It is surprising to recall that in the time since the COVID-19 pandemic shut down large public gatherings and now, as events slowly but surely continue to re-enter social life, that a whole new era of Star Wars has come into being. The High Republic may have had to weather a storm as it arrived over the last few years, but now, at their first in-person panel together, its architects can look back at what they have made together.
At the end of our panel, the lights went up. I don't think I'd come to terms with how many people were sitting in that room before that. I was scared right out. It is like the end of a party when the lights go on. It's a good thing. It's just like seeing a room filled with people.
I don't think any of us expected that when they threw up the blue logo for Phase II. I feel like that is a big deal. We took a risk with that. Even though we're pulling them away from characters in the middle of a cliffhanger and giving them all new characters, people are still ready for it. That is so cool.
It's one thing to see, but it's not the same as seeing thousands of people in a room who took time out of their day. It was really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really,
It wasn't just the bigger picture for all the writers who love their work. Some of it was just seeing Star Wars fans excited about a sentient rock.
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The second phase of The High Republic will take readers even further back into the period before the events of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, and this is the first time a publishing initiative has done that. Check out io9's full interview with the author team, including the aforementioned Scott, Soule, Older, and Gray.
A lot of your work in High Republic has explored stories for young adults, like Vernestra, and characters who are intended to share a similar, younger age with their target audience. What we know of Phase 2 so far focuses on young audiences and young perspectives in the story similar to her.
It really comes down to whether or not someone becomes a Star Wars fan when they are 40. Most of us grow up as Star Wars fans. We all have friends who are not into Star Wars. I loved Jedi Academy even though it was soapy and terrible.
That was what I loved about it.
It is not anything but what it is. I think it's important to have ramps into the fandom for younger readers. If my mom or dad said "But you love Star Wars!", I would be like, "Hell no." When it was still a younger thing, we had the benefit of coming up with it. Seasoned. It's important to get younger readers. I remember when Clone Wars came out. Everyone thought it was a kid's cartoon. When Clone Wars came out, I felt that it was not Star Wars. Clone Wars is one of the best Star Wars stories you have had in a long time. I think you have to give everyone a place in the fandom.
The first thing Charles will do is work on a new comic series about a Jedi master. What drew you to tell this story when you were ideating what you wanted to get out of Phase 2?
Porter Engle is three-hundred years old. Talk about being seasoned. I had a sense of who he was in Light of the Jedi, because he had a complicated past. He thought of himself as complicated. He had to do a lot of mental gymnastics to get to a place where he could smile and be happy and cook stew and be this jolly fellow we need. It wasn't easy for him to go there, but I knew I wanted to know why. It was when I was given the chance to write a story set 150 years earlier that I decided to do it.
Daniel, even as events got darker, you infused the setting with a lot of humor. Is that something you will continue with in Phase 2? Why was it important to you?
One of the ways we were differentiating was to stake out this era as a different time from this era. It's sort of the Jedi creed of balance: Balance is so important, balance with the Force, and so on. I knew we needed to bake some stuff in the middle of Phase I. There needed to be some light periods in the middle of what was happening. It was almost like a double-edged sword because people were divided by it in a very deep way, and I wanted to give them something to cheer them up. It made the heavy stuff heavier because it was light. The tragedy was even more tragic because each one of those is hitting home, and it made the tragedy even worse.
It was very dramatic that you got to wreck everything down with the Fallen Star. I want to know what the challenge has been for you to thread the needle through the different stories and formats from your work on Phase 1 and now into Phase 2 of the Jedi comic?
It was a shift when it came to the first two novels. Several characters from Into the Dark were not the same as the one from the previous movie. It was a little intimidating to handle Elzar for the first time at this point in the story. It was kind of a leap. The whole story is the threading of the needle. It is part of the big tapestry. I didn't have to do that much. It was done because of the way we conceived of the story and brought it together, and thank goodness, because otherwise it would have been very difficult to bring those together.
It's perfect, at least in this very early stage, and I still have it in my head. Literature has never been held this way, and then you write the first page. It is something of a departure from the main narrative, but also subtly. I think it's different from what I've done before. I am very excited to do it. I think that's all I can say.
I wanted to ask you if the personal crises Jedi face in this enlightened period are seen as the embodiment of Good, no matter their struggles. What are the sorts of challenges we will see face the characters when they are cut off from the structure of the Jedi and the Republic?
The relationships between the Jedi in Phase 2 are done in a way round through my first phase material. I didn't intend to write about the father and daughter relationship, but that's exactly what it is. You get to see how the Jedi relate to other people in Phase II. They are not in the cloisters. They are with the people. That is the world they find themselves in with Phase II. They spend more time with people who aren't Jedi. I think that is exciting about this Phase.
The second phase of Star Wars: The High Republic will begin in October.
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