Lucasfilm just quietly continued its setup for James Mangold’s Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi
project, one of the most exciting upcoming Star Wars movies. This year’s Star Wars Celebration was a rather quieter affair than the previous one in London, where Lucasfilm announced three new Star Wars movies in the works and even revealed Daisy Ridley’s return to the franchise. Plans have changed since then – The Mandalorian & Grogu, the next Star Wars movie due out next year – wasn’t even mentioned. But James Mangold’s Dawn of the Jedi is still in development.
According to Mangold and Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy, Dawn of the Jedi will be set 25,000 years or so before the Skywalker saga and will unveil the origin of the Force itself. We know so little about it; we don’t even know if there’ll be a lightsaber, because it might predate those. But, surprisingly, Star Wars has been setting it up for years – and Andor season 2’s premiere features an Easter egg that continues the setup.
Star Wars Just Brought Back The Star Wars Galaxy’s Ancient History
Have You Ever Heard Of The Rakata?
Andor season 1 was surprisingly light on Easter eggs, but Stellan Skarsgård’s Luthen Rael presented one of the most memorable. An antique dealer, he presented Diego Luna’s Cᴀssian Andor with what he called a “Kuati Signet” made of blue kyber. “Sky stone,” he added. “The ancient world. Celebrates the uprising against the Rakatan invaders.“
In the old Star Wars Expanded Universe, the Rakata were a race of invaders who swept across the galaxy 25,000 years ago. They enslaved Force-sensitives, and crossed paths with the Force cult that would eventually become the Jedi. Andor season 2 took us all by surprise when it revisited this, with the return of a Chandrilan artifact apparently stolen during the Rakatan invasion… 25,000 years ago. Just as in Legends.
The Rakata made their Legends debut in the 2003 video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. They were said to be a shadow of their former selves… and the truth was revealed in a series of comics exploring the so-called “Dawn of the Jedi.”
In case you think this is a coincidence… it’s worth noting that Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy has ᴀssembled a skilled writing team to work on his scripts. Beau Willimon (The Ides of March, House of Cards, Mary Queen of Scots) is part of his team. He’s also working on the script for James Mangold’s Dawn of the Jedi. That fact certainly makes the repeated Rakatan references stand out; we’re learning more about the galaxy 25,000 years ago, just when the same writer is working on a movie script for that time.
Andor’s Chandrila Seems Steeped In Ancient Jedi Tradition
Did You Spot The Cutting Of The Braid?
The first three episodes of Andor season 2 centered on the wedding of Mon Mothma’s daughter, Leida (played by Bronte Carmichael). Leida is a traditionalist, and the wedding ceremony is an ancient one that features one particularly familiar scene; one of her braids is cut by her husband-to-be, signifying her entering a new phase of her life. Attentive viewers noted a striking parallel between this and the Jedi knighting ceremony, where a Padawan’s braid is cut off to symbolize their now becoming a master.
This, too, feels like it is no coincidence. Chandrila is one of the Core Worlds in Star Wars‘ galaxy map, and its traditions could easily be as old as the Jedi Order itself. I can’t help but wonder if this, too, is setup; if Chandrila’s resistance to the Rakatan invasion 25,000 years ago somehow influenced the nascent Jedi Order, leaving some similar customs.
There’s More To This Setup Than Just The Rakata
Ahsoka & The Bad Batch Are Dropping Clues As Well
But there’s so much more to this setup than just the Rakata. Ahsoka revealed that the Force cult known as the Nightsisters are far older than we thought, originating before the dawn of the Jedi, and that they were part of an intergalactic empire hailing from the distant planet Peridea. Runes on that planet read “PRAISE KUJET” – a reference to an ancient Zeffo sage set up in Jedi: Fallen Order, a powerful being who fell to the dark side and apparently ruled this intergalactic empire.
ScreenRant reader Aleksa Džuklevski reached out to us to point out other similarities between the Zeffo and the Nightsisters. He was part of a cool Reddit discussion that’s become all the more intriguing given Ahsoka season 2 concept art from this year’s Star Wars Celebration, with Ahsoka Tano and Sabine Wren shown fighting against monstrous droids; these resemble another ancient machine discovered by Clone Force 99 on the planet Skara Nal, said to be at least 25,000 years old. We’re clearly getting some tantalizing hints about the ancient Star Wars galaxy.
The past is the key to the present. That’s certainly true in Star Wars, where it increasingly looks as though present-day stories are being used to subtly set up James Mangold’s Dawn of the Jedi. It’s too soon to say how everything will come together, but we now have an intergalactic Zeffo-Nightsister empire that may be tied to Skara Nal, a Rakatan invasion that swept across the galaxy, and hints at Chandrilan traditions tied to the Jedi. The pieces are coming into place, but who knows what the final picture will look like?
