The Skywalkers: who are they exactly? 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.
