Star Wars: The New Disney+ Series Needs to Explore These Timelines

The Star Wars franchise is kind of in uncharted territory following the release of The Rise of Skywalker, as there’s no telling what corners of the saga are going to be explored next. On Wednesday, fans got a pretty big update in that regard, with the news that Russian Doll‘s Leslye Headland will be writing and showrunning a new series for Disney+. While plot details surrounding the series are still relatively slim, reports indicate that it will be a female-fronted show with a martial arts element, and that it will explore an alternate part of the Star Wars timeline than other projects.

That last detail is especially exciting, considering how much of Star Wars canon has yet to be covered on a major scale. Granted, there’s no telling if the show’s events will happen to run congruent to canon that’s already established in the franchise (especially through tie-in material like comics and video games), or if it will bring to life something that’s completely unexplored outside of the occasional reference of Easter egg. Either way, here are some potential points in time that we’d love to see explored in the new series.

The Start of the Old Republic

It’s no secret that Star Wars fans want to see the Old Republic era properly adapted in live-action, after the Knights of the Old Republic video game franchise became a definitive part of many people’s Star Wars experience. While reports circulated last year that a KOTOR film script was being written, that certainly doesn’t preclude this Disney+ series from covering another side of that era.

On an official level, we know very little about the time when the Old Republic was initially founded —  so there certainly would be room to potentially set a TV series there. In the process, it would also instantly give this new series a distinct look and feel from basically everything else that the franchise has done thus far.

Origin of the Nightsisters

In terms of female-fronted, butt-kicking stories for the Star Wars universe, no part of the established canon is quite like the Nightsisters. A clan of witches on the planet Dathomir, the Nightsisters originally debuted in the successful Legends novel The Courtship of Princess Leia, before eventually being properly weaved into the franchise through The Clone Wars.

A live-action prequel series about the Nightsisters in their prime would be a genuinely awesome use of the canon, while also building on the ties the group has to Darth Maul and the Clone Wars as an event. 

Hundred-Year Darkness

Another key – but relatively-unexplored – stretch of time in the Star Wars franchise is the Hundred-Year Darkness. The first major schism during the Old Republic era, the moment established the severed relationship between the Jedi Order and the Sith, while also creating a lot of problems for the galaxy in the process.

Honestly, there’s enough of a conflict within the Hundred-Year Darkness to fill another nine movies, and it would be awesome to see a live-action series set against the backdrop of that key event.

The High Republic

The High Republic is still a relatively new concept for Star Wars fans, as the era is going to be explored in a wave of novels and comics dubbed “Project Luminous”. The era in time will see the Jedi in their most optimistic and hopeful era yet, 200 years before the events of the prequel trilogy.

While much of the initial canon of the High Republic era is being hashed out by an ensemble of novelists and writers, it certainly doesn’t seem impossible that this new series could explore the era as well. 

Post-Civil War

Another relatively-hopeful time for the Jedi is the 23 years of time after the Galactic Civil War. From 5 ABY to 21 ABY, the franchise doesn’t really have a lot of eventful moments, outside of a lot of the sequel-era characters being born and Kylo Ren turning to the dark side.

While The Mandalorian is technically set in 9 ABY, that still leaves two decades of time for another series to potentially cover.

The Cold War

At this point, nearly all of the “Cold War” era has been explored in novels and tie-in comics, building up the five years prior to the start of the First Order-Resistance War.

While we largely know what Poe Dameron and some other key Resistance members were doing during that time, there’s still a heck of a lot to be explored, while still being in a separate time period from the rest of the upcoming Disney+.

After The Rise of Skywalker

And of course, even though the dust has barely settled on The Rise of Skywalker, there’s still theoretically a significant amount of time to be explored beyond that. Now that the Resistance has finally gotten the upper hand, there’s no telling what the future could hold — and which new characters and stories could be introduced within that.

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Which era do you hope the newest Star Wars Disney+ series is set in? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!