Project Luminous Revealed As ‘Star Wars: The High Republic’

Star Wars‘ secret project, Project Luminous has now been officially revealed to cover an era known as The High Republic. Lucasfilm announced the publishing initiative last night at an event, and released an announcement trailer.

The High Republic Era will cover regions of the Star Wars timeline previously unexplored in the canon works. The stories will be released from a variety of novel and comic book publishers. Here’s the summary as released by Lucasfilm.

“Star Wars: The High Republic, which has previously been referred to as “Project Luminous”, will be set in an era when the Galactic Republic and the Jedi Order are at their zenith, about 200 years before the events of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. This period on the Star Wars timeline will not overlap any of the filmed features or series currently planned for production, giving creators and partners a vast amount of room to tell Star Wars stories with new adventures and original characters.”

This means that the rumored new series of Star Wars films taking place 400 years before Star Wars: The Phantom Menace is still probable, as the timelines shouldn’t overlap. As the era for those films was supposedly the High Republic, things have changed since that report. With Lucasfilm stating there will be no television or film overlap, that name becomes more unlikely for a film series. It is interesting however that Lucasfilm vice president of Franchise Content and Strategy James Waugh questions “What if publishing is more of an incubation place?” Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm is also involved in the project. She stated that we will see the Jedi in their prime. The Lucasfilm story group involved several concept artists from the films, and their images are seen in the trailer. One is below.

Star Wars: The High Republic will feature multiple Jedi, with new smugglers, and bad guys. The series will also explore a missing piece of Jedi history; what scares the Jedi. It’s a golden age for the Jedi, as well as the Galactic Republic. The Jedi will be featured as what they have always been purported to be: guardians of peace and justice. The novels and comics will explore the expansion of the galaxy into the Outer Rim. The stories won’t just be focused on Jedi, it’ll involve new cultures, pioneers, charting out the galaxy as a whole.

Leading the first wave of High Republic publishing are some of the fan-favorite Star Wars publishing authors: Charles Soule, Claudia Gray, Justina Ireland, Daniel José Older, and Cavan Scott. The first books and comics are set to debut 2 days before Star Wars Celebration Anaheim. First up is Light of the Jedi, an adult novel by Charles Soule. Claudia Gray will release Into the Dark, a young adult novel. Justina Ireland has a middle grade novel entitled A Test of Courage. Daniel José Older is working on a comic series with IDW Publishing entitled Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures. And Cavan Scott is writing a Star Wars: The High Republic comic series with Marvel.