The WSJ has a really great article on Kiri Hart vice president of development for Star Wars. She’s Star Wars‘ Kevin Feige, the guy from Marvel that oversees all the development and arcs for their films.

I particularly like this quote from Hart:

I’m crazily passionate about this idea of narratives traveling across different platforms. It just feels like a golden opportunity. This is a fictional universe that not only supports [narrative coherence] but invites it.

That’s the kind of fun stuff I think we the fans really want. We want our Star Wars Rebels to matter in the context of the larger universe and this confirms, once again, that this kind of stuff is happening. It was always hard to really into novels for instance when you knew they were going to be run over by the cartoons or some new Lucas project. With the way they are moving forward today, everything matters and is therefore taken seriously. I mostly care about Star Wars on the screen but I do like that the things we’re seeing on television are really happening in that universe, so to speak.

It sounds in some ways like the shows and films are working similar to how the novels do in terms of pitches being brought to authors:

We pretty quickly arrived at a content plan that stretches out for several years and we didn’t go looking for those ideas. Those existed internally. We were in a situation of looking for people to help us execute the ideas we had.

Methodologically speaking, that seems really sound as they can develop something and say “ya know, so and so would make this film into something awesome.”

I was also happy to see that people are looking into working in all aspects of the Star Wars timeline:

Because of the content that happens to be coming out right now, there’s this original trilogy emphasis. But I know I have a lot of interest in all of it. I certainly am experiencing in talking to creative people a lot of interest in all areas of the “Star Wars” timeline. I think as we keep going we want to explore, to let the idea lead and then go with that.

I think that will really keep things fresh both in terms of characters, designs, and spirit.