Upcoming Star Wars director James Mangold has shared that the galaxy far, far away's ever-expanding lore put him off writing a story in a time period adjacent to the Skywalker Saga or something similarly familiar.
Speaking to Gizmodo, Mangold said he felt a little restricted when trying to create a story set between the seemingly endless number of other Star Wars films, TV shows, novels, comics, and so on.
"I want to be part of the saga, but I also don’t want to be holding so much lore in the air that you can hardly tell a story," he said.
"What I really wanted to do, what I told [Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy], was just can we make a kind of the Ten Commandments of the Force? A kind of origin story of how the Force came to be known, understood, wielded, and harnessed."
This idea is becoming one of the next three Star Wars films to be released (in either 2026 or 2027) and was announced at Star Wars Celebration 2023 alongside one from Dave Filoni and another starring Daisy Ridley from Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy.
Mangold's film promises to take fans to the earliest point of the Star Wars timeline, but outside of his aforementioned tease about the origins of the Force, we know very little.
Kennedy loved the idea though. "When I mentioned to Kathy the idea that I had about going backward, really far backward, I was surprised that it excited her and the other wonderful people she works with at Lucasfilm," Mangold added.
Kathleen Kennedy outlines the vision for the future of Star Wars Films. #StarWarsCelebration pic.twitter.com/36qGtiIKKc
— IGN (@IGN) April 7, 2023
He's not the only Star Wars writer who's felt a little restricted by its extensive lore, either. Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi said last year that his eventual film will focus on a completely new cast of characters as it aims to expand the universe.
"I don't think that I'm any use in the Star Wars universe making a film where everyone's like, 'oh great, well that's the blueprints to the Millennium Falcon, that's Chewbacca's grandmother', he said at the time.
It'll be a while before we see Mangold's vision for Star Wars. The first new Star Wars movie, which was previously set for 2025, has now been pushed back to 2026. You can read more about the big Disney reshuffle right here.
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Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.
source https://www.ign.com/articles/star-wars-james-mangold-lore