It’s time to say goodbye to Rey Skywalker as Star Wars fully embraces her perfect replacement with its new storytelling initiative. While Rey’s Star Wars future seemed clear and bright after the announcement of the tentatively titled Star Wars: New Jedi Order movie at 2023’s Star Wars Celebration, the franchise has since moved in a different direction. New Jedi Order hasn’t officially been canceled, but there have been no concrete developments, either. It’s seemingly stuck in limbo, joining dozens of other tragically unrealized Star Wars movie proposals.
It’s a shame, as Star Wars: New Jedi Orderhad (and hopefully still has) real promise. Set 15 years after the sequel trilogy’s divisive final installment, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Rey’s New Jedi Order movie would not just have launched a brand-new era of the Star Wars timeline; it also would have introduced a new generation of Jedi, one hopefully unburdened by the restrictions of the galaxy’s prequel-era Order and freer to connect with the Force without constant political pressure.
Instead, Star Wars will explore what it’s like to rebuild the Jedi’s ranks in its latest Disney+ show, Star Wars: Visions Presents – The Ninth Jedi. A spinoff of Star Wars: Visions’ season 1 and season 3 shorts, “The Ninth Jedi” and “The Ninth Jedi: Child of Hope,” this will be Star Wars‘ first full-length anime series, created by acclaimed Japanese studio Production I.G. The series follows a talented young Force-wielder named Lah Kara as she joins the few remaining Jedi, hoping to locate her kidnapped father and bring peace to a war-torn galaxy.
Lah Kara Is Star Wars’ Most Exciting Lead Jedi Since Rey Skywalker
Kara splitting a hat with her lightsaber in Star Wars: Visions season 3, “The Ninth Jedi: Child of Hope”
The reveal of Rey’s yellow lightsaber in The Rise of Skywalker‘s epilogue was a symbolic choice. It represented her place in the Force and in the galaxy as a new type of Jedi, one who would honor and learn from the past but be daring enough to move beyond it, too. Rey wasn’t just a new beginning for the Order. She was meant to be a new beginning for Star Wars as a whole, the one character who could bridge the gap between the old and the new. Lah Kara faces a similar destiny in Star Wars: Visions Presents – The Ninth Jedi.
Much like Rey, Kara’s been thrust into a fight that was once all-too easy to ignore, a conflict far beyond her and her father’s remote homestead. Rather than hiding from her newfound power or the galaxy’s problems, however, Kara throws herself into battle, becoming a new type of Jedi in the process, learning from her teacher, the older Margrave Juro, and following her own heart, as she learns to understand the true consequences of war, oppression, and loss. In this story, Kara is the future of the Jedi, much like Rey holds the key to the Jedi’s future in Star Wars’ primary timeline.
Both Rey And Kara Are Ready To Launch A New Era Of Star Wars
Credit: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures via MovieStillsDB
Star Wars: New Jedi Order would have taken the franchise further into Star Wars’ future than ever before, 15 years after the events of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. A lot can change in 15 years. This was a chance for Star Wars to reinvent itself, to figure out what the galaxy might look like without the looming shadow of oppression. What is the Jedi’s role in this new and improved galaxy? What terrifying threats await the Order and other peaceful civilizations? Will the Sith rise again, or will a different dark side Force religion take over?
Hopefully, audiences will still get to find out. Shawn Levy and Ryan Gosling’s standalone movie, Star Wars: Starfighter, may help reignite the development of Rey’s New Jedi Order movie — or any similar projects — as it’s set just five years after The Rise of Skywalker. Fewer changes will have occurred in that time frame, perhaps, but it could certainly set the stage for more Rey and Jedi-centric stories to come (it’s widely theorized that Flynn Gray’s character is a Force-sensitive youngling).
A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away · Eight Questions How Well Do You Know Star Wars? “The Force will be with you. Always.”
🗡️Jedi OrderLight-side guardians
⚡The SithRule of two
⚙️The RebellionA new hope
🪓Bounty HuntersThis is the way
👑The EmpireOrder 66
01
The original Star Wars film — later retitled Episode IV: A New Hope — opened in just 32 American theatres and proceeded to become the highest-grossing film of its era, redefining what summer blockbusters could be. In which year did it premiere?
✓ Correct! 1977 — specifically May 25. 20th Century Fox had so little faith in the project they only opened it in 32 theatres at first; queues quickly stretched around the block, and the film expanded to over 1,000 screens within months. It earned $307 million in its initial domestic run, won six Academy Awards (with another four nominations) and inverted Hollywood’s economics for the next 50 years.
✗ Wrong. The answer is 1977. 1975 is when the script was being shopped around. 1979 is when Star Trek: The Motion Picture released as a Star Wars-shaped countermove. 1980 is The Empire Strikes Back. The original Star Wars is May 25, 1977.
02
A New Hope’s writer-director was a then-32-year-old American Graffiti veteran who’d struggled to get the project greenlit and famously took back-end profit and merchandising rights in lieu of a higher salary — the deal that would build a billion-dollar company. He returned to direct the prequels but stepped away from the original-trilogy sequels. Name him.
✓ Correct! George Lucas. The merchandising rights he kept (because Fox didn’t value them) became the financial bedrock of Lucasfilm and the basis of the modern toys-and-licensing megabusiness. After A New Hope, Lucas produced but didn’t direct Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner) or Return of the Jedi (Richard Marquand), then directed all three prequels (1999–2005). He sold Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012 and stepped away from creative control of the sequels.
✗ Wrong. The answer is George Lucas. Steven Spielberg was Lucas’s close friend (and the godfather of his post-A-New-Hope career) but never directed a Star Wars film. Coppola was Lucas’s mentor at USC and at American Zoetrope. Irvin Kershner directed Empire Strikes Back. The original is Lucas’s.
03
In 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader delivers cinema’s most-misquoted line at the climax of his Cloud City duel with Luke Skywalker. Vader severs Luke’s hand and reveals their relationship. The exact line is — for the record — “No, I am your father.” What relationship does it confirm?
✓ Correct! Vader is Anakin Skywalker, Luke’s father. The reveal was so jealously guarded that Mark Hamill was only told the real line on set the day they shot it (the script said “Obi-Wan killed your father”), and even James Earl Jones recorded the dub without knowing the full plot context. The line — commonly misquoted as “Luke, I am your father” — rewrote what trilogies could pull off and is broadly considered cinema’s most famous twist.
✗ Wrong. The answer is that Vader is Luke’s father, Anakin Skywalker. The whole foundation of the Skywalker saga collapses to this single twist: Anakin (the Jedi prodigy of the prequels) becomes Vader after his fall. Luke and Leia are revealed in Return of the Jedi to be his twin children, separated at birth.
04
Yoda — the green, ear-twitching Jedi Master — was puppeted and voiced from his Empire Strikes Back debut through the prequels and the sequels by a single Muppet-show-veteran performer who also voices Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear. Name him.
✓ Correct! Frank Oz — longtime Jim Henson collaborator and voice/puppet work on Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal, Sam Eagle and Grover. Oz puppeted Yoda directly through The Phantom Menace before CGI took over for Attack of the Clones onward, but he’s continued to voice the character through the sequels and animated series. Yoda’s syntax was developed jointly by Lucas and Oz to feel old, foreign and hard-won.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Frank Oz. Jim Henson was Oz’s mentor and collaborator (he created the Muppets) but didn’t voice Yoda. Steve Whitmire took over Kermit after Henson’s 1990 death. Brian Henson is Jim’s son and runs the Henson company today. Yoda is Frank Oz’s.
05
In a deal that reshaped Hollywood, Disney acquired Lucasfilm Ltd. for $4.05 billion in cash and stock — bringing Star Wars, Indiana Jones, ILM and Skywalker Sound under the Disney umbrella. The deal also kicked off the sequel trilogy production. In what year did Disney close the acquisition?
✓ Correct! 2012 — specifically October 30. The deal was announced with simultaneous reveal that a Star Wars Episode VII was being developed for a 2015 release. Lucas had been quietly preparing his exit from Lucasfilm for years; Kathleen Kennedy had been brought in as co-chair months earlier specifically to take over. The Force Awakens came out three years later, in December 2015, kicking off the modern era.
✗ Wrong. The answer is 2012. 2009 is when Disney acquired Marvel ($4 billion). 2010 is the year before Lucas began signalling exit plans. 2014 is when production proper began on The Force Awakens. Lucasfilm joined Disney on October 30, 2012.
06
The Mandalorian launched as Disney+’s flagship original on November 12, 2019 — the day the streaming service itself launched. Created by Jon Favreau and run by Dave Filoni, the show centres on a helmeted bounty hunter who reluctantly becomes a foster father to “The Child” (Grogu). What is the Mandalorian’s real name?
✓ Correct! Din Djarin — played by Pedro Pascal under the helmet (with body double Brendan Wayne handling much of the physical work). The Mandalorian is widely credited with reviving Star Wars on TV, popularising the StageCraft LED-volume virtual production technology now used across Hollywood, and turning baby Yoda — Grogu — into the meme-economy phenomenon of late 2019. Three seasons have aired with a feature film, The Mandalorian & Grogu, set for May 2026.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Din Djarin. Boba Fett is the famous bounty hunter from the original trilogy, with his own Disney+ spinoff (The Book of Boba Fett, 2021). Cobb Vanth is the Tatooine marshal played by Timothy Olyphant. Bo-Katan Kryze is the Mandalorian princess played by Katee Sackhoff. The Mandalorian himself is Din Djarin.
07
Order 66 — the secret directive that turns the Republic’s clone troopers against their Jedi commanders and effectively ends the Jedi Order — is dramatised in the climactic third act of which prequel film?
✓ Correct! Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005). Palpatine’s “Execute Order 66” comm to the clone armies leads to the methodical, planet-by-planet liquidation of the Jedi Order — one of the saga’s most operatic sequences, scored to John Williams’ “Anakin’s Betrayal” cue. The same film features Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side, the Mustafar duel with Obi-Wan, and his rebirth as Darth Vader in the suit. Widely re-evaluated as the best of the prequels.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Revenge of the Sith. Phantom Menace ends with Qui-Gon’s death and the unveiling of Darth Maul. Attack of the Clones ends with the Clone Wars beginning. Rogue One is set just before A New Hope, after Order 66 has long since happened. The Order 66 sequence is the climax of Episode III.
08
Andor (2022–25) is widely regarded as the most adult, politically literate Star Wars project ever made — a slow-burn prequel to Rogue One charting Cassian Andor’s radicalisation against the Empire. The series was created and showrun by a writer/director best known for the original Bourne trilogy and Michael Clayton. Name him.
✓ Correct! Tony Gilroy. He’d previously been brought in for extensive Rogue One reshoots in 2016, and Lucasfilm gave him near-total creative independence on Andor. Season 1 (12 episodes, 2022) is widely regarded as Star Wars’ finest dramatic writing ever; Season 2 (also 12 episodes, in four three-episode jumps across 2025) closes the gap to Rogue One’s opening scene. Gilroy’s prior credits: Bourne Identity / Supremacy / Ultimatum / Legacy, plus directing Michael Clayton (2007).
✗ Wrong. The answer is Tony Gilroy. Rian Johnson directed The Last Jedi (2017). Jon Favreau created The Mandalorian and is Lucasfilm’s Disney+-era animation/live-action lieutenant. Dave Filoni runs the Filoniverse (Clone Wars, Rebels, Ahsoka, the upcoming Heir to the Empire film). Andor is Tony Gilroy’s.
The Force Has Spoken · Final Tally Your Galactic Standing
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Jedi Master — or moisture farmer on Tatooine?
Lah Kara’s story doesn’t take place in the same timeline as Rey’s. Though it’s technically set in the “distant future,” Star Wars: Visions’ stories aren’t generally considered canon. Instead, Star Wars: Visions Presents – The Ninth Jedi will launch Star Wars’ new, separate, non-canon story banner. Star Wars: Visions Presents will function similarly to the old Star Wars Expanded Universe, now more commonly known as Star Wars Legends, experimenting with the galaxy’s lore and exploring new storytelling opportunities without impacting Disney’s (somewhat) carefully constructed canon timeline.
This is Kara’s chance to shine as she takes on mysterious masked conquerors wielding blue lightsabers, fights for her father’s freedom, and learns to use her lightsaber and the Force with incredible power. If Rey’s story had to be put on indefinite hold, then Star Wars: Visions Presents – The Ninth Jedi’s Lah Kara is certainly a worthy Jedi replacement.
Star Wars: Visions Presents – The Ninth Jedi premieres Wednesday, August 5 on Hulu and Disney+.
