When The Force Awakens revealed that post-Return of the Jedi, the remnants of the Empire had reformed into the First Order, many Star Wars fans felt it undercut the victory of the Rebellion. But, sadly, the status quo of the new trilogy rings true to our reality. It’s incredibly difficult to stamp out an ideology, which will continue to simmer away under the surface until it has the opportunity to ‘strike back.’
Of course, the beginnings of the First Order have been explored in various spinoff novels already like Star Wars: Aftermath and Star Wars: Bloodline, but now it seems that we’re going to see it happening on screen in Jon Favreau’s hotly-anticipated Disney Plus show The Mandalorian.
Director Dave Filoni and Favreau himself spoke about this to EW recently, with the former saying:
“This doesn’t turn into a good guy universe because you blew up two Death Stars. You get that the Rebels won and they’re trying to establish a Republic, but there’s no way that could have set in for everybody all at once. You have in a Western where you’re out on the frontier and there might be Washington and they might have some marshals, but sometimes good luck finding one.”
“Also, what could happen in the 30 years between celebrating the defeat of the Empire and then the First Order? You come in on Episode VII, [the First Order are] not just starting out. They’re pretty far along. So somehow, things weren’t necessarily managed as well as they could have been if [the galaxy] ended up in hot water again like that.”
Honestly, I can’t wait to see this play out, and it doesn’t take too much of a stretch to apply it to contemporary politics. And before people accuse me of trying to crowbar politics into Star Wars, it should be noted that George Lucas was explicit that these films take a political stance.
The extremely promising trailer seemed to hint this was the case, too, with the dulcet tones of Werner Herzog spelling out a morally ambiguous status quo. If Favreau and Filoni can pull this off, then The Mandalorian may bring a much-needed infusion and sense of maturity to that galaxy far, far away.