When it comes to a huge franchise like Star Wars, your fandom can be as serious as you want it to be. You can watch just the movies, add in the live-action TV shows, supplement those with the animated series, or dive into the books and comics. If you’re truly hungry for more, you can even check out decades’ worth of old, now non-canonical material that makes up the Legends continuity.
Within the depths of modern canon, a massive multimedia project has captured the attention of hardcore fans for several years. It’s winding down now, but this is the perfect time to revive it on television.
Across 25 books and over 100 comics, the High Republic era has been a vast story about the Jedi at their peak. In everything from young reader novels to sweeping fantasy epics, fans have gotten to know Vernestra Rwoh, Avar Kriss, and Lina Soh as they protect the universe against the threat of superpowered pirates known as the Nihil. Four years after it began, the multi-phase project is ending with Charles Soule’s Trials of the Jedi, available June 17.
But in a roundtable conversation published on StarWars.com, Lucasfilm Publishing Creative Director Michael Siglain said this “is absolutely not the last time you'll see the High Republic era.” “It's the end of this particular story, but it's definitely not the end of the era. And we absolutely have plans for other stories. I wouldn't say it's Phase IV, but you could say it's sort of Phase More.”
This hints at more High Republic novels and comics, but at this point in the Star Wars franchise, the future of the era should lie on Disney+. We’ve already seen the High Republic on screen, as it’s the setting of the children’s series Young Jedi Adventures and the cancelled Acolyte, which included Jedi Vernestra Rwoh. Another High Republic series or two would help familiarize casual viewers with the era.
The Star Wars TV landscape is in desperate need of a shake-up. Andor is over, and The Mandalorian — once synonymous with Star Wars TV — is moving to the big screen. Television is supposed to help keep the franchise popular between movies, but right now, the only upcoming live-action Star Wars shows are Ahsoka Season 2 and a series from Carlton and Nick Cuse that’s so early in development it doesn’t even have a title yet.
There are signs that Lucasfilm is giving up on streaming TV entirely; Andor Season 2 had trouble getting funding from Disney because, to quote Tony Gilroy, “streaming is dead.” But instead of taking a step back, step into the story that’s been chugging along in the background for years. It’s time to try something new, and the source material is right there.
