As if by algorithm, the creators of Game of Thrones were tapped to helm a new series of Star Wars films last night, with Disney/Lucasfilm lining up David Benioff and D.B. Weiss to both write and produce. Whether the pair, who have adapted a fantasy series for HBO very successfully for the most part, have the chops to imagine their own one remains to be seen, but regardless of the talent on board, this new slew of films feels an exhausting proposition.

I enjoyed The Last Jedi immensely and it made me excited about Star Wars again in a way that The Force Awakens didn't. And yet, when the trailer for second anthology film Solo: A Star Wars Story dropped this week, it was with a feeling of 'already?'. The Last Jedi hasn't even left cinemas yet but another Star Wars property will open in them in May. A backstory for Han Solo feels somewhat unnecessary and has a hard task ahead winning critics and fans over, especially as (following widely-reported directorial troubles) it doesn't look to have taken the opportunity a completely standalone film affords to try something different. "I'm putting together a crew," Woody Harrelson's character says in the trailer, because apparently every sci-fi film must now involve doing so, and visually it looks as grey and smoggy (because it's in the past, I guess) as the fairly dreadful and perfunctory Rogue One that came before it.

With nine Skywalker-centric saga films, three spin-offs from this corner of the universe and a new trilogy from a different corner under Rian Johnson's charge either released or slated, Benioff and Weiss' last Star Wars film (assuming they make at least three of them with this "series") could be the 18th Star Wars film. This is to say nothing of the mooted Star Wars TV series, of which Lucasfilm is apparently developing "a few".

Every lightsaber in Star Wars history (films) Show all 12 1 /12 Every lightsaber in Star Wars history (films) Every lightsaber in Star Wars history (films) General Grievous The general played a big part in the Clone Wars, collecting dead Jedi's lightsaber's along the way and using them to do a crazy spin-attack. Unfortunately, they all get cut off by Obi-Wan just a little too quickly. Every lightsaber in Star Wars history (films) Qui-Gon Jinn Obi-Wan's master really didn't have too much time on screen, but his battles with Darth Maul will go down as some of the best in Star Wars history. Every lightsaber in Star Wars history (films) The Emperor It was a little weird seeing The Emperor, at this stage Palpatine, getting out a lightsaber and battling Jedi. Much better when just using Force lightning! Every lightsaber in Star Wars history (films) Anakin Skywalker/Luke Skywalker/Finn Now, this one really does have some history, travelling down the generations of Skywalkers, and briefly using by Finn in The Force Awakens. Of course, **Spoiler** someone else also uses the saber after it calls to them, could they be a Skywalker to? Every lightsaber in Star Wars history (films) Darth Vader The first red-lightsaber we ever saw on screen: the definition of evil and an iconic weapon. Every lightsaber in Star Wars history (films) Yoda Again, a little odd seeing a character from the Original Trilogy using a saber, especially when he was jumping around after putting down his walking cane. Ah well, doesn't stop Yoda being a brilliant mentor to Luke. Every lightsaber in Star Wars history (films) Mace Windu Samuel L. Jackson managed to someone get George Lucas to give him a purple lightsaber, just to stand out from the rest of the crowd. That's one bad*ss motherlightsaber. Every lightsaber in Star Wars history (films) Obi-Wan Sure, Obi-Wan managed to lose his saber on countless occasions throughout the prequels, but at least he had it in A New Hope when going against Vader. Because that went well... Every lightsaber in Star Wars history (films) Darth Maul Maul's double ended lightsaber may have been the best thing about Phantom Menace. Scratch that, he was the best thing about that film! The last battle between Maul, Jinn and Obi-Wan was phenomenal, just a shame Maul didn't last until the next film (of course, he came back in The Clone Wars TV show, but that will take a little too long to explain here) Every lightsaber in Star Wars history (films) Kylo Ren At first, the cross lightsaber was mocked by the Internet for being impractical. Yet, when seen in the movie, it's ferocious, spitting out light due to be unstable, much like it's master. Every lightsaber in Star Wars history (films) Count Dooku Now, Dooku's character wasn't in the films for very long, feeling hugely underutilised, especially considering it was the great Christopher Lee, who took on the role as he was a trained fencer. It was still hugely impressive for an 80-year-old to be the best sword fighter in the galaxy. Every lightsaber in Star Wars history (films) Luke Skywalker Luke's second saber, after the one he inherited from his father, was originally going to be blue as well. Yet, due to not standing out against the Tatooine landscape, it was changed to green - which is why in early posters his saber is blue.

In milking the Star Wars franchise as fervently as Luke Skywalker did the green milk-lactating thala-siren in The Last Jedi, Disney risks losing Star Wars its "event movie" reputation. It might be hard to imagine audiences being indifferent to a new instalment, but we probably would have thought the same with Batman during his The Dark Knight apotheosis. Here we are, just a few years later, cringing as he is shoehorned into every DC movie possible, the future of the studio's once iconic superheroes now looking troubled, to say the least.