A new Star Wars Legends show has done what Rey Skywalker and the sequel trilogy couldn't accomplish. Disney's sequel trilogy of Star Wars movies was not what many fans were expecting. After years of the Star Wars Expanded Universe fleshing out the future of Luke Skywalker's story, from reestablishing the Jedi Order to building a family of his own, most fans of the franchise had some expectations for Disney's sequels.
Instead of committing the Expanded Universe to live-action, however, Disney designated it as the non-canon Legends continuity and introduced Rey and Kylo Ren instead of a young, post-Return of the Jedi Luke. That alone was fine, as Rey and Kylo Ren were interesting characters in their own right, and it was time for a new generation to push the Star Wars timeline forward anyway. However, Disney didn't make the sequel trilogy anyone was expecting.
The sequel trilogy should have been about Rey reestablishing the Jedi Order in the aftermath of the Empire's defeat and facing some kind of new challenge along the way. Instead, the sequels ended up mostly rehashing the same events as the original trilogy while swapping out some details. The Empire became the First Order, the Rebel Alliance became the Resistance, and Rey spends much of her character arc fighting none other than Emperor Palpatine and his strongest minion, this time named Ben Solo instead of Darth Vader.
Whether you liked or hated it, that was the sequel trilogy's greatest sin: it's hardly a sequel. The sequel trilogy didn't establish a new Jedi Order, it didn't establish a new government to replace the New Republic, and it barely managed to put the original trilogy's villains to bed for a second time. Rey's movies didn't do any of the things fans expected out of the sequel trilogy, but Star Wars: Visions Presents - The Ninth Jedi did, and it's not even canon.
The Ninth Jedi Accomplished Everything The Sequel Trilogy Should Have Done
The Ninth Jedi has all the story beats many fans were expecting out of the sequel trilogy in the first place. Lah Kara, a young and inexperienced but gifted Force wielder, trains to become a Jedi. Under an older master's tutelage, she helps find other Force users and recruit them into a new Jedi Order. They face a new threat in Nawaam, who offers a different philosophical threat to the Jedi than the Sith or the Empire did, and they succeed in moving the galaxy's history beyond the chaos and tyranny of the past.
The plot of The Ninth Jedi is basically exactly what Star Wars fans wanted to see out of the sequel trilogy. It moves the story of Star Wars forward in very meaningful ways, even though it's not part of the main canon continuity. The Ninth Jedi tells the story of how the galaxy rebuilds after a major period of chaos and tyranny, which is what the sequel trilogy should have been trying to do from the start.
The Ninth Jedi Also Managed To Surpass The Sequels Without Legacy Characters
One of the more remarkable things about The Ninth Jedi isn't just that it serves as a better sequel to the original trilogy than Rey's movies do, but that it achieved that without relying on any legacy characters at all. Since it's not canon, The Ninth Jedi exists in its own separate continuity with its own characters that don't appear anywhere else in Star Wars. Every single character in the show is introduced within the series itself, and there's no nostalgia or fan service to fall back on.
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Upcoming Star Wars Movies & Shows |
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|---|---|
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Title |
Release Date |
|
Ahsoka Season 2 |
January 20, 2027 |
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Star Wars: Starfighter |
May 28, 2027 |
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Maul - Shadow Lord Season 2 |
TBA |
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New Jedi Order |
TBA |
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Simon Kinberg's Trilogy |
TBA |
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Dawn of the Jedi |
TBA |
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Star Wars: Visions Season 4 |
TBA |
Compare that to the sequel trilogy, which extensively used legacy characters like Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Leia Organa, Chewbacca, and Lando Calrissian. The sequels were so chock-full of Star Wars' past that there was barely any room for Rey's future. The Ninth Jedi, on the other hand, is solely focused on Lah Kara and her quest to restore the Jedi Order. Even when it does indulge in the past, it's with a character like Lah Zhima, an original from the show, and it's always in service of Kara's narrative first and foremost.
The Ninth Jedi doesn't even reference anything in Star Wars' past. There's no mention of the Empire, of the Skywalkers, or the Rebel Alliance. The only part of Star Wars lore that The Ninth Jedi does dip into is the Jedi Order, and even then, the show is talking about a different version of the Order from its standalone continuity. Even without those familiar characters and pieces of lore, The Ninth Jedi still works as a better sequel than the Star Wars sequel trilogy did.
- Release Date
- 2026 - 2026-00-00
- Network
- Hulu, Disney+
- Directors
- Shunsuke Tada, Kenichi Matsuzawa, Kazuma Ogasawara
Cast
-
Chinatsu AkasakiLah Kara (voice) -
Hiromu MinetaEthan (voice)
WHERE TO WATCH
- Writers
- Mitsuyasu Sakai, Daisuke Ohigashi, Yumiko Yoshizawa
