Since 2012 Disney has owned the rights to Lucasfilm’s Star Wars franchise, and have pretty much dedicated themselves, since the release of “The Force Awakens” in 2015, to releasing at least one Star Wars film per year, similar to their pattern with Marvel Studios (although now Marvel studios is moving much faster with the films since their initially slower roll-out). In addition to finally releasing the sequel trilogy of films, Disney also has started working on “Spin-off” films. While not necessarily 100% new in Star Wars-there were two TV movies featuring the Ewoks in the 80’s, and the pilot of the CG-animated “Clone Wars” was released in theaters in 2008, these films are intended to be more ambitious.
The first two spin-offs are already underway-of course, there’s the recently released “Rogue One” which dealt with the theft of the Death Star plans:
….and the upcoming Han Solo film which will tell of the younger years of the Smuggler hero…. (as well as his friends Chewbacca and Lando)
However, Disney has largely remained silent on what the third spin-off will feature. Will it follow the trend and be sort of a prequel like Rogue One and Han (although set much closer to the films than the prequel trilogy), or will it deal with something else entirely?
Here’s some speculation-shared by others on the internet-about what exactly this mysterious spinoff will feature.
Obi-Wan “Ben” Kenobi
A lot of people are fairly interested in a film featuring the time when Obi-Wan was a hermit living on Tatooine, protecting Luke and hiding from the Empire and his former student, Darth Vader. While this might sound a bit boring, there’s a possibility Obi-Wan could get into scrapes on Tatooine that could provide some sort of story-perhaps a showdown with Jabba the Hutt? Or maybe a mission that, for some reason, takes him temporarily off Tatooine. By the time of the OT, Obi-Wan’s certainly a more seasoned Tatooine citizen, well-aware of the dangers of Tusken Raiders and Mos Eisley spaceport, while in the PT he only spent a brief time there. Ewan Mcgregor has expressed some interest in playing Obi-Wan again (Indeed he did a small voice-over as Obi’s force ghost in “The Force Awakens”, a role that some feel that-although one of the highlights of the prequel trilogy-was let down by George Lucas’s directing and writing.
Yoda
Yoda is of course the old Jedi Master who was pretty much one of the leaders of the Jedi during the Clone Wars-and later of course trained Luke, but he was already a Jedi by the time of the prequels. It could be interesting to see his younger years, how he became a master himself. Such a film might be a bit effects-heavy though due to Yoda’s nature, and I imagine a whole movie revolving around him would be quite difficult to write giving how he tends to talk in backwards sentences.
Boba Fett
The bounty hunter is of course one of the most iconic OT characters, although one with a small amount of screen time and dialogue. Part of his backstory-that he was a clone of the bounty hunter Jango Fett, something he shares in common with the Clones from the Clone Wars (although he is not as enhanced as they are)-is revealed in “Attack of the Clones”, and he took up his father’s profession and a similar armor to embark on a similar career, some of which is brought up in the Clone Wars TV series. Some people are hoping that this will be the third spin-off, but arguably Boba was most effective wearing the mask, and with little backstory, and for an entire film to focus on that, surely some of him being unmasked-and the AOTC backstory brought up-would have to be addressed. Perhaps he’ll appear in the upcoming Han Solo film as well, but we’ll wait and see.
Darth Vader
Now, technically we’ve already had three Darth Vader films which flesh out his backstory-the prequel trilogy, but there’s still a little bit that can be elaborated on, such as his early years helping the Empire ‘hunt down’ the rest of the Jedi Knights after Order 66. Certainly, his brief appearances in Rogue One were considered the highlight of those films. However, while I’m sure Vader will have some role in future spinoffs, I’m not sure how much further they can take his story.
Emperor Palpatine
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Although he’s of course the ‘true’ villain of the franchise, Palpatine’s origins before the Phantom Menace-when his evil plan to control the galaxy are already underway-remain shrouded in mystery, except that he was once apprenticed to Darth Plageuis  and then killed him. A novel, “Darth Plagueis”-revealed more of his backstory, but that novel is now no longer canon. Could Palpatine have been, like Anakin, sort of good and then corrupted? How did he meet and train Darth Maul, or corrupt Count Dooku or Darth Plagueis? Not necessarily a great idea-the political machinations of the Prequels many thought were boring (although Palpatine himself is considered a highlight), but just kind of throwing this one out there.
The Old Republic
Since the 90’s, there’s been a fascination with the ‘ancient’ Star Wars universe-the time when both the Jedi and the Sith were at their peak and locked in a series of wars, and the Republic was otherwise flourishing. This subject, in addition to some comic series, also became the focus of the “Knights of the Old Republic” game series (Worked on in part by the company Bioware, which would later work on the “Mass Effect” series using some of the tools learned from KOTOR), as well as the still-running MMORG, The Old Republic. Many fans are really hoping that this type of story could be made into a movie, although with some modifications to fit in with the new timeline.
Poe Dameron
Why not someone from the new Trilogy? Although Rey’s pretty much the lead, and Finn seems pretty much the co-lead, Poe Dameron was sort of a distant third, and kind of vanished for most of the middle of the film. Nevertheless, the character’s backstory and character have been heavily fleshed out by Marvel comics in both the Shattered Empire and his own titled series, and seems like he’d be the most “spin-off ready” characters, depending on how the sequels utilize him. After all, we’re getting a Han Solo movie, and he was one of the main characters of the OT.
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