Future Star Wars Movies Bringing Back Fan-Favorite Element of Original Trilogy

After seven films spanning more than 40 years, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story marked the first film in the Star Wars franchise that didn’t begin with an opening crawl that set the stage for audiences about to witness an adventure in the galaxy far, far away, with Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy confirming that the recently announced films would be bringing back the crawl. The original Star Wars back in 1977 aimed to capture the feeling of tuning into an adventure serial that had a story that was previously released, so while that initial film incorporated it both for style and for substance, other films in the Skywalker Saga using the crawl was largely out of tradition as opposed to necessity. 

Speaking with Entertainment Weekly at Star Wars Celebration, Kennedy confirmed, “The crawl’s coming back.” With Daisy Ridley’s Rey being the focal point of a new movie, rather than the crawl being utilized just for that adventure, Kennedy clarified, “No. The crawl is for movies.”

Rogue One wasn’t the only film that avoided the use of the opening crawl, as Solo: A Star Wars Story similarly avoided using the crawl, with both spinoffs setting themselves apart from the Skywalker Saga quite distinctly. The crawl has been such a significant component of the saga that when Star Wars was debuting the live-action TV shows on Disney+, some fans wondered if a crawl could be utilized, which they ultimately avoided. 

The upcoming film that will explore Rey’s future after the events of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker marks an interesting endeavor, as it will be a spinoff that includes a major figure from the Skywalker Saga that takes place after the events of that nine-film arc, whereas other spinoffs fill in the various storytelling gaps of that overall trajectory. Kennedy went on to explain the motivation behind bringing back Rey.

“As we move into the future space — this story is about 15 years outside of The Rise of Skywalker — obviously we realized post-war, post-First Order rise of the New Jedi Order, we left Episode IX with Rey making a commitment to Luke Skywalker that she would rebuild the Jedi order,” Kennedy explained. “And so here we are — we’re ready to do that. And it took a lot of discussion because obviously we’ve been developing stories in different spaces, and television has been a big focus of our attention right now. But there’s still so much interest in what happens after The Rise of Skywalker. So we’re excited to be doing that.”

Stay tuned for details on the new films in the Star Wars franchise.

Are you glad the crawl is coming back? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!