At the Solo premiere last weekend, we got a significant tidbit of information from Jon Favreau: his live-action Star Wars TV show will be set seven years after the Battle of Yavin.
This is according to Nerdist’s Dan Casey, who spoke with Favreau on the red carpet. Favreau voices the alien Rio Durant, a member of Beckett’s crew in Solo, after previously voicing Pre Viszla in The Clone Wars TV show. He also is an accomplished director, having directed films such as Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Elf, The Jungle Book, and the upcoming live-action The Lion King, while he has served as executive producer on projects including Iron Man 3, The Avengers, and Avengers: Age of Ultron.
He will serve as executive producer on this new Star Wars live-action series, and it seems likely that the show will debut on Disney’s new streaming service in 2019. In a red carpet interview at the Solo premiere, Favreau revealed that he is already halfway done with writing for a season of episodes for the show. So that means that this thing is already pretty well along, as his ideas are already being fleshed out in scripts for episodes even though we don’t know much at all about the show, characters, events, etc.
We do know when it’s set, though. The Battle of Endor happened four years after the Battle of Yavin, so this series being set seven years after the Battle of Yavin puts it 7ABY, or three years after the Battle of Endor. It also means that it takes place two years after the Battle of Jakku (5ABY), which was the last major military engagement of the Galactic Civil War. So this period of time is one we haven’t heard much about whatsoever, and it likely will deal with the formation of the New Republic (as well as perhaps the beginnings of the First Order in the Unknown Regions).
The interesting thing will be how the show approaches some of the key figures in the Star Wars universe, such as Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, Han Solo, etc. It’s not as easy to do those classic characters in live-action as it is for an animated show, for instance, so perhaps this show will focus more on new characters who play a role in this new world but who don’t really interact all that often with the classic characters.
No matter what, I really like that Lucasfilm is finally starting to fill in the gaps in the three decades between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens. We’ve gotten some books and material exploring through the Battle of Jakku, and then the novel Bloodline takes place a few years before TFA, but other than that there hasn’t been a ton. Dave Filoni’s new animated show, Star Wars Resistance, will be set in the pre-TFA world, and that means that it’ll be set within six years of the movie – since the Resistance was founded in 28ABY by Leia (recorded in Bloodline). So that will take place near the end of this largely unexplored thirty years, while Favreau’s show will take place near the beginning of it.
I’m excited to find out more about the formation of the New Republic (and of the First Order), and there are plenty of stories to be told with a capable storyteller at the helm.
Star Wars Thoughts 