all ages. It seems like we're going to be getting quite the array of different stories!
One of the key things to be taken away from this announcement is that we're going to be seeing the Jedi in a much more powerful state than they've been in the films of the past. Set 200 years before the events of The Phantom Menace this is more akin to the power and influence the Jedi had during The Old Republic period than anything else.
The team behind the new storyline, which will span a series of books and comics, talked about how we'll be seeing the Jedi as guardians but also frontiersmen, watching the boundaries of The Republic as bounty hunters, thieves and villains try to take advantage of this lawless fringe. We're also going to be learning what the Jedi fear most...
I really like what we're seeing here in terms of the artwork and of course the storyline that they're looking to dive into. Anything which brings the Jedi to the fore and allows the team to tell different stories sounds like a great opportunity, especially in the wake of a more-or-less ho-hum end to the Skywalker Saga. Also, the idea of the Nihil as these Space Vikings who are out for themselves sounds awesome and the perfect place to pick up some cool villain ideas for your roleplaying games!
Talking of roleplaying games, this seems like a good time to talk about what this could mean for tabletop games. With a new setting, new heroes, new villains and more this seems like it could be a great way for companies like Fantasy Flight Games to get involved and help us tell these stories in a plastic medium too.
Oh, and yes, that was a Wookie Jedi you saw!
What do you think of their idea?
"...we'll be seeing the Jedi as guardians but also frontiersmen, watching the boundaries of The Republic as bounty hunters, thieves and villains try to take advantage of this lawless fringe"
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FFG has exited role playing as a business 🙁
True – but maybe Legion will last long enough to make use of the characters and stories from The High Republic. Who knows!?
Well, someone else will definitely pick it up in time
This hasn’t been officially determined yet.
They may just be restructuring their business model, so this may just be a temporary situation.
Only time can tell.
On the plus side, you can still get all the current Star Wars RPG books… so if you want pick them up. They are pretty much all you need. Wouldn’t be hard to home brew the rest.
They have just announced 2 new books for their “Legend of the Five Rings” RPG so at least that part isn’t dead, yet.
I saw some people suggest that FFG want to go to not having permanent staff writers and just get freelancers in for the different projects.
More books is always good.
more is not better
there is something to be said for not revealing / telling everything
and to be honest … the last Star Wars story I want to see is one with even more Jedi.
I want to see ordinary people deal with the things that happen in this universe.
Not the designated heroes and guardians.
ever since Kotor I and II I wanted to know more about the “golden age” so I’m fine with it
I thought phantom menace was going to be that… Simply because of how light sadness were weapons of a more civilized age.
Didn’t expect it to be set a few years earlier…
If the “frightening new adversary” tries to build a spherical megaweapon with an Achilles heel I’m going to flip my lid.
LOL
I wouldn’t have thought so. From what was said in the video Disney are going for something new, such as “new smugglers, new scoundrels, new bounty hunters”, as well as Jedi.
Not to mention, from the list of ‘Star Wars wishes’ on the white board they had up:
High Republic
Relic Hunters
University
Dinosaurs
Representation / Diversity (see ‘Dinosaurs’ above?)
Arthurian Legends
Rival Houses
Sith Empire
Chaos Agents
Splinter Group force users
Animal friends (i couldn’t quite pause the video on this one to be that’s what it said)
Dinosaurs? I’d love to see some dewback theme park disaster movie.
In fact it was ‘Dinosaurs!’ with an exclaimation mark, so i think that means the chances are good.
I say they lost me at ‘diversity’ …
as if that should be a goal.
Never mind that I suspect 99% of their ideas were already in the expanded universe that Disney exterminated.
Amen! I get it, Star Wars is a big universe, but it’s also a fictional universe where the same political ideologies of our world DON’T exist, so there’s no need at all to shoehorn stuff like identity politics into a fictional world. Unless you’re some weird fanfic writer or something, fiction is NOT supposed to conform to real-world rules; that’s why it’s fiction and not nonfiction. Besides, with how much this crap is being force-fed to the general public, everyone’s sick and tired of it. We rely on entertainment for escapism, not to have the “concerns” of the world continually… Read more »
You guys are really going to hate it when you realise that diversity might not just be within the human race, but outside it as well…. 🙂
re. the whiteboard list. Don’t forget ‘Not pro-war’…
That’s under the ‘Star Wars [love heart]’ column. My favourite part of the white board at 1:24 (there’s another at 1:16) is the ‘love heart’ symbol next to the words ‘Star Wars’.
What if it was a different shape?
The High Republic Trilogy – NOW WITH CUBIC MEGAWEAPONS!
I’ll reserve judgement.
Empire/Borg alliance?
Don’t worry, this time it will be a tetrahedron with a significant weakness at each corner!
Ha! Even I would suspend my disbelief for that one for sure.
The whiteboard gave me pause as well. I’m thinking back to the days that the Star Wars marketing put out a series of mini records as a promotion with kids meals at the fast food chain Hardees (also a seperate promo of the same kind for the movie Gremlins).
Holy hell… I found that YouTube has provided
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kMJllPYMyzs
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6jjEm6g3FNw
I would say ignore this for about a few years as they have enough material from the prequels, classic trilogy, New trilogy, and animated shows to have content for legion and their other games. They have not touched anything out of the books or comics yet that has been produced before this announcement so why would they start now when they haven’t even touched the Mandolarian in their games yet. The Wookie Jedi is nothing new as it was a character from the expanded universe and also in an episode of Clone Wars. Original Wookie Jedi – https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Lowbacca Clone Wars… Read more »
Well, was new to me – but good to know they’ve had a run out before 🙂
In the Old Republic comics published by Dark Horse there was actually a Wookie Mandalorian.
I was under the impression that Mandalorian’s were human only… in much the same was that Corellian’s are human… they just colonised a planet and became Mandalorian’s.
If I’m not misatken in the old times/the old fluff Mandalorians were not human only but a creed/warrior culture any race could be part of.
Close – the original Mandalorian’s were the Taung, a non-human race that developed alongside humans on Coruscant. Eventually they (inevitably) warred against each other and the Taung were exiled, eventually developing the warrior creed that became the Mandalorian Way, recruiting those that proved themselves equal to Mandalorian mettle. The majority of the surviving Taung were killed during The Great Sith War 4000 years before the Battle of Yavin, when that generation’s Mandalore bound himself and his warriors to fallen Jedi and Sith Lord Ulic Qel-Droma. Subsequent Mandalore’s expanded recruitment to any who would bind themselves to the Mandalorian Code, irrespective… Read more »
It’s a Wookie mistake.
I would think they might want to join any hype train that swells the coffers of FFG. So if this takes off in a big way, expect FFG to jump on board…
Perhaps just in a boardgame like Outer Rim.
I am happy the Skywalker saga is over and thought rise of Skywalker was an appropriate way to end it. a few minor issues but I’m not the director so to me, a win for JJ, Lucas and Disney.
I am not sure how much more legion is possible; as large as the universe is, it is still pretty limited in terms of battles, etc.
may the force be with you.
WW 2 only lasted 5 years and only covered part of our world … we got plenty of battles out of that.
So why should a conflict that spans a galaxy ever be limited in terms of battles ?
I think whoever is running Legion is lacking in imagination if they think they’ve got everything covered.
Dear George Lucas
“You can’t take it with you, but we can take it from you.”
Sincerely,
Disney of the Nihil
I’d rather have the Golden Age of the Sith.
Fiction: Diversity
Star Wars Wishes: Representation/ Diversity
… yeah well it seems it will go like all the others…
Call me when they will start making again a good story without stupid checklists… want something in your stories, organically put them in, not shove them and expect to be congratulated for a sub par job.
“do we have an XYZQVD in our story? no we do not have Y and D! Quick shove them in!”
Let’s hear it for Warhammer 40,000! Making the normies cry for forty years and still going strong! Joking aside, that’s a good example of a sci-fi franchise that puts character, good storylines, and world-building ahead of “diversity” and shoehorning in every mental illness Tumblr considers a “gender.” And for that reason, it’s highly successful, even when it suffers the occasional misstep. Star Wars started out this way, but when Disney bought it out and hired Kathleen Kennedy, it all became about “inclusivity” without good characters, story, or world-building. And what’s even sadder is that the building blocks for something good… Read more »
Star Wars: Rise of the Alphabet People 🙂
So how long until we get a black lesbian quadriplegic Jedi from a broken home who sexually identifies as a Sarlacc?
…
I think I just figured out Kathleen Kennedy’s self-insert character!
Someone else calls them alphabet people… I’m not alone…
And the whole ‘identifying as’ thing with gender is baffling.
Gender is physical… is based on the bits you have inside your underwear.
Sexuality is choice… it’s how those bits interact with other people bits.
I”m sorry guys, but to me it seems like Disney’s just parading Star Wars’ corpse around like Weekend at Bernie’s with all of this stuff (before you say anything, I’m not bashing Legion; I personally think Star Wars lends itself well to a wargame). They still have a lot of extended universe stuff to play with, and instead of using that, they’re picking and choosing bits to create something “new” while not really mixing things up. There are plenty of new characters and races that haven’t been explored before, but it’s still the classic “Jedi vs. Sith” narrative. My other… Read more »
They want an area that is just for the writers and artists to create in that comes with little baggage from other sources, fewer preconceived ideas (other than the Jedi, Republic…). I think part of it is that the books and comics, since the Disney purchase have been used to fill in the gapes between other media. This has lead to the having to tread carefully as it all is supposed to be canon and one shouldn’t contradict the other…. But the filmmakers basically ignored what the other creators were doing, even though Lucasfilm set up a ‘story group’ that… Read more »
Based upon this understanding, it almost seems like this is a means of creating Star Wars fanfic with a set of guidelines; no cares for the established canon, only using the basic skeleton of the setting to create whatever they want and push whatever agenda they want (I’m reminded of that “trigger warning” supplement for DnD published last year…yeesh…). I do consider fanfics to be mostly annoying and ignore them, but there’s nothing inherently wrong with the concept as it is something created by fans of the franchise. Pushing something like this as “legitimate” isn’t right because it’s basically throwing… Read more »
Don’t worry,Disney is as anti-diversity as ever. The main character will be white,the token non-white will have no plot hooks, and any LGBTQ characters will be limited to 2-second cameos that can be edited out for foreign *cough*China*cough* markets.
@poks He’ll will still find a way to be mad about it, unless it exactly replicates 40 year old content. Got to be consistent gatekeepers.
I’m not saying I’m against anything new for Star Wars, in fact I’d love it if they did something new to mix things up; the Mandalorian and Rogue One are excellent examples of this. What I don’t like is when they cram in things and issues from real life in order to make the series more “accessible” to a wider audience. I left another comment that we use entertainment as a form of escaping from the problems of life; when real-world concerns are continually shoved into entertainment (the recent Birds of Prey movie is a good example) it ceases to… Read more »
But don’t you realise how diverse the cast of ‘Rogue One’ is? From IMDb – Cast (in credits order) Felicity Jones (woman) … Jyn Erso Diego Luna (Mexican) … Cassian Andor Alan Tudyk … K-2SO (driod so you don’t see him) Donnie Yen (Chinese) … Chirrut Îmwe Wen Jiang (Chinese) … Baze Malbus Ben Mendelsohn … Orson Krennic Finally a white dude!! Surely that is the end of this “forced diversity” but he is a baddie Guy Henry … Governor Tarkin Yes, seems that way but again a baddie Forest Whitaker (African-American) … Saw Gerrera Bugger, that didn’t last long… Read more »
except they didn’t add silly scenes to show that X and Y are a lesbian/gay non white couple (like they did in the new Star Trek movie) This new republic reads like it is going to do exactly that and probably make it a human/alien relation as well. It’s bad enough that the standard trope for heroes in fiction (and Star Wars in particular) is that the designated hero is an orphan (Jyn Erso, Luke, Anakin, Fynn, Han Solo and Rey). Every single one of them either had parents or sees them killed within the first act of the movie.… Read more »
“This new republic reads like it is going to do exactly that and probably make it a human/alien relation as well.”
Too late… They already did that in Rebels. And it resulted in a kid.
Hate to break it to you, but every kid that outlives their parents becomes an orphan – I’m speaking as someone that became an only child at the age of 24 and an orphan at the age of 56.
Also war or murderous regimes make a lot more orphans than when times are peaceful. Especially when the parents are involved in the warring factions.
there’s a difference between having no family at all and just not having any parents once you’re mature.
And the fact that they have done it before should be the exact reason to try something new for once.
Seeing the same tropes used over and over gets boring.
OTOH … maybe I shouldn’t expect anything from a corporation that is out to maximize profit with minimum effort. They’re just going to slaughter the goose for the golden eggs.
Hah. Yeah… 0 faith in Disney Star Wars. Maybe if they do not fuck up The Mandalorian. Disney has an uphill fight ahead of it.
Well I’ll just sit back and see what happens?
What a healthy attitude 🙂
Most sensible thing I have read on OTT today!
Sith happens … we can’t have that 😉
We’re not supposed to be sensible 😀
Can we please stop referring to them as the Skywalker Saga. It was the Palpatine Saga!
Will be watching this
Wow, a lot of misplaced moaning about diversity here. Bad storylines, a lack of character development, inconsistencies in the application of in-setting rules, etc. should all be fair game. But diversity benefits us all. Without diversty we get the same thing over and over again. It’s boring and insulting. (Change for change’s sake doesn’t make something good, but stories and settings do have to change and evolve to stay good.) If Star Wars stopped telling stories about wars in space and gave us teen lesbian wookie romance, by all means complain. (Although don’t complain any more than you would about… Read more »
The problem is not diversity itself, as I recognize there are lots of people in the world. If diversity is done well, i.e. a well-written black character is one of the main characters (Lando?), it serves to further the story and enhance it. The problem with Star Wars and the SJW agenda is that instead of weaving the diversity into the narrative, they instead dedicate the entire narrative to pointing out how these characters are diverse, and if you don’t like it, you’re racist/homophobic/elitist, etc. It’s kind of like what the Marvel comic books are doing. They could easily introduce… Read more »
I dont follow star wars that much but have watched some of the movies but your saying people actually complained because the lead character was female?
Yes he is. And I’m fairly sure that person is a he because I don’t think anyone other than a he would complain about it.
And complaining that Finn was played by a black actor as well.
And he isn’t the only one that does it…. Not even on this site.
I didn’t have a problem with Finn at all; his character in the movies was great, and he really gave some humanity to the storm troopers. Rey’s issue isn’t just that she’s female, but that she’s a Mary Sue. Their intent was to create a “strong female character,” but they wrote it so that everything fell into her hands and worked out perfectly. If they had done this with Luke, he’d have been a Marty Stu, but making her female was sort of the straw that broke the camel’s back. Also, the fact that I’m a guy has nothing to… Read more »
the only complaint I’ve seen of Rey wasn’t that she is female.
It’s that she is a total Mary Sue. A character who does not earn any of the powers she gets and whose struggle is devoid of meaning as a result.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue