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2020 is looking like a great year to be a Star Wars fan. With Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker in the rearview mirror, Making Star Wars is reporting that the next film in the franchise is set to take place in the “High Republic” era. The report speculates that the setting would be about 400 years before the Skywalker Saga. Darth Bane would be a big figure and Yoda is active as a Jedi, but not as the wizened old figure fans would recognize from the adventures previously seen in the franchise. The plan would be to have the films be stand-alone efforts but interconnect in different ways. Also of note is the fact that D.B. Weiss and David Benioff were supposed to be at the controls for the series, but now that’s not going to happen. A familiar feeling world with new stories sounds like something that the heads at Lucasfilm were alluding to when describing the next steps after The Rise of Skywalker. Kathleen Kennedy has had a lot to talk about in the lead-up to the end of the Skywalker Saga. It feels like things are going to be a bit different, and that means moving away from trilogies for the moment.

“Obviously, that’s what’s we’ve been spending so much time talking about, and it’s a really important transition for ‘Star Wars,’” Kennedy said. “What we’ve been focused on these last five or six years is finishing that family saga around the Skywalkers. Now is the time to start thinking about how to segue into something new and different.”

“I think it gives us a more open-ended view of storytelling and doesn’t lock us into this three-act structure,” she continued. “We’re not going to have some finite number and fit it into a box. We’re really going to let the story dictate that.”

Star Wars fatigue is an idea that gets discussed more and more in this current era of the franchise. Kennedy doesn’t think that idea holds a ton of water either. She spoke to io9 about upcoming Disney+ series and how those titles will enhance the other offerings from the company.

“I don’t think there was a worry about that,” she observed. “And I think we’ve been pleasantly surprised. We’re going into television. We’ve never done [live-action] television for Star Wars. So, yes, there’s an unknown and I suppose you could say there was an underlying risk. But what we absolutely knew is that the two are very different in look and feel and were not in any way trying to do the same thing. So we arrived at a point of view pretty early that we thought the two could live comfortably side by side. And I actually think the fans are having fun with Mandalorian and I think it will only help The Rise of Skywalker.”