Andy Weir sees room for more Star Wars movies inside a war whose outcome audiences already know. The author of The Martian and Project Hail Mary wants to follow people living through the Galactic Civil War, with the original trilogy’s events remaining established history.
His concern is what happens to a victory when the next installment needs another enormous conflict. As he put it: “One problem that happens is, if you’re going to have a story about a monumental war, then when it’s over and the good guys win, you want it to stay that way.”
“So it’s very unsatisfying if you roll into a new monumental war.”
The Force Awakens, released in 2015 and directed by J.J. Abrams, brought in the First Order and the Resistance after the original trilogy’s struggle between the Empire and the Rebellion. Weir pointed to 2016’s Rogue One, a prequel to 1977’s A New Hope, as a model for exploring the existing conflict.
Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Han Solo remain central to that history. Weir’s proposal leaves space for characters beyond them, using an approach familiar from historical fiction.
“Think of it like this: We know what happened in World War II, but there are some really good fictional stories that take place during World War II,” he said.
“So if you treat the Galactic Civil War as, ‘Okay, that’s established canon, those are the things that happened,’ but there’s still a lot of stories to tell about other people living through those wars.”