People like “Star Wars”; I like “Star Wars”. We will be getting more “Star Wars” very soon. We will, of course, be getting more films: “Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi” is set to release this December, followed next year by a film about a young Han Solo, starring Alden Ehrenreich as the iconic smuggler before his rebel days. After last year’s successful war story, “Rogue One”, this will be the second of three “anthology” films set within the Star Wars Universe; however, this will not focus on the events of the main trilogies. A third is scheduled for 2020, but details have been clouded by the dark side of the force.
Last week it was announced that the director of Episode IX, Colin Trevorrow, would be leaving the project after creative differences arose with Lucasfilm. He will be replaced by J.J Abrams, who lead “The Force Awakens” to box office domination.
The films are the iconic properties bearing the Star Wars name, with moviegoers flocking to see them in droves and merchandising bringing in billions of dollars. Star Wars also is made up of stellar television, novels, comics, and video games, all of which are in full swing in the ramp up to “The Last Jedi”.
The popular animated TV show “Star Wars: Rebels” will be entering into its fourth season this October on Disney XD, and will continue to follow the crew of the “Ghost” in their efforts to foil the Empire and aid a fledgling Rebel Alliance.
Several novels are set to release before “The Last Jedi”, and are the most recent in a long line of influential Star Wars literature. I’ve already grabbed my copy of “Phasma” from the Brewer Bookstore, which covers backstory of Gwendoline Christie’s chrome-plated Stormtrooper who was criminally underutilized in “The Force Awakens”. Captain Phasma is also the subject of 4-part miniseries of comics for Marvel, which will run throughout September and October.
A final major installment is DICE’s “Star Wars Battlefront 2”, a sequel to a reboot of the popular video games from the mid 2000s. “Battlefront 2” brings back fan-favorite features, such as space battles and multiple eras for multiplayer (the prequel trilogy, the original trilogy, and the sequel trilogy). The game’s story mode follows Iden Versio as she leads Inferno Squad, an Imperial Special Forces unit that was on Endor when the second Death Star was destroyed. The story will follow Iden from the last moments of “Return of the Jedi” up until the final events of “The Force Awakens”. The game looks brilliant and is scheduled for release on November 17th.
All of this isn’t for everyone, but if you want to get lost in fantasy, you can play, read, or watch any number of stories filled with blasters and lightsabers, star-ships, aliens, Jedi and Sith: everything that has made so many fall in love with a galaxy far, far away.