Star Wars: The High Republic, Lucasfilm Publishing's massive trans-media initiative, is coming early next year, which will feature a variety of books and comics that are all focused on the brand new High Republic era of the Star Wars timeline. The High Republic takes place some 200 years prior to The Phantom Menace, during a time when the Republic and Jedi Order were at the height of their power, enjoying a long-standing period of peace (until new threats emerge). Now, a new interview with Cavan Scott (Marvel Comics' High Republic series writer) reveals new details about what's to come, as well as preview images revealing some of the different styles and advanced technologies Star Wars fans can expect to see in the new time period.
Scott is no stranger to writing Star Wars literature, having written the audio original Dooku, as well as previous Star Wars comics such as Star Wars Adventures and the Vader's Castle series for IDW. Scott's new High Republic series for Marvel Comics will see him teaming up with artist Ario Anindito, focusing on a young Jedi by the name of Keeve Trennis, who will have just begun the Jedi Trials in order to become a full-fledged Jedi Knight, based out of the remote Starlight Beacon in the Outer Rim territories of the Star Wars galaxy.
In a new interview with Gizmodo, Scott shared some of his hopes for the series, as well as a lot of behind the scenes developments that occurred between the writers of all the various pieces of High Republic media coming next year. Not only that, but three new preview images for the first issue were released as well, showing Trennis engaged in what looks to be her Jedi Trials, while an unknown Jedi monitors her progress alongside Avar Kriss, the Jedi protagonist of Charles Soule's High Republic novel, Light of the Jedi. Here are the preview images below:
In the images, the interior of Starlight Beacon can be seen, with a number of Jedi in the background seated in monitoring stations with new technologies and equipment that have yet to be seen in the Star Wars galaxy. This unnamed Jedi in particular is standing amidst a mass of holo-screens, seemingly tracking Trennis' trials in real-time. Not only that, but a new ship can be seen in the images as well, possibly belonging to Keeve herself. In terms of the overall new technologies and aesthetics being seen, Scott shared that significant time was taken to achieve a balance between creating new looks for the initiative, while still holding onto that familiar Star Wars look and feel at its core. For example, the Jedi's robes that have been revealed are more ornamental and colorful along with their lightsabers than what's been seen before. According to Scott, there are narrative reasons for that:
"We didn’t want it to be exactly the same. We didn’t want it to feel like the Order had stagnated—we know the Order was around for thousands of years. It must have changed over that time...The robes are something the concept artists are interested in [particularly], they’re a little more elaborate than the monk-like robes we see in the prequels—there are story reasons for that. There are story reasons why they end up like they do in the prequel movies. The lightsabers are a bit more elaborate, too."
If these preview images are any indication for the Star Wars: High Republic initiative as a whole, fans should be really excited for the beginning of next year. At the very least, as far as Scott, Anindito, and Marvel Comics are concerned the High Republic is going to look absolutely incredible, showing fans an era where the Jedi were more free-thinking and expressive, enjoying new advancements in technology that helped them keep the long period of peace in the High Republic era. However, one has to wonder what happens that changes things so much by the time Episode I roles around.
Source: Gizmodo