'Let's Do the Protestant Reformation Inside Star Wars' — Damon Lindelof Reveals New Details on His Canceled Version of Daisy Ridley's New Jedi Order Movie

Screenwriter Damon Lindelof has revealed caller details connected his canceled Star Wars movie, saying it would person been astir the combat betwixt nostalgia and reinvention.

Lindelof, champion known for creating Lost, was hired by Lucasfilm to constitute a New Jedi Order movie that would spot Daisy Ridley reprise her relation arsenic Rey Skywalker successful a post-The Rise of Skywalker setting. However, helium near the task successful 2023, and we haven’t heard overmuch astir the movie since.

In an interrogation with The Ringer-Verse, Lindelof opened up astir what helium was trying to bash with his Star Wars movie and wherefore it fell by the wayside, saying it would person been astir the opposing “Force of nostalgia” and “Force of revision,” successful what would person amounted to “the Protestant Reformation wrong Star Wars.”

“Just to speech astir the Bantha successful the room, I was fired disconnected of a Star Wars movie,” Lindelof began. “They asked me, ‘What bash you deliberation a Star Wars movie should be?’ And I said, ‘Here's what it should be.’ And they said, ‘Great, you're hired.’ And past 2 years later, I was fired. And truthful I was wrong. At slightest done that prism. But what we were attempting to bash — my partners Justin Britt-Gibson and Rayna McClendon and I — what we were attempting to bash was to person this speech successful the movie, which is to say, determination is simply a Force of nostalgia and determination is simply a Force of revision, and they are astatine likelihood with 1 another. And let's bash the Protestant Reformation wrong Star Wars. And it didn't work.

“You person your barroom and devour it too.. but the speech that the fandom is having, without winking and looking astatine the audience, and that didn't consciousness needfully that risky.”

Lindelof, creator, writer, and enforcement shaper of upcoming DC Studios TV amusement Lanterns, admitted determination was much to his exit from Lucasfilm, pointing to penning struggles that couldn’t beryllium worked through.

“And I whitethorn person been fired not conscionable — due to the fact that they seemed to similar the premise — it was just, the penning was truly hard,” helium said. “It was slow. The tone, getting it right, wherever it was wrong of the canon, what its narration was to Episode 9... Is it starting a caller trilogy? All of those things, they're truthful massive. They're truthful big.

“It’s the aged tanker equation, which is you crook the instrumentality and it takes 5 minutes earlier it turns a small spot similar this. That thought of like, we're looking for the halfway of Star Wars. And erstwhile Episode 7 came out, we each knew what it was. It was Rey and it was Finn and it was Poe, and past we were migrating backmost successful Luke and Leia and Han and Chewy and each those guys. But we got the consciousness that erstwhile this caller trilogy was implicit we were going to beryllium launching with these caller characters and that was the halfway of Star Wars.

“The caller question is, are Mando and Grogu the halfway of Star Wars now?”

That’s a motion to The Mandalorian and Grogu, the archetypal caller Star Wars movie since 2019’s divisive Rise of Skywalker. As IGN has reported, The Mandalorian and Grogu enters theaters nether aggravated container bureau scrutiny, but Lucasfilm reportedly believes adjacent year’s Star Wars: Starfighter has a amended accidental of reviving the franchise.

IGN’s The Mandalorian and Grogu reappraisal returned a 5/10. We said: “If you’re looking for a Star Wars movie that thrills, surprises, challenges, oregon demonstrates a vested involvement successful seeing its characters turn and change… The Mandalorian and Grogu is not the way.”

There are a fig of large representation questions astir the aboriginal of Star Wars. While Ahsoka Season 2 is confirmed to beryllium successful the works for Disney+, determination remains a large woody of uncertainty astir different movies and shows Lucasfilm announced earlier Kathleen Kennedy stepped down arsenic brag of the company. Kennedy made nary notation of the previously-announced standalone movie acceptable to diagnostic Rey Skywalker during interviews earlier this year.

The project, revealed by Kennedy with fanfare 3 years agone astatine Star Wars Celebration 2023, is planned to diagnostic the instrumentality of Daisy Ridley arsenic Rey Skywalker, and uncover however the quality founds a caller epoch of the Jedi Order.

Kennedy announced the task on-stage alongside Ridley and manager Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, who was confirmed to beryllium helming the project. But successful the years since — arsenic with truthful galore different Star Wars movies — small much has been said.

Discussing the standalone Rey movie's crippled successful much detail, Kennedy described it arsenic acceptable 15 years aft Rise of Skywalker. "We're post-war, post-First Order, and the Jedi are successful disarray, and there's a batch of treatment astir who are the Jedi, what are they doing, what's the authorities of the galaxy?" Kennedy teased. "[Rey is] attempting to rebuild the Jedi Order based connected the books, based connected what she promised Luke."

Of course, this isn't the lone task expected to diagnostic Rey successful the future. Lucasfilm is besides incubating a caller trilogy of movies from Simon Kinberg, the manager down the widely-panned X-Men movie Dark Phoenix and 2022 spy enactment flop The 355.

Perhaps notably, The Hollywood Reporter suggested successful precocious 2024 that Rey's aboriginal had subsequently go a substance of statement wrong Lucasfilm, arsenic aggregate projects from antithetic directors sought to marque usage of the character. And portion Kinberg's trilogy was past earlier successful development, it was noted that Obaid-Chinoy's standalone movie had suffered setbacks, including the departure of writer Steven Knight.

But with Dave Filoni present successful complaint of Lucasfilm, everything we thought we knew astir aboriginal Star Wars projects whitethorn present beryllium wrong.

Wesley is Director, News astatine IGN. Find him connected Twitter astatine @wyp100. You tin scope Wesley astatine [email protected] oregon confidentially astatine [email protected].