When The Force Awakens dropped its first trailer on Nov. 28, 2014, it promised a return to a version of the Star Wars galaxy that had been largely absent for nine years. Although the prequels seem like a long time ago, in an era, far, far away, by the time Episode VII entered pre-production in 2013, it had only been eight years since the debut of Revenge of the Sith in 2005. That gap is only one year longer than the same gap we’ll have between Star Wars films in the “modern” era. In 2026 when The Mandalorian & Grogu hits theaters, it will have been seven years since the debut of The Rise of Skywalker.
The larger point is that Star Wars tends to course-correct in a shorter time than we tend to remember. And now it seems another course correction is coming. With the unofficial announcement that a new trilogy is in development from Simon Kinberg — and that trilogy will likely comprise Episodes X, XI, and XII — the Star Wars franchise is poised to repeat the mistake of the sequel trilogy. Because what this possible sequel-sequel trilogy can’t afford to do is the one thing The Force Awakens relied on: be just like the old movies.
