The High Republic On-Screen Future Teased by Kathleen Kennedy in New Art Book
It’s been almost two years since Lucasfilm launched the High Republic publishing campaign, a set of interconnected stories across books, comic books, and other written media, set 200 years before The Phantom Menace and even further back. The time period is now about to make the jump to live-action, as Leslye Headland’s new series The Acolyte, which just started filming, will be set at the tail-end of the High Republic. Now, Kathleen Kennedy may have just teased this will not be the only time we’ll be spending time in this time period in live-action.
In the new book The Art of Star Wars: The High Republic (Volume 1), the following paragraph was included when talking about the transition from the written media to live-action storytelling (big shout out to The Direct for the find, and the transcription):
“If [the High Republic] gamble succeeded, the story anchoring the new interconnected multimedia initiative stood to open up new storytelling opportunities beyond the page, allowing publishing to evolve into an incubator for new characters and era that could later appear in games or on screen, a role reversal for the department typically tasked with sustaining interest between tentpole projects and big-screen movies that nevertheless honored the genesis of all stories in film, games, and television.”
Kathleen Kennedy, added the following tease regarding the time period’s on-screen future:
“It all starts with the word.”
Members from the Story Group also explained how they are trying to be true to the Star Wars themes with the stories set during the High Republic. Pablo Hidalgo said:
“What is the galaxy worth fighting for?… When people say we want to restore the Republic, what is the ideal?”
Justina Ireland, one of the main authors behind the stories set in that era so far, added:
“Everyone’s always talking in such glowing terms about the Republic… It had to have been a functional government that people enjoyed and felt safe under at some point. But we hadn’t seen it yet… [But] how do we still make it interesting? Because when things are going well, that’s usually when it’s the least interesting, right?”
It remains to be seen whether or not The Acolyte will have any tie-ins with the novels. Phase I of the publishing campaign was set 200 years before Qui-Gon picked up Anakin from Tatooine, while Phase II is going further back in time. Amandla Stenberg (The Acolyte‘s series lead), however, will be walking the galaxy far, far away around 100 years before the events of the first episode of the Skywalker Saga. We know that Headland is a massive Star Wars fan who has been following the books and comics for many decades, going all the way back to the Expanded Universe in the 1990s, so it’s probably safe to assume that she’s at least aware of the efforts made by Justina Ireland, Daniel José Older, and their peers.
The High Republic will be coming to Disney Plus a bit sooner, though, just not in live-action. Announced during Star Wars Celebration, Lucasfilm is producing the first full-length animated Star Wars series for preschoolers, early grade schoolers, and their families, titled Young Jedi Adventures. Those will be stories set during the High Republic that follow a set of Younglings on their way to becoming Jedi Knights. Young Jedi Adventures is scheduled to premiere on Disney Plus during spring 2023.
Source: The Direct
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as movies from Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
