James Mangold Reveals Why He Wants To Tackle Star Wars’ Most Underexplored Era
“[There would be] creative freedom to be painting a new Star Wars story on a new canvas.”
When it comes to the Star Wars universe on the big screen, we’ve learned possibly everything we can about the era that has become known as the “Skywalker Saga.” It’s a timeline that spans roughly 67 years, from the start of the Prequel trilogy in 32 BBY to around 35 ABY by the end of the Sequel trilogy. While there have been a handful of shows and movies that have briefly explored other eras, there are certainly time periods even further back than a long, long time ago that haven’t even been touched, outside of expanded universe media or other mediums like novels and comics. But director James Mangold’s ambitious Star Wars prequel movie, currently called Dawn of the Jedi, will finally go way back to the origins of the Jedi Order.
Mangold recently confirmed that he and writing partner Beau Willimon are currently in the process of writing the script for their Dawn of the Jedi, which he has previously described as a “a Ten Commandments”-style epic “about the dawning of the Force.” However, he hasn’t given further details about the film — which is only fair, since he and Willimon haven’t even turned in their first draft to Lucasfilm yet. However, in an interview with Inverse ahead of the release of Mangold’s upcoming Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, Mangold reveals why he picked this particular era as the subject for his Star Wars film.
“I pitched it to Lucasfilm because it seemed like an area and a story space where, while there's lore and we certainly would be tying into things that have happened 25,000 years later, there would be the freedom,” Mangold tells Inverse. “[There would be] creative freedom to be painting a new Star Wars story on a new canvas.”
A cover of a Dawn of the Jedi comic.
It’s true that, post-2015 canon, we have next to zero knowledge about the origins of the Jedi. But this era has a rich history in the comics and in novels — and one such comic run might be serving as direct inspiration for Mangold’s film, if his comments about the time period (specifically, taking place 25,000 years before the events of the Skywalker Saga) is any indication. This comic book series is likely Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi, a Dark Horse comic book series written by John Ostrander and penciled by Jan Duursema, which is set almost 26,000 years before A New Hope. It mostly takes place in the year 25,793 BBY, before the polarization of the light and dark sides of the Force. The series, which ran from 2012 to 2014, followed the adventures of three young Je'daii, the ancient predecessor to the Jedi, during a time of brutal civil wars, before the establishment of the Galactic Republic.
Mangold’s comments seem to suggest that he’ll be expanding on, or at least drawing inspiration from, this comic book run, which is was officially made a part of the non-canon Star Wars Legends back in 2014, when Disney and Lucasfilm reset its Star Wars canon.
For now, Mangold can only tease that he and Willimon are still in the middle of writing their version of the Dawn of the Jedi. “We'll see what happens,” Mangold says.
