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Credit: LucasfilmWith an ever-changing slate of movies and TV shows and the biggest attack on the saga since Rian Johnson’s Episode VIII, 2024 has been a turbulent year for the Star Wars franchise.
Star Wars is one of the most powerful entertainment entities in the world. Born almost 50 years ago from the mind of director George Lucas, Star Wars: Episode IV–A New Hope (1977) transformed the cinematic landscape forever. Over the last four decades, Lucasfilm has released multiple movies and a plethora of TV shows, both animated and live-action.
2019 marked a momentous year for Star Wars. The climax of the Skywalker Saga was released, beginning the studio’s movie drought, and The Mandalorian began airing on Disney+. The Mandalorian tempered fan disruption following the tumultuous sequel trilogy, offering a more localized gritty tale of bounty hunters and Force-sensitive aliens.
While the movie slate languished in development purgatory, Lucasfilm deployed more content on the House of Mouse’s streaming service. Over the last five years, shows like Dave Filoni’s The Bad Batch, Deborah Chow’s Obi-Wan Kenobi, and another two seasons of The Mandalorian have been released.
This year saw a significant shift in the Star Wars landscape, and not for the better. When The Acolyte was announced years ago, it immediately drew criticism thanks to its “female-centric” nature. Disney has received increasing criticism over the years for being too diverse and pushing a so-called “woke agenda,” and those claims grew to a fever pitch this summer as The Acolyte began airing on the streaming service.
The backlash was so intense that viewership was significantly affected, and Disney eventually canceled the project despite the season finale setting up new stories and leaving so much answered: the reveal of Darth Plagueis for the first time in franchise canon history, the inclusion of Jedi Master Yoda, and the fledgling apprenticeship of Osha Aniseya (Amandla Stenberg) to The Stranger, AKA Qimir (Manny Jacinto), to name a few.
With its cancelation, many fans worried that The Acolyte would go by the way of Lucasfilm’s other brutally axed show, Willow, which Disney CEO Bob Iger famously culled from the service in his 2023 content purge and become forbidden media.
Skeleton Crew, from Spider-Man movie director Jon Watts, will soon replace The Acolyte as Lucsasfilm’s latest TV show. The Jude Law-led series will begin airing on Disney+ on December 2. Past that, the TV slate is wide open, with only Ahsoka Season 2 seemingly in development.
The Mandalorian Season 4 is apparently no longer happening, which is no surprise considering Lucasfilm’s surprise announcement in January 2024 that The Mandalorian and Grogu movie would be hitting the big screen in 2026. From Jon Favreau, The Mandalorian and Grogu is expected to replace the fourth season of The Mandalorian, with Dave Filoni’s Mando-Verse/Heir to the Empire movie closing out the New Republic era for good.
Before Dave Filoni’s movie lands, though, the Lucasfilm Chief Creative Officer will bring the second season of Ahsoka to Disney+. The first season of Ahsoka, which acted as a sequel to the Star Wars Rebels series, landed in 2023 and brought Rosario Dawson’s Ahsoka Tano back to the small screen following her Star Wars debut in The Mandalorian Season 2.
Much like The Acolyte, Ahsoka left the door wide open for future storytelling. Ahsoka (Dawson) and Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) were left stranded on Peridea, as were Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno) and Baylan Skoll (Ray Stevenson), while Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi) was reunited with Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), and Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen) made his dramatic return to the galaxy.
Related: ‘Star Wars’ Officially Returns to George Lucas’ Prequels After Canceling Multiple Disney+ Shows
That said, a second season was not confirmed until earlier this year. The sophomore season will begin filming next year and likely aim for a 2026 release alongside The Mandalorian and Grogu.
New information has now come to light regarding the development of Ahsoka Season 2, and it seems that The Acolyte‘s dramatic end has changed as Lucasfilm approaches the follow-up season.
Related: ‘Star Wars: Episode X–New Jedi Order’ Trailer Drops Following Mass Disney Confusion
“According to [Daniel Richtman], the plan now is to make sure the series has a satisfying ending in case it’s canceled and doesn’t return for a third season,” Comic Book Movie reports. “We hadn’t expected Filoni to tell this story beyond a couple of seasons, anyway, but Disney+ could always push for more episodes if Ahsoka is a big enough hit.”
If this report is true, it would seem that Disney and Lucasfilm are on the defensive regarding their upcoming television slate. This begs the question of whether the studio is putting too much control in the toxic fanbase that arguably hugely contributed to the cancellation of The Acolyte.
The TV arm of the Star Wars franchise is not the only turbulent part of the company; the movie side is also seemingly unstable. Over a year after Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy announced three new movies at Star Wars Celebration, Simon Kinberg was tapped to begin a new trilogy for Star Wars that may or may not be Episodes X through XII.
Not only that, but the rocky development of Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s Rey Skywalker movie hit another hurdle as Disney replaced the film’s rumored release slot (December 18, 2026) with Ice Age 6 (2026), leaving the future of Daisy Ridley’s Jedi on shaky ground.
How do you feel about Ahsoka potentially getting changed because of The Acolyte‘s outcome? Let Inside the Magic know in the comments down below!