It’s the hope that kills you. Just like when seasons one and two of The Mandalorian gave us a glimmer that, with the adults in charge, Star Wars might be OK. Then that collapsed into a whole mess of nonsense, with the Baby Leia Show, the New Adventures Of Fat Boba Fett, the All-Star Baby Yoda Experience, and whatever the fuck Ahsoka was supposed to be.
With Andor, there was another little point of light.
Then the trailer for The Acolyte dropped, and all bets were off again.
In the background, there is still the James Mangold project – Star Wars: The Dawn Of The Jedi. Whatever you think of Dial of Destiny, the guy still made Ford v. Ferrari. Now comes some other potentially good news.
Playwright and screenwriter Beau Willimon has signed on to write the script. Why is this good news? Not only did Williamson create the US version of House Of Cards, he was also the writer of the middle section of Andor.
This is the three-episode arc set in the Narkina 5 penal facility. This includes the character of Kino Loy, the dehumanization and control of the prisoners, their growth to action, and the genocidal lengths the Empire will go to to keep its secrets.
In short, some of the best stuff in what is, arguably, the best Star Wars to be put to screen since the Original Trilogy. It also means he had a lot to do with Luthen’s monologue:
Star Wars: Dawn Of The Jedi is said to be set 25,000 years before anything we have seen in Star Wars so far, including the High Republic era. Mangold has previously referred to it as a Ten Commandments-like biblical epic, but centred around the Force.
The only question would then remain, will the team on this be capable of what is known as “Doing a Gilroy”, and completely ignoring the noise from Lucasfilm, and making your own thing?
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