The wars in the stars never end. But sometimes they fade away.
That’s what happened to the Star Wars franchise after an exhausted George Lucas wrapped the original trilogy with Return of the Jedi in 1983. Decades later, fans still refer to the subsequent 10-year famine of Star Wars entertainment as the Dark Times. It happened again when Lucas wrapped up the prequel trilogy with Revenge of the Sith in 2005, urging fans to “grow up” and leave their moisture farms. It would be another decade before we’d see Star Wars live action on the big screen again.
And it’s happening once more in 2025. Lucas himself, of course, is happily divorced from his baby — in his first San Diego Comic-Con appearance ever, the creator was disinterested in Star Wars and focused on his new narrative art museum. But the mouse-eared stewards of his franchise, intentionally or otherwise, are following his lead and letting it lie fallow.
There are just two Star Wars movies and two Disney+ TV shows that are definitely arriving in the next few years. And they skew toward safety, toward a certain kind of built-in Star Wars fandom. More casual fans, or those looking for live-action originality, may be out of luck.
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