A family that has moulded the entire Star Wars galaxy in their image, to the extent that nobody can really imagine the long-running space opera without them. An almost endless familial battle between good and evil, featuring absent fathers, secret siblings, murdered mentors, wayward nephews, surprise grandfathers. For nearly half a century they have blown up Death Stars, built Death Stars, destroyed Jedi orders, rebuilt Jedi orders, fallen to the dark side, risen from the dark side, died heroically, come back as ghosts.
Star Wars has occasionally attempted to escape them. It has made films and TV shows about stolen Death Star plans, bounty hunters, smugglers and rebels from entirely different corners of the galaxy. Ryan Gosling will soon appear in a Star Wars movie that, as far as we know, has absolutely nothing to do with them.
But they have never really gone away, and now they are back, possibly because Disney has run out of ideas for how to take the franchise forward without them. Deadline reports this week that Lucasfilm has hired Jon Watts to direct the first instalment of a new trilogy continuing the Skywalker saga, written by Simon Kinberg, with Daisy Ridley reportedly being eyed to return as Rey. The films have not yet been greenlit, and there are precious few other details, but Watts does seem an inspired choice, if for no other reason than that he has previously overseen a film – Spider-Man: No Way Home – that was built around the idea that nobody in a long-running franchise needs to remain dead.
This, surely, is the essence of the Skywalker saga. There must be someone from the history of the franchise that can be dug up and wheeled out to make us care about this thing again. Because it cannot – cannot – be Rey we are supposed to be getting excited about.
For a start, she is only a member of the esteemed, Force-sensitive royal family if you accept the premise of a movie, The Rise of Skywalker, that most self-respecting fans would never sit through again. And what even is a Skywalker at this point? Rey is a Palpatine by blood, was trained for approximately five minutes by Luke, spent considerably longer hanging around with his sister, and then simply announced at the end of the film that she had joined the clan.
All of which raises an important question: if this really is the Skywalker saga continued, who else can Watts dig up from the original films? Darth Vader, Jabba the Hutt, Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru? Is Greedo still out there somewhere, primed and ready?
Extract — continue reading at the source.
