Why Lucasfilm decided the High Republic is the future of Star Wars

polygon.com:

Star Wars doesn’t really have a future right now. The franchise itself does — it will keep getting new entries forever if Disney has anything to say about — but the story can’t escape the Skywalkers or imagine a future beyond the franchise’s most-featured family. In fact, most of the recent TV spinoffs, like The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Andor, andAhsoka, have just been filling in the gaps between the main movies. But with Disney Plus’ new show The Acolyte, Lucasfilm is finally venturing outside of the time period of the Skywalker Saga by letting us know that Star Wars’ true future is in the past: in a time known as the High Republic.

To understand why Lucasfilm is once again taking the franchise backward, it’s important to understand exactly what the High Republic is and where it started. The High Republic was first introduced to Star Wars canon in 2020 as a series of books. The books were designed to introduce fans to a new era in Star Wars history that had never been explored before, and to open the franchise up for more inventive stories in a time period that had a little more canonical freedom. Since then, there have been over 50 books, comics, and short stories written about the High Republic era, all tied together and telling different sides of one larger story about the time period. Despite all that, The Acolyte will be the first time the High Republic appears on screen.

Beginning around 1,000 years before the opening moments of the Skywalker Saga, the High Republic is a period in the history of Star Wars that feels highly calculated by Disney for maximum franchise potential. It’s a setting that provides plenty of distance (over 25,000 years) from the beginning of the Old Republic, Lucasfilm’s attempt at inventing a new past for Star Wars after the prequel movies were released and before the rights were sold to Disney, while also giving creators the opportunity to explore the opulence and technological marvels of the galaxy long