After 22 years, Lucasfilm has finally learned from the success of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Generally considered one of the greatest video games of all time (including by DC Studios’ James Gunn), Knights of the Old Republic introduced players to the Star Wars galaxy’s ancient history.

The tapestry of KotOR is vast, and the characters are truly compelling; the first game is renowned for the stunning twist in which players realize the central character is actually the terrifying Sith Lord Darth Revan. All these ideas were made possible because of one crucial decision, and it’s one Lucasfilm is finally repeating with the upcoming Star Wars movies.

KotOR’s Developers Were Determined To “Bowl Without Bumpers”

Published in 2019, journalist Alex Kane’s Knights of the Old Republic weaves together an oral history of the game. It’s a stunning read, with Kane interviewing so many of the key players in developing the game. One of the key developers, Haden Blackman, explained the choice of the setting:

“When you’re tied to using Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker and all those characters that everybody knows, there’s just certain things that you cannot do… Those characters already have their arc, so it would’ve been very difficult to do anything substantial to those characters, because we couldn’t tell a story that was after Return of the Jedi. If we had to tell it between the movies, you have your boundaries determined from the very beginning. Had we gone that way, it would have made it a much more difficult proposition…

Too much of [the story] would’ve been predetermined. It would’ve been like bowling with bumpers: ‘You can’t stray too far.'”

I love the way Blackman describes it. The KotOR team was determined to “bowl without bumpers,” taking the risk of creating something wholly new in the Star Wars franchise.

Buy Alex Kane’s Knights of the Old Republic from Amazon

Disney Hasn’t Dared To Do The Same

Compared to KotOR, the Disney era has played it safe. Even Disney CEO Bob Iger has openly alluded to this, explaining why Star Wars: The Force Awakens played the nostalgia card so heavily in his autobiography The Ride of a Lifetime:

“We’d intentionally created a world that was visually and tonally connected to the earlier films, to not stray too far from what people loved and expected.”

The effect, though, was that The Force Awakens committed to “bowling with bumpers.” Rian Johnson tried to take them down in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, but that generated something of a backlash, and Lucasfilm lost confidence. Since then, every Star Wars story has had a clear relationship to the main arc.

There’s only really been one exception: Star Wars: The High Republic, a transmedia initiative set 200 years before Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. But notice that even the High Republic Era is defined by its relationship with the Skywalker saga, and so much of the fandom has been preoccupied with this.

Disney Is Finally About To “Bowl Without Bumpers”

All this finally looks set to change. Next year’s The Mandalorian and Grogu feels like a pretty safe bet, bringing Disney+’s flagship TV show to the big screen. But Shawn Levy’s Starfighter – expected to start production in September, and due to release in May 2027 – is set five years after Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and stars an original character played by Rian Gosling.

There have been reports Disney consider Daisy Ridley’s Rey their “most valuable cinematic ᴀsset,” in part because she’s an established character who exists in a whole new context. Rey’s sequel trilogy story was essentially defined by the traditional tropes, but the Skywalker saga’s completion means she now gets to develop into something much more unique.

Even more excitingly, James Mangold is working on a “Dawn of the Jedi” era movie that will head even further back than KotOR, revealing the origin of the Force itself. Mangold is currently writing the script with Beau Willimon, one of the screenwriters of Andor, which perhaps gives an idea of the potential.

Looking at these three prospective movies, I can’t help feeling that we’re finally seeing Lucasfilm take the bumpers down.

How Will The Fandom React To Star Wars’ New Age?

Is the fandom ready for Lucasfilm to bowl without bumpers? Rian Johnson arguably tried to take them down with Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and the studio course-corrected after the aforementioned backlash. Leslye Headland’s The Acolyte was one of the few Star Wars TV shows to try to do the same, and it didn’t exactly fare well.

There are, however, promising signs. Andor season 2 irritated some corners of the fandom – some prominent YouTubers even stopped covering the show completely – but it otherwise received lavish praise, proving that there’s a desperate appeтιтe for a different kind of Star Wars. Showrunner Tony Gilroy saw Andor season 2 as setup:

“I always fantasized that the show would break new ground, that someone would be able to make a three-camera sitcom in Star Wars or a horror movie. I think the first thing I said to [Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy] when she said they wanted to open a line, was, ‘Could you do a courtroom drama?’ And why not? We’ve worked really hard on Andor to make our lane, and it’s up to other people now to find another way to do it…”

“I think we’ve made our lane with Andor, and Skeleton Crew was trying to do their own, too. The hope is that you can do anything, and we’re going to open up some canonical things and concepts in Andor that maybe will get people excited to do other things.“

“You can do anything.” I can’t help feeling a thrill of excitement as I read those words, because it’s been a long time since that felt true with Star Wars. And yet, looking forward, that really does now seem to be the case. Lucasfilm has finally learned that crucial Knights of the Old Republic lesson.