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Next year's Star Wars movie, Starfighter, will depict a period in the Star Wars timeline that we have never seen before: the post-First Order era. Starfighter is set in the aftermath of Episode IX: Rise of Skywalker, which, in case you need a refresher, ended with the defeat of the First Order. A question remains of who, or what, steps into power in this emergent era, which Starfighter may or may not provide the answers to. 

At Disney's D23 Expo, Starfighter director Shawn Levy spoke about the state of the nascent era in an interview with Good Morning America's Ginger Zee. "This is a moment in the galaxy where there is no sort of governing enforcer or order. And so everyone is just trying to survive. Everyone is just trying to do their best to get by," Levy said. 

This sounds not dissimilar to the Wild West period in American history, when lawmen like US Marshal Bass Reeves were instrumental in enforcing order in settler communities on the frontier. And while the High Republic, the period of time when both the Jedi Order and the Republic were at the height of their power, had Jedi stationed in frontier territories on the very edges of Wild Space, this obviously won't be the case in Starfighter, given that almost all Jedi were wiped out by the Empire decades before. 

Now, with hardly any Jedi left, and presumably a lack of civil infrastructure, Starfighter presents a tabula rasa for Levy and the rest of the film's team to build out a new era onscreen. In the meantime, I'll be wondering how the citizens of the Star Wars Universe are disposing of their garbage every week. 

Star Wars: Starfighter will fly into theaters on May 28, 2027.

Get to know, understand, and love the Star Wars franchise more with our Star Wars watch order, guide to all the upcoming Star Wars movies & TV shows, and all the Star Wars movies and Star Wars TV shows ranked.