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Credit: LucasfilmThings haven’t quite been the same for the Star Wars franchise since the sequel trilogy. More specifically, it was Star Wars: Episode VIII — The Last Jedi (2017) that split the fan base down the middle like a red-hot lightsaber through butter.
We say “split” as if opinions were equally divided, but the truth is that if you ask anyone how they feel about that film and the follow-up, Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker (2019), most responses are hardly going to be positive.
The Last Jedi Changed Star Wars Forever
The Last Jedi was widely considered to be nothing short of pure heresy; depicting Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), the embodiment of hope and optimism throughout George Lucas’ original trilogy (A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi), as a bitter old hermit with just as many grievances with the Jedi Order as fans have with the 2017 film.
Equally criminal was director Rian Johnson’s decision to undo several plot points established in the film’s predecessor, JJ Abrams’ Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens (2015). But to cut a rather long story short, Abrams returned to helm The Rise of Skywalker, which gave Johnson’s film the same treatment. The result? The entire sequel trilogy feels more like the old parlor game Consequences than a coherent, three-piece story.
Related: The Force Awakens at Disney World: New ‘Star Wars’ Project Gets Official Reveal
Upcoming Star Wars Films Offer Little Hope
Since the 2019 film concluded Disney’s Star Wars trilogy, the franchise has yet to return to theaters. That’s set to change in May, 2026, when The Mandalorian & Grogu arrives on the big screen, however, the official trailer for the film hardly became the spark that lit the match that set the fanbase alight with excitement again when it premiered just a few months ago.
The Mandalorian, which was a breakout hit on Disney+, is mostly irrelevant now as that too has been off our screens for a few years. Not only that, but Season 3 went down like a led balloon (or a Death Star). If there’s any sort of excitement for the faraway galaxy in film, it’s for Shawn Levy’s Star Wars: Starfighter (2027), a standalone chapter set after the sequels.
Why Fans Have Lost Interest in Star Wars
But why has interest in the franchised dwindled so much? The sequel trilogy definitely got the ball rolling, as did the two theatrical releases that accompanied those films during their 2015–2019 run: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) and Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018).
The former was both a critical and financial success, and to this day remains a widely praised entry. The latter, however, was considered the franchise’s first-ever box-office bomb, grossing only $393 million against a budget somewhere north of $300 million.
It’s not the worst Star Wars film ever (have you seen the Ewoks spinoffs?), but by the time it was released, fans had already suffered The Last Jedi, and fatigue was becoming a real issue.
Related: Disney Cancels Upcoming ‘Star Wars’ Movies, Cuts Confirmed
Disney+ Content Hasn’t Helped
But Disney and Lucasfilm have learned nothing about oversaturation since then. While things have been quiet in theaters for the last six years, they’ve been pumping out Star Wars content on Disney+ instead, like there’s no tomorrow.
The Mandalorian was a breath of fresh air when it first arrived, taking Star Wars back to basics for simple episodic adventures. And then everything else came afterwards. The Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Mandalorian Season 3, Ahsoka, and The Acolyte.
The second season of Mando and Skeleton Crew were decent enough entries, but they’re now lost in a tightening crowd of pretty bad television shows.
Animated Star Wars content, on the other hand, has always been more consistent in terms of quality compared to the live-action shows. Recent years have given us the likes of The Bad Batch, the Tales of anthology series, and the critically acclaimed anime Visions.
Still, there’s so much bad content saturating the franchise now that many fans have simply been turned off altogether — even longtime enthusiasts.
Can Star Wars Be Saved?
Can Star Wars be saved? It’s quickly become a cliché to ask such a question. YouTube video thumbnails are already screaming in all caps that so-and-so film “WILL SAVE STAR WARS” again. But The Mandalorian & Grogu will not be that film — if anything can do it, it’s probably Starfighter.
With a director like Shawn Levy, who breathed new life into the Marvel Cinematic Universe with last year’s Deadpool & Wolverine (2024), things look mostly promising. But it might not be enough. The answer then? The dreaded sequel trilogy.
Let it be said that those films have their defenders — if you’re one of them, you make many fans jealous. But there’s no denying the truth: they are widely hated entries. Still, there might be “a new hope” yet (pun intended): Disney and Lucasfilm have a way of wiping the sequel trilogy from canon, but it can only be done by replacing it with another series of films.
Related: Disney Officially Reboots ‘Star Wars’ After String of Disasters, Removes Sequels From Canon
How the Sequel Trilogy Can Be Erased
For a brief moment, fans thought that the live-action series Ahsoka was the key to erasing the sequel trilogy from canon.
That show brought the mystical realm known as the World Between Worlds into live-action for the first time (the animated show Rebels first introduced the concept), which had many hoping that it would use it as a plot device to “rewrite” the future — after all, it’s a place where time and space do not exist. The faraway galaxy’s answer to the Multiverse, if you will. But that didn’t happen, and the sequel trilogy wasn’t going anywhere.
The most obvious way to replace the sequels is in animation. The first reason this is the best route is that it’s the only way legacy characters such as Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Princess Leia Organa can be brought back without the need for the actors who played them.
Many fans feel, and rightly so, that the sequels failed to properly utilize Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford. We’re probably just being polite — the films wasted them for the most part. Leia was fine, but they turned Luke into a grump and Han into a deadbeat dad.
Now, with Hamill and Ford far too old and Fisher having sadly passed away in 2016, that opportunity no longer exists. In animation, however, whether it’s a style similar to, say, The Clone Wars, or something more photorealistic, it’s possible to bring them back.
Digital De-Aging Must Be Avoided At All Costs
We know what you’re probably thinking — Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher were “de-aged” in The Mandalorian Season 2/The Book of Boba Fett and Rogue One, respectively (which also involved stand-in actors). Peter Cushing was also digitally re-created as Grand Moff Tarkin for the latter film. So why shouldn’t this be an option? Well, those films were live action.
This also gives us a nice segue onto our second reason as to why an animated sequel trilogy should replace the live-action sequel trilogy. Simply put, animation is a lot more believable than live action when it comes to “de-aging” characters.
While audiences were mostly impressed with Tarkin and Leia, Hamill’s younger Luke in The Mandalorian Season 2 came under fire for its poor quality. Photorealistic animation, on the other hand, could re-create characters and their respective actors’ likenesses perfectly.
The third reason is that, as we’ve already said, Star Wars animation has fared better with fans in recent years. An animated sequel trilogy reboot might not feel as serious as a series of live-action films, but over time, it could build the same cult following as The Clone Wars.
With all that said, we’re not suggesting that an animated sequel trilogy should simply “reboot” the current sequels — it would need to be a completely different story altogether, one that honors the legacies of those beloved characters. Perhaps an obvious choice is the fan-favorite Thrawn Trilogy (AKA Heir to the Empire), a series of novels written by Timothy Zahn between 1991 and 1993 that act as follow-ups to the original trilogy.
For now, the sequel trilogy is here to stay, but if The Mandalorian & Grogu and Starfighter fail to reignite interest and underperform commercially, Disney may end up hitting reset on the galaxy far, far away. And maybe the World Between Worlds will come in handy, after all.
What do you think? Do you think the sequel trilogy could be replaced with an animated film trilogy? Let us know your thoughts in the comments down below!