Star Wars fans are about to meet a brand new era.
Earlier this evening, Lucasfilm finally pulled the curtains back on its long-awaited Project Luminous: it will be a major cross-medium publishing project called The High Republic, set two centuries before The Phantom Menace.
The project will include 3 books and 2 comic series, written by authors Claudia Gray, Justina Ireland, Daniel José Older, Cavan Scott, and Charles Soule. The project is designed to keep fans engaged with Star Wars after the latest sequel trilogy, much as the publishing projects after the original and prequel trilogies did in the 1990s and 2000s.
The bigger story is that the Republic is at its height, and that it’s in the midst of a peaceful era, which is disrupted by a major threat at its borders — called “The Great Disaster.” The series will center on a core group of Jedi Knights — likened to the Texas Rangers and Knights of the Round Table, as they face off against a new threat.
That threat is a group known as the Nhil (pronounced Nile), who are described as Mad Max-like “space vikings.” The project had a couple of big inspirations: Obi-Wan Kenobi’s line in A New Hope, “For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic,” and a prompt from LFL President Kathleen Kennedy: “what would scare a Jedi?”
The first novel that will kick off the series Soule’s Light of the Jedi, written by Soule, and will be available on August 25th — just a couple of days before this year’s Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim, California.
After that, we’ll get A Test of Courage by Justina Ireland, a Middle Grade novel which will hit stores on September 8th:
When a transport ship is abruptly kicked out of hyperspace as part of a galaxy-wide disaster, newly-minted teen Jedi Vernestra Rwoh, a young Padawan, an audacious tech-kid, and the son of an ambassador are stranded on a jungle moon where they must work together to survive both the dangerous terrain and a hidden danger lurking in the shadows….
And on October 13th, Claudia Gray will publish her YA novel, Into the Dark:
Padawan Reath Silas is being sent from the cosmopolitan galactic capital of Coruscant to the undeveloped frontier—and he couldn’t be less happy about it. He’d rather stay at the Jedi Temple, studying the archives. But when the ship he’s traveling on is knocked out of hyperspace in a galactic-wide disaster, Reath finds himself at the center of the action. The Jedi and their traveling companions find refuge on what appears to be an abandoned space station. But then strange things start happening, leading the Jedi to investigate the truth behind the mysterious station, a truth that could end in tragedy….
On the comics front, Cavan Scott will write The High Republic, a new, ongoing series from Marvel Comics, while Daniel Jose Older will write The High Republic Adventures, which will come from IDW, which will be about some of the younger characters in the series.
Sharp-eyed readers might have already picked up on some references to the era in a couple of recently-published works, such as Dooku: Jedi Lost (written by Cavan Scott), and The Rise of Kylo Ren (written by Charles Soule)
Lucasfilm first announced the project in April 2019 at Star Wars Celebration, and revealed that it would be a crossover project at last year’s New York Comic Con. The series is already joining a packed year for Star Wars novels: The Rise of Skywalker novelization (written by Rae Carson) is out on March 17th, Queen’s Peril (E.K. Johnson) is out on June 2nd, Alphabet Squadron: Shadow Fall (Alexander Freed) is out on June 23rd, Poe Dameron: Free Fall (Alex Sequra) is out on August 4th, and the first installment of Timothy Zahn’s new Thrawn trilogy, Chaos Rising, hits stores on October 6th.
Buy the Book
The Last Emperox
The project is a “massive, interconnected story” and was originally pitched in 2014. The authors went to Skywalker Ranch to discuss what they wanted to see in the franchise that was missing, and throughout the development process, they generated concept art for the various characters and environments, opting for a different look and feel for both the Jedi Knights and their adversaries. The project will also include a number of other publishers, such as DK, Abrams, Insight, and Viz.
This sort of overarching project is a return to form for Lucasfilm and Del Rey, which ran a number of similar projects in the 1990s and 2000s, such as Michael A. Stackpole and Aaron Allston’s X-Wing Series (a project that included comic books, novels, and video games), The New Jedi Order (a massive, 19-book series), the Clone Wars Multimedia Project (books, comics, video games, and a television series), and Legacy of the Force (A nine-book series written by Karen Traviss, Aaron Allston, and Troy Denning). These major publishing projects made for interesting reads, as Lucasfilm worked closely with writers and editors to develop franchise-shifting projects under the now decanonized Expanded Universe.
How will The High Republic stack up against those predecessors? We’ll find out starting in August.
One wonders if we will see Yoda in this continuity, since, at the time of the Skywalker saga, he’s “been training Jedi for 800 years …”
I wonder how long it will take before people are tired o this entire “universe”? When it first came out on celluloid, the idea was “fresh”, although it really did borrow tropes from many better written fantasy and science fiction sources. Now the whole project is just a money generating machine, with a “been there done that” feeling. There are so many better SF properties out there in the big world that deserve a wider audience, but people have gotten used to this old, used up idea.
@2
I agree with you to a certain extent, though I wouldn’t wish the Star Wars level of success on those other SF properties. Those are like a great small town in the country. And something is lost when a small town becomes… Coruscant.
We can enjoy both Star Wars, and new stuff.
As for this, I’m not a big Jedi fan, but I’ll check out at least the comics.
The republic is by far one of my fav periods in star wars cant wait to read the novels!
@1, I mean, yeah, I expect Yoda will makes some kind of appearance.
It’ll likely be more of a cameo or minor supporting role in order to acknowledge continuity without taking the focus off the new generation of characters.
@2: I wonder how long it will take before people are tired o this entire “universe”? When it first came out on celluloid, the idea was “fresh”, although it really did borrow tropes from many better written fantasy and science fiction sources. Now the whole project is just a money generating machine, with a “been there done that” feeling. There are so many better SF properties out there in the big world that deserve a wider audience, but people have gotten used to this old, used up idea.
Star Wars has always been a money-generating machine.
OK, Claymore-saber Wookiee is my new favorite character.
Actually Andrew @7, you are not correct. It is true that anyone who sets out to make a movie wants it to be monetarily successful. Your reputation in commercial cinema won’t last if you can’t generate money; after that you won’t be making movies because no one trusts you. That being said, the first SW was more than a vehicle to make money; it was an act of love, as well as a homage by Georges Lucas to all the action movies he had grown up with. On a 9 million dollar budget, he expected to make about 1.5 X as much money back, hardly a huge money generating machine. Documentaries about the first SW show how rough it was and that even many of the people involved (including some of the actors) thought it was going to flop. But for it’s time it was a revelation, even if it copied the tropes from so many other SFF properties. And it caught the zeitgeist, and became a juggernaut along with it’s immediate sequels. But that was in part because it had heart and was fun, Since then, it is ONLY a money generating property, a cash cow that its owners will continue to milk until everyone is bored by it. To me it is past its shelf date and wholly boring. Originality is so much harder to create, and SW hasn’t been that for years.
Oh goodie. More Jedi.
And Star Wars has been churning out expanded-universe material pretty continuously since 1978, when Splinter of the Mind’s Eye was published (Marvel’s Star Wars comics started in 1977, but I’ll give them a pass because I’m pretty sure they started as an adaptation of the movie and didn’t get into new stories until the following year).
Light of the Jedi — A Wookiee Jedi – that’s new. Is this an era in which Jedi are more uniform in their garb? In one of the DK Visual Dictionary volumes there’s a note that fashions change.
A Test of Courage — The droid resembles Huyang, a centuries-old architect droid who trains younglings in lightsaber construction. He appeared in The Clone Wars and was voiced by David Tennant, who’s carved out quite a post-Doctor Who niche in voice work.
Marvel cover — Those are … quite the helmets. And what is it with female Twi’leks and bare midriffs?
IDW cover — The male character resembles a Nelvaanian from Clone Wars (2003). The snout has been de-emphasized, but the pattern on the cape is distinctive.
Oh, God. A prequel? I think they just want to sell lots of Jedi action figures.
@9. I don’t completely agree with that interpretation. Sure, Lucas had a story to tell aside from wanting to be financially successful, and there were certainly concerns that it wouldn’t work. That said, there’s a lot of evidence that they were aware of how to generate a lot of money, especially after ANH hit theaters: they put a lot of effort into merchandising, something that’s remained consistent to the present.
But, I don’t think that a) people are tired of it, considering that the franchise has earned billions of dollars at the box office alone, and b) that even though it recycles a lot of tropes — there’s still a lot of people who are meeting the films / books / comics / TV shows for the first time, and don’t have that background awareness. Given how many films are remade and continued through sequels — and how successful they generally are — I don’t think that unoriginality is really going to be a problem here. Sure, you might not like that Star Wars hasn’t been the same since 1977s, but I don’t think that’s a widely-held view.
On top of that, you can have sequels that are designed to continue the life of the franchise and also be good stories. Star Wars has plenty of those, in books, comics, films, and television shows. YMMV, of course.
@11 We’ve had Wookiee Jedi before! Meet Tyvokka, Gungi, and Lowbacca!
@13: On top of that, you can have sequels that are designed to continue the life of the franchise and also be good stories. Star Wars has plenty of those
Does it? “Star Wars” the movie has one good sequel and one sequel that’s half – perhaps two-thirds – good. There are quite a few good EU novels and a handful that are exceptional. There’s one animated show that’s highly regarded. I don’t know about comics, but I believe there are some that are widely liked. Other than that?
The problem isn’t wanting to make money. The problem is wanting to make money but NOT CARING about the quality of the means used to do so. As Ken and Robin put it, the latest movie was made by people who didn’t care – and it showed.
My favorite thing about this new multimedia project is that it is literary focused. That was always the strongest place for Star Wars, the place where it went to thrive and dwell beyond the camera. I think this is also the place where fans prefer to be, and it is also the source-land from which we pull when heavily in debate about the Star Wars universe.
The films are what they are. Some we love, some we hate, some are meh. For me, Clone Wars is perfect: glad Disney’s adding to it with the original folks involved, because I love love love to see more from that particular conflict, love to see it fleshed out. The games are fun, even though I think Fallen Order falls far below the standard of the mileage we got out of games such as The Force Unleashed or the original Battlefront games.
Project Luminous (The High Republic, as we now know it to be) could prove a return to glory. Give us more to chew on, as fans, as people devoted to loving this stuff. One thing you never hear from LotR fans (of whom I am one, but fledgling) is much complaint over more content. They meet more content with contentment, with glee. That’s my aim as a decades-long Star Wars fan.
Contentment and glee.
Sounds good to me. Reminds me of Shadows of the Empire, which included comics, books, video games and toy releases, and kept interest in Star Wars going after the original trilogy and before the release of the special editions and then the prequels. I like the period that the High Republic covers, also, a time that hasn’t yet received close attention.
I disagree with people that say the new movies suffered because their creators did not care. No one devotes the enormous effort that goes into projects like these simply for money. You can disagree with their creative choices, but I have great confidence they were doing their best.
Why not see what Ken and Robin had to say about it?
They talk about a lot of stuff, but the Rise of Skywalker analysis starts at 46:34 of Episode 383. They sum up everything wrong with the latest movie far better than I could.
Interesting setup! I remember the Clone Wars and Force Unleashed multimedia projects from back in the day.
The High Republic Era was never really explored in the Old EU. Most of the material like the Jedi Apprentice series and the Dark Horse Comics took place just before Episode I. The Old Republic Era with its Sith Wars was more interesting to the writers I suppose, since a thousand years of peace isn’t something you write about in Star Wars. Yoda will probably be a supporting character given how iconic he is and considering he is the Grand Master of the Jedi Order. Probably get some Sith manipulations behind the scenes.
I would have said a Sith Lord or a Mandalorian is what would scare a Jedi. Or the Yuuzhan Vong if we’re counting Legends. Space marauders in Mad Max gear is a new one.
@15. Two animated shows (though you could make the argument that The Clone Wars and Rebels are basically the same series, just with a 15-year timeskip, given the art style and the characters/arcs that were carried over).
@20., The art style is very different between the two, but you’re right that there are definitely at least 2 well-regarded animated shows. (2003 Clone Wars might have a shot at being the third, and Ewoks, Droids, and Resistance… exist). And the live action one is quite popular as well.
@12 – melendwyr: Yeah, Star Wars has never been about action figures! :)
@17 – AlanBrown: Of course Abrams, Johnson, et al care about Star Wars. They could get the same money in other high profile projects.
@19 – goldenkingofuruk: I would have set High Republic a few centuries back, not just 200 years before TPM.
@22: If they cared, why did they do such a terrible job?
You do know that there are lots of fans that did like the sequel trilogy, right?
You can find enthusiasts for any project, no matter how terrible it was. And given that the Star Wars movies have worldwide exposure, even if only one person in a thousand liked them, there are millions of positive opinions.
I’m not a person who thinks that the majority is always right. Or even usually right. But given the significant critical disapproval, and my agreement with those critics’ analyses, and everyone I personally know agreeing with my agreement… I respect people’s right to their opinions, but I reserve the right to judge those opinions.
The prequels had major flaws that limited and in some cases ruined their appeal, and the latest movies were even worse.
They need to just do Legends already. It’s better than this.
Well, I for one am very excited about this. Clearly, people haven’t gotten sick of Star Wars (and even before Disney there were those of us who really enjoyed the expanded universe). I agree that books have always been one of the places Star Wars and its scope has been able to shine.