When Disney rebooted Star Wars with a new sequel trilogy, it unwittingly opened a whole new can of worm-shaped questions. How did Emperor Palpatine manage to survive the events of Return of the Jedi? How did the Empire make such a quick comeback after its crippling defeat? Fortunately, the answers already existed thanks to the Star Wars Expanded Universe (a branch of the saga populated by novels, games, and comics). Unfortunately, Disney made the decision to officially de-canonize the EU in 2014 and rename it “Legends.”
But now, thanks to arguably the only person who actually understands the entire Star Wars franchise as well as George Lucas, we may finally be getting some canonical answers.
Last week, Lucasfilm announced a trio (but not a trilogy) of new Star Wars movies, and one of those movies will be directed by none other than Dave Filoni. For the uninitiated, Filoni gets his star working directly with George Lucas on The Clone Wars animated series before moving on to Star Wars Rebels (another beloved cartoon) and eventually, The Mandalorian.
The Mandalorian and its upcoming spinoff Ahsoka, have already helped to (re)explain what happened in between Star Wars Episode VI and Episode VII, and if Filoni’s work in live-action is any indication, his movie could finally bridge the gap while rewriting an important chapter of Star Wars history.
For the most part, modern Star Wars canon likes the pretend that after the fall of Emperor Palpatine, the rest of the Empire was quickly eradicated. The sequel movies suggest the First Order arose seemingly out of nowhere, while newer books like Bloodline seem to back that up. Enter: Dave Filoni.
The Mandalorian has gone out of its way to show that the Empire never really went away. From the very beginning, it’s been clear that the Remnant is still operating along the outer rim of the galaxy. Meanwhile, the show’s current season has given us a look at the inner workings of the New Republic, a government so plagued with bureaucracy that it’s a surprise the Empire/First Order didn’t destroy it even sooner.
While The Mandalorian is limited to focusing on Din Djarin’s journey (bottle episodes aside), Dave Filoni’s upcoming movie could give him an opportunity to really set the record straight. Per Gizmodo, the yet-untitled film will focus on “the conflict between the Imperial Remnant and the New Republic.” In other words, we’re finally going to see what happened in between Episodes VI and VII at the highest level of power in the Star Wars galaxy.
If Dave Filoni gets this right (no pressure!) it could explain how the New Republic fell, how the First Order rose up so quickly, and perhaps most important, what the original Star Wars characters are all up to during The Mandalorian.
