Lucasfilm Boss Explains Why The Mandalorian and The Rise of Skywalker Won’t Cause Star Wars Fatigue

This week is about to be a huge one for the Star Wars franchise with the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Kathleen Kennedy has been reflecting on the journey up until this point, and she addressed the idea of Star Wars fatigue with io9. People have been speculating why the performance might not have been there for Solo: A Star Wars Story and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story since those films released. An easy answer seemed to be this new era of more Star Wars movies than you could shake a stick at led to a saturation of the market. But, that would still not explain the massive box office number for Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Still, some people believe that the uneven performance of these new films has led to people not being as excited about the property as they used to be. However, the fan response to the upcoming film and the popularity of Star Wars in other realms like merchandise and pop culture awareness would seem to disagree with that take. Even still, Kennedy stepped to the microphone to add her two cents about the idea.

“I don’t think there was a worry about that,” she began. “And I think we’ve been pleasantly surprised. We’re going into television. We’ve never done [live-action] television for Star Wars. So, yes, there’s an unknown and I suppose you could say there was an underlying risk. But what we absolutely knew is that the two are very different in look and feel and were not in any way trying to do the same thing. So we arrived at a point of view pretty early that we thought the two could live comfortably side by side. And I actually think the fans are having fun with Mandalorian and I think it will only help The Rise of Skywalker.”

There has been a ton of talk surrounding all of these spinoffs and surrounding projects for a while now. The executive sees all of this as fortifying the common goal, which is to connect with audiences. They will have to do that without the Skywalker characters going forward, but a new generation has latched on to Rey, Finn, Mando and others.

“It’s only creatively constrictive with regard to the Skywalkers, because ‘the saga’ really references the Skywalker family,” Kennedy previously told io9. “And that’s what we’re bringing to a conclusion. There is an inevitability with that because of the actors and the characters they’re playing. So that’s really what we’re looking at more than anything. At least in my lifetime, there’s never going to be an end to Star Wars. So this isn’t the end of Star Wars, it’s the end of that family saga.”

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker opens December 20.