Star Wars: The High Republic Writer on Why It’s So Fun Working With So Many Powerful Jedi

This year, Lucasfilm launched Star Wars: The High Republic, a new publishing initiative offering writers the freedom to write stories decades or centuries before the Star Wars prequel trilogy. The books offer Star Wars fans an opportunity to see the Jedi in a whole new light, during an era before the Sith menace began to undermine them and lead to their eventual demise. Cavan Scott is one of the authors contributing to Star Wars: The High Republic, writing the ongoing Marvel Comics series set in the era and the upcoming novel The Rising Storm. Speaking to ComicBook.com‘s ComicBook Nation podcast, Scott described what makes writing in this era, especially writing Jedi, special.

“I think the novelty is the fact that everything is new,” Scott says. “I mean, there are obviously very recognizable elements of Star Wars. There are the Jedi, there is the galaxy, the Republic, there are recognizable species and aliens, but because we are dealing with an era that’s never really been explored by the modern canon or back in the old expanded universe, it’s a sense of ‘all bets are off,’ because when we work with things where we’re tying into the films and the TV shows and that kind of thing you pretty much know what’s gonna happen to those characters. “

For the Jedi, there’s also the opportunity to get to see them in their prime. In The High Republic, they act like the heroes Obi-Wan Kenobi described them as being.

“The interesting about these Jedi is that we know from Obi-Wan that they were the guardians of peace and justice and all those things, but we never really saw that,” he says. “We see that the Jedi in the period of the Clone Wars when they’re literally having to fight a war, so they’re being forced into a very particular way of thinking. Our Jedi have been very successful at that job for hundreds of years, and they live in a Republic that is largely peaceful. That is a Republic where there isn’t an exodus going on when they are pushing out into the Outer Rim and into the frontier. So ours have never really had to cope with the fact that there are large forces that they’ve got to deal with. They’ve got to deal with issues, but they’re very used to the fact that if a Jedi turns up and they draw their lightsaber before they even lit their lightsaber, people have usually put down their guns because people know that once the Jedi arrived, it’s end of play. Suddenly they find themselves in a situation when they face a foe where that doesn’t happen, and actually, the foe will fire their blaster right back, and they won’t respect the Jedi in the same way as other people were.”

He continues, “It’s been very interesting dealing with Jedi order who have had it their own way for a long time. And I’m because of that, are probably a little bit more free in how they interpret the Jedi code, how they interpret the force. They’re very open. They’re out with the people. They’re not hidden behind temples or, like in the prequel era, when they’re literally in one temple on one planet. These are Jedi that have outposts all over the galaxy. Where there are a large number of people, there is a Jedi outpost. And those Jedi outposts are out with those people, and they’re walking with them, and the people know them, and they respect them, which is why the Jedi have been able to do what they have done because they’re not a mythical race of space wizards who are out there.”

Various Star Wars: The High Republic releases are available now.