Star Wars has found itself at a crossroads in 2024

Star Wars arriving in 2024 hoping to achieve the triumphs that the franchise had struggled to achieve in what was to come in five years of malaise after the release of The Rise of Skywalker. Through books, movies and TV, the horizon looked bright: The High Republic was preparing for its final act with a revitalized line of books and comics – an act that culminated in one of two major new steps in TV, The acolytewhich was to be joined by The skeleton crew in traces of paths that watched Star Wars through fresh eyes and new perspectives.

Even if there wasn’t one yet Star Wars movie on the way anytime soon, the first of three major theatrical projects– Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s New Jedi Order movie, led by Daisy Ridley returning as Jedi Master Rey Skywalker – was set to begin filming, paving the way for the return of the galaxy far, far away to the big screen, part of a wide slate. refocusing after years of rumored ambition, announced and discarded.

In contrast, Star Wars close the year clouded with uncertainty. One of these projects was publicly scrapped while Lucasfilm and Disney kept quiet while its cast and crew weathered it. a storm of annoyance. The other is still trying to navigate that tightrope, a more precarious performance than its daughter stars (at least for now, a failed manufactured hysteria about lesbian parents aside, I don’t seem to be getting into that particular boat). The film’s slate swelled again and re-expand with projectssuch as delay and creative changes postponed Lucasfilm’s most public film project, and brought another: a repurposed cinematic spin. The Mandalorian instead of a new season to lead the charge instead, a retreat into the familiar. Star Wars as a broad entity can’t help but feel rudderless, a franchise that is still looking for what it is and what it wants to be after the end of the Skywalker Saga, but never so willing to take the steps forward to discover that.

Five tumultuous years of rumored and announced film projects that either faded into the ether or were scrapped entirely are left behind. Star Wars in the unenviable position of making people actively worry about their future. Out of The Mandalorian and Grog– the first Star Wars project of the film since The Rise of Skywalker to really publicly prove that it exists in some capacity – there’s little else that Lucasfilm has discussed that feels tangible in any way. And with The acolyte being the rare project that the actively canceled studioinstead of being left vaguely open to continuation, Star Wars fans have been trained to see almost any announcement about the future, regardless of its source being the trade report or even Lucasfilm itself, at its glamorous conventions, through a lens of skepticism. Why invest in something that could be canceled and its threads left hanging? Why get excited by a movie that might be locked in development hell for years and years or just scrapped altogether? What exactly is active vision? Star Wars when his most solid project in years is a film continuation of a TV show that has found its star declining with each increasingly convulsive cameo?

Star Wars it is a series about hope, and also a sense of desperation is how his 2024 has been defined, a lack of conviction to give someone the feelings he has put on his future time to flourish. It’s not all bad. On the literature front, Marvel’s Star Wars the comics and the High Republic The initiative has gone from strength to strength, having fun on its own playing fields to push and expand the galaxy far, far away. The Bad Batch came to an amicable end this year, setting the scene for any new chapter of Star Wars animation will follow in his legacy. For all his irregularities as spectacle– and put aside those polemics of bad faith –The acolyte engaged a new audience with Star Warsall the while challenging the franchise’s shape and structure. In the here and now, while it’s still early days, The skeleton crewthe charmingly retro sense of adventure (one that, at the very least, reflects a nostalgia for filmic inspirations beyond just a love of Star Wars himself) earned himself critical and public evaluation.

There are things to hope for moving forward as well. Although Lucasfilm as a studio is no longer confident in exploring the world The acolyteits publishing arm is, planning an series of novels and comics woven into the environment his novels helped to establish in the first place. After a long delay, Andor will return for his second season in 2025carrying the unenviable burden of following what is undoubtedly some of the i most universally acclaimed Star Wars material from the last decade, not to mention recent memory.

But a lot of Star Wars“The future remains, as a wise old Jedi once said, always in motion. In 2025, as that future draws closer and closer, Star Wars he faces a reckoning of what exactly he should be as he searches for a path back to cinematic success: one where, even for an attempt, he is willing to stand by new visions of himself (especially in the face of the grifters ascending in the cultural war). , encouraged by their “victory” above The acolyte) and look beyond the boundaries of the main films, or another where he puts all his hopes on the familiar, attached to nod to a past can be trusted.

Only the path it takes should begin to become clearer in 2025, with all eyes on it Star Wars Celebration of Japan to start paving the way. All we can do now is wait.

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