Debuting this week with two novels and the first issue of a Marvel comic book series, Star Wars: The High Republic is a new cross-platform publishing initiative from Lucasfilm set hundreds of years prior to the events of the Skywalker Saga. And this morning, Lucasfilm Publishing held a launch event on the Star Wars YouTube channel with authors Cavan Scott, Justina Ireland, Charles Soule, Daniel José Older, and Claudia Gray plus creative director Michael Siglain to help introduce fans to the years-long project.
In the bullet-point list below, I’ve enumerated the most interesting tidbits and factoids we learned during the presentation, and you can also watch the video itself in the following embed.
Watch Star Wars: The High Republic | Live Stream Launch Event:
- Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy introduced the event. “We’ve put together this piece that gives you some idea what the High Republic era is all about.”
- A brief trailer for The High Republic plays, conveying the basic concepts of the initiative.
- This Week in Star Wars host Kristen Baver begins by welcoming authors Charles Soule, Justina Ireland, Cavan Scott, Daniel Jose Older, and Claudia Gray.
- Lucasfilm Publishing creative director Michael Siglain says the company has wanted to do The High Republic for several years, but the timing had to be right. The end of the Skywalker Saga seemed like the right opportunity to launch the project.
- Charles Soule (Light of the Jedi) says he started out by re-watching the Star Wars movies in an effort to recapture the feel of those stories.
- Claudia Gray (Into the Dark) asked herself what the things she loved in other epic sagas were. “What are the big, epic qualities that pull you in?”
- The team had two publishing retreats at Skywalker Ranch in Northern California. “It was really about what we loved about Star Wars and what we wanted to see in Star Wars,” says Siglain.
- Cavan Scott (Marvel’s Star Wars: The High Republic comic book) talks about how the group then split up to come up with their own stories within the period they helped create together.
- Daniel Jose Older (IDW’s The High Republic Adventures comic) says someone else suggested dinosaurs on his behalf as an essential element of the series, because “dinosaurs have been in Star Wars from the beginning.”
- “It was genuinely collaborative, which is fantastic. There are pieces of everyone’s pitches in the end result.” – Siglain.
- The story of The High Republic opens at a time of peace… a golden age for the Jedi knights. “We’re in an era where anything can happen.”
- Scott talks about how the Jedi are peacekeepers who have done their job extraordinarily well, and it’s changed the way the Jedi operate. There are Jedi outposts out among the galaxy, and the people love them.
- The Republic at this time is an enlightened government run by a benevolent chancellor. The concept is inspired by Arthurian Camelot and the optimism of early 1960s America when John F. Kennedy was president.
- The Great Disaster involves a problem with Hyperspace and the response of the Jedi to it. “The idea was to give all of our characters a crisis to respond to.” – Charles Soule
- Justina Ireland’s book A Test of Courage follows a 16-year-old Jedi who is traveling to the space station called the Starlight Beacon and becomes stranded on a small moon with several allies. “It’s really kid-friendly.”
- The Marvel series follows Jedi Knight Avar Kriss as she becomes marshal of the Starlight Beacon, which also functions as a Jedi temple.
- Into the Dark follows characters who are abandoned on a different, ancient space station. Besides Jedi, there are some pilot characters introduced in this novel. “You need to give 1990s Matthew McConaughey a spaceship and see what happens.” – Claudia Gray
- Master Yoda is front and center in The High Republic Adventures. “Yoda has always been about the kids and bringing up the next generation of Jedi.”
- A new Jedi named “Buckets of Blood” accompanies Yoda and the younglings on their adventures. “He’s not a fighter, he’s a healer.” Older says this character was inspired by someone he knew when he was an EMT.
- The group listed their favorite characters from The High Republic, including the villainous Marchion Ro, Trandoshan Jedi Master Sskeer, navigator Geode, and Padawan Lula Talisola.
- Justina Ireland talked about the Nihil, who serve as the main enemies of The High Republic. “They don’t care about anything. They really have no limits. They’re not just looting, pillaging, killing. If you think that they might do something bad, you have to make that even worse, and that’s the level where the Nihil exist.”
- Gray’s book introduces the Drengir, which are sentient, mobile plants. “They have an incredible capacity to heal, and they do not share a common way of thinking with animals or people.” The Drengir get developed more in the Marvel comic series as well. “There is a very deep intelligence there,” says Scott. They’re also tied to the dark side of the Force.
- “Expect the unexpected.” says Siglain, who suggests reading the books in release order if you want to consume the entire story.
- Charles Soule, Cavan Scott, and Justina Ireland are also writing serialized fiction tied in with The High Republic for Star Wars Insider magazine.
- Star Wars: The High Republic – The Monster of Temple Peak is a new graphic novel written by Cavan Scott.
- Star Wars: The High Republic – Out of the Shadows is Justina Ireland’s next YA book.
- Star Wars: The High Republic – The Edge of Balance is a manga written by a Japanese author.
- Star Wars: The High Republic – Race to Crashpoint Tower is a middle-grade book by Daniel Jose Older.
- Claudia Gray says she is not allowed to talk about her next output from The High Republic.
- “All of these stories are really just the tip of the iceberg.” Phase I runs through 2021 and into 2022. There will be a steady stream of books, comics, and magazines.
- Phase I is titled Light of the Jedi, Phase II is Quest of the Jedi, and Phase III will be Trials of the Jedi.
- A bi-monthly Star Wars: The High Republic YouTube show is launching on the Star Wars YouTube channel.
- A unique lightsaber hilt inspired by The High Republic is coming to Star Wars: Squadrons.
- Michael Siglain ends the event by thanking the fans.
Star Wars: The High Republic launches tomorrow with the release of Charles Soule’s adult novel Light of the Jedi and Justina Ireland’s middle-grade novel A Test of Courage. The first issue of Marvel’s Star Wars: The High Republic comic book will then be released on Wednesday.