Star Wars’ New Legends Show Already Looks Better Than Disney’s Canon

Star Wars is coming out with its first standalone Legends show in decades, and it already looks better than the canon Disney has created. Shortly after Disney purchased Lucasfilm in 2012, it rebranded the Expanded Universe into Star Wars Legends. That decision made countless books, comics, and even shows like Genndy Tartakovski’s Clone Wars miniseries non-canon so that Star Wars could have a more cohesive canon to move forward with.

As a result of making the Expanded Universe non-canon, Disney and Lucasfilm haven’t done much with Legends lately. Popular books from the EU, like the novelization of Revenge of the Sith, have been re-released over the years, but new Legends stories are few and far between. Instead, Disney has been focusing on expanding canon through Star Wars movies like the sequel trilogy and The Mandalorian and Grogu and shows like The Acolyte.

Disney has, however, created one very notable new Legends story in recent years, and it’s even getting its own spinoff show. Star Wars: Visions is an animated anthology series that is explicitly non-canon. Each episode presents a speculative story about how the galaxy far, far away could be different, from focusing on new characters to reimagining galactic history and even the way the Force works.

Star Wars: Visions is a great series, especially for fans of Legends and the EU, but the upcoming spinoff series Star Wars: Visions Presents – The Ninth Jedi is even more exciting. The Ninth Jedi was recently confirmed to be premiering on Disney+ this summer, and since it’s not an anthology like Visions, it will be the first standalone non-canon Star Wars show in over two decades. That’s just one of the reasons The Ninth Jedi is more interesting than canon, though.

The Ninth Jedi Will Give Star Wars Fans What They’ve Wanted Since The Sequel Trilogy

Rebuilding the Jedi Order is what many Star Wars fans thought and hoped the sequel trilogy of movies was going to be about. The Expanded Universe dived into this concept of rebuilding in great detail, especially through Luke Skywalker and his descendants. That was also the natural story choice to most viewers. The original trilogy was about Luke becoming the first Jedi in a generation, and it just made sense for Luke to go on to train the next generation of Jedi.

Instead, the sequel trilogy followed the same story as the original trilogy fairly closely. It skipped over Luke building his Jedi Academy, destroyed it in flashbacks, and then made Rey the next “first Jedi in a generation.” Now, many fans want the same story for after the sequel trilogy. Episode X should be about Rey rebuilding the Jedi Order — there’s even an announced film called New Jedi Order — but Star Wars still hasn’t done it in canon yet.

Though it does fall under the umbrella of Star Wars Legends and doesn’t actually impact the wider Star Wars universe, The Ninth Jedi could actually fulfill the promise of the sequel trilogy. The Ninth Jedi standalone series builds off of two connected episodes from Visions seasons 1 and 3 and takes place in a galaxy where only a handful of Jedi are left. The show’s main character, Lah Kara, is tasked with rebuilding the Jedi Order.

Even though Disney is sidestepping the task of rebuilding the Jedi Order in canon, The Ninth Jedi is going to do it first in Legends. The Ninth Jedi is going to give fans what they’ve been wanting to see since at least The Rise of Skywalker in 2019: the next generation of Jedi facing new threats and carving their own path. Now, finally, Star Wars is giving us a story about the future of the galaxy instead of going back to the prequel or New Republic era, even if it isn’t canon.

The Ninth Jedi Could Prove That Star Wars Needs To Return To Rey’s Story

While The Ninth Jedi will basically surpass Star Wars canon, it could also help the official stories out. Everything Disney has revealed about The Ninth Jedi so far makes it seem like it will be a hit. The two episodes of Visions that serve as its basis were some of the show’s best, the promise of rebuilding the Jedi Order is obviously a very popular choice, and the animation and action will all be just as good as it was in Visions.

If The Ninth Jedi proves to be a success, it could help show Disney and Lucasfilm that Star Wars needs to return to episodic installments and, more specifically, continue Rey’s story. Star Wars has a problem. The sequel trilogy and shows like The Acolyte were divisive, The Mandalorian and Grogu is underperforming at the box office, and something needs to change. That change is a return to episodic installments in the Skywalker Saga.

The Ninth Jedi could finally prove to Disney that Star Wars fans are eager to see the Jedi Order being rebuilt. We want to see the future of the galaxy far, far away, not constantly revisit a past we’ve already seen. If there’s enough fan support for it, and if it proves to be a more lucrative strategy than movies like The Mandalorian and Grogu, Disney may decide to learn from Star Wars: Visions and rebuild the Jedi Order in canon.