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Star Wars: James Mangold Stresses "The Freedom To Make Something New"

Director James Mangold says he is "not that interested in being handcuffed by so much lore" for his Star Wars film because there is no pleasing everyone.

In April 2023, Star Wars went from being completely absent from the big screen to having multiple new movies in the works under three directors. Other projects were in varying levels of development, including films from Rian Johnson, Taika Waititi, Patty Jenkins, and possibly others. However, these were from new directors, including James Mangold, Dave Filoni, and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. Obaid-Chinoy would be directing a film that saw the return of Rey and would take place after the sequel trilogy; Filoni's film would be a kind of wrap-up to all of the television shows. Mangold's film would be taking place way in the past, the "dawn of the Jedi," long before any characters we know existed. Since then, more films have been added, and we know when at least one of them is coming out, but Mangold's film might be one of the most interesting because the weight of the previous films doesn't bog it down. The prequel and sequel trilogies nearly buckled under the weight of expectations from their connections to the original films. The fewer connections, the better, in a bunch of different ways.

It seems Mangold agrees when it comes to Star Wars. While speaking to MovieWeb about A Complete Unknown, he talked briefly about his Star Wars project with co-writer Beau Willimon. Mangold said, "To me, the really important aspects are the freedom to make something new. Beau and I, in relation to Star Wars, have been working on a script, and we'll see what happens […] Do we find a way on the page to say something original?"

"The Star Wars movie would be taking place 25,000 years before any known Star Wars movies take place. It's an area and a playground that I've always [wanted to explore] and that I was inspired by as a teenager. I'm not that interested in being handcuffed by so much lore at this point that it's almost immovable, and you can't please anybody," Mangold continued. The word "handcuffed" says a lot. When they love you, Star Wars fans are some of the most dedicated and loyal fans in the galaxy. However, they get very lost in the details sometimes. They will freak out if the pieces of lore don't perfectly match how they might have previously been explored in other movies, shows, or comics. There is "tracking canon," and then there are Star Wars fans.

By going so far in the past, Mangold has put himself in the unique position of not having to worry about any of it. No one can tell him he's getting a character "wrong" because they are all his characters. He can make his own twists on customs and worlds because, obviously, no society will be the same as it was 25,000 years ago. It's a level of creative freedom that few have been given in the Star Wars universe because Lucasfilm and Disney think no one will tune in if there isn't a character they recognize from previous films. The best season of The Mandalorian was the first one, by far, where its connections to the OG Star Wars was the fact that Grogu looked like Yoda and not much else. The more we embrace Star Wars projects wholly disconnected from the original films, the bigger this universe will become. Mangold's Star Wars film does not have a release date at the time of writing.

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