Lucasfilm has episodic films and spin-off “Star Wars Story” films planed for the next few years. But what happens next? Let’s dig up some old rumors and see what it could be. What follows is mostly speculation, so not much spoilers.
We’ve had a lot of shake-up in Star Wars world with directors switching out and being fired. The first of these was Josh Trank, going back to May of 2015. Some say he left on his own terms due to complications with a Fantastic 4 film, but it isn’t 100% clear what happened. Trank’s exit does raise the question of what would replace him.
Right now, the films going forward that we have confirmation of are as follows:
Dec 2017 – Star Wars: The Last Jedi
May 2018 – Han Solo film.
Dec 2019 – Star Wars: Episode IX
..and that’s it! Sure there were rumors of a Boba Fett film. In fact, there was a longstanding rumor that the Boba Fett film would be directed by Trank. Not clear what to say about that now, but Boba Fett seems to be shelved at the moment. To see what happens after 2019, you need 2020 vision…
Going way back to 2014, Latino Review stated that Pixar would be involved in a Star Wars film. That original page seems to be gone from the web, but the other sites that reported on it are still up. Even if they started now, that would give Pixar about 3 years to get it done, which is possible but shorter than the usual Pixar method. However, they might have been working on this one for a while. In fact, looking at Pixar’s schedule, they have 2 movies slated for 2020:
Untitled project #1 – March 13, 2020Untitled project #2 – June 19, 2020
Moreover, we know that neither of them will be sequel films, or at least there are no Pixar sequels planned after 2019. Is it possible that the reason why we haven’t heard about any Star Wars films after 2019 is because Pixar has been quietly working on one the whole time? I actually had this theory 3 years ago, but I’d like to revisit it.
Clearly, Pixar would be fantastic. Would it be considered canon? I assume so. But if not they they can do just about anything, really opens up the story telling without constricting future film makers. Sort of a similar situation as the Lego Star Wars movies. Pixar’s track record of mixing great stories and character development is second to none, I imagine they would have a field day with the Star Wars universe. Alternatively, they could build their own new set of characters, which really just means more Star Wars and I am always down for that.
What would the story be about? Let’s dig up another rumor. Back in 2014 when the first rumors of spin-off films surfaced, there were some leaks about Hasbro toys lined up, so implicitly we got some rumors of what the films would be, with most already coming true already:
- 2014: Rebels
- 2015: Episode VII
- 2016: Boba Fett
- 2017: Episode VIII
- 2018: Solo
- 2019: Episode IX
- 2020: Red Five
We know Boba Fett got shelved. Where is Rogue One? It might be what replaced Boba Fett so it seems. The last one catches my eye, and the year 2020 matches perfectly. What if Pixar is making Red Five?
The advantage of this is they can cover the time period between A New Hope and Empire with Luke, Leia, Han being the main characters. Imagine an animated film with Pixar’s style covering that period, and also connecting to Star Wars Rebels, some old prequel characters. With the Pixar style there is room for tons of characters connecting. Somehow, with animation it wouldn’t seem so crazy if random characters met. Bor gullet meeting the Sarlacc, mass hysteria.
Another possibility is that they could “fill in” the era between RotJ and TFA. I suspect that there will be an animated series that takes that time period on but personally I wouldn’t mind a story centering around the big three in that time period… However it would reinforce the idea that the Disney era is risk averse, as would the Red Five idea.
If you could pick any era from Star Wars to be covered by Pixar, when would it be? Leave your comments below.
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