Fans of the "Star Wars" mythos may get disappointed, as the next trilogy of the franchise won't be happening in the "Knights of the Old Republic" era.
This was confirmed by franchise writer and director Rian Johnson when he ruled out the possibility of using the Old Republic time period and setting as source material for upcoming movies. As much as he loved the video games centering on the Old Republic, Johnson has stated that the new trilogies will be focusing on new stories, not on existing lore of the "Star Wars" universe.
Fan hype began after the announcement of a new trilogy for "Star Wars," where the 2003 video game "Knights of the Old Republic" was mentioned a lot. While Johnson knows and has played the said video game, he, unfortunately, won't be basing the trilogy off of it. He added, "I played that game when it first came out and it was like, god, I loved it. Yeah, that's a fantastic game. And I understand it, the instinct to automatically go to something that you know and love, that you've already seen."
Johnson has stated that being able to explore new horizons for the "Star Wars" franchise is part of what makes it so exciting since there are no limits whenever a new story is being presented. This is perhaps what he plans to keep in mind once the work on the new trilogy begins. With that in mind, working with the Old Republic might pose some constraints to the project, which may be one of the things Johnson is avoiding.
Apart from that, not much is really known about the upcoming third trilogy, which is set to come after the end of the current one, "Star Wars: Episodes VII, VIII, and IX."
For those unfamiliar, "Knights of the Old Republic" is set more than 4,000 years before the events of the movies and was a setting commonly revisited in video game developer Bioware's "Star Wars" roleplaying games (RPGs). The first one, "Knights of the Old Republic" was hailed by a lot of "Star Wars" fans and gamers as one of the best "Star Wars" games ever.
The next trilogy is expected to arrive in 2021.
