A New Hope?

The Skywalker saga may have ended on a divisive note, but Star Wars lives on. Led by the success of The Mandalorian, could the key to the franchise’s future lie on the small screen?

- Richard Edwards

There has been a great disturbance in the Force. In 2019, for the first time in Star Wars’ 43-year history, the latest movie in the Skywalker saga was not the biggest cultural event to emerge from that galaxy far, far away. Instead, with The Rise Of Skywalker proving just as divisive as The Last Jedi two years earlier, it was a smaller-scale story that captured the imagination of the fanbase. Somewhere on the lawless frontier of the Outer Rim, a bounty hunter in Boba Fett-inspired armor coolly went about his business. The Mandalorian was the star attraction when the new Disney+ streaming service landed in the US in November (it’s coming to the UK in March), and it may just be the most universally adored thing to come out of Lucasfilm since George Lucas sold his universe to Disney back in 2012.

Disney is yet to release official viewing figures, but by every other metric The Mandalorian was a massive success. Critics and fans loved it, while the show’s unlikely co-star – a familiar-looking, green, pointy-eared infant nicknamed Baby Yoda – became the hottest meme on social media.

The show is just the tip of a Hoth-sized iceberg for Disney+, the dawn of a new TV empire. A second season of The Mandalorian is already in production, Ewan McGregor’s climbing back into his Jedi dressing gown for an Obi-Wan Kenobi spin-off, and Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor is heading up a Rogue One prequel series. There’s even a final season of the CG-animated The Clone Wars on the way, seven years after Disney brandished the lightsaber of cancellation.

In other words, TV is finally starting to feel as important to the Star Wars universe as the movies. It’s been a long time coming – over 40 years, in fact…