Here are all the projects in the ‘Star Wars’ film series we’ll never get to see

Watching what Disney has done with Star Wars is kind of like watching a middle-aged man on a parkour session. There’s so much momentum starting out, but then it just . . . doesn’t land right.

We generally try not to read about scripts and films in pre-pre-production since so many of them end up trapped in development hell, but on this occasion we decided to put together a list on the Star Wars projects that never made it off the ground, much less into a galaxy far, far away.

Our sadness scale ranges from 5 (complete and total devastation at the beauty that could have been) to 0 (lowest on the sadness scale and conversely the amount of minutes we’ve spent thinking about these projects since we heard about them).

Obi-Wan’s Hermit Adventures

The first half of 2018 was a magical time. Rogue One had become a critical and cultural hit despite the reports of a difficult time filming, and it the Star Wars universe seemed limitless in the stories to be told.

Then Solo: A Star Wars Story came out. While the reviews were fine and it performed at the box office, the popcorn flick did seem like the start of general Star Wars fatigue.

At the time, there were rumors Obi-Wan, portrayed by Ewan McGregor in the prequels, was going to get his own standalone film. McGregor attended the premiere of Solo: A Star Wars Story, adding fuel to the fire, but then . . . nothing happened. 

We did not get to experience Obi-Wan living out his best hermit life in a desert on Tatooine, which could have been like Grey Gardens with Tusken raiders instead of New England shut-ins, and we were truly sad about it.

Sadness ranking: 4

We love Kenobi’s fondness for lightsabers and disappointment in padawans, so thank goodness Obi-Wan will be getting his dues on the future Disney+ series.

Boba Fett’s Sarlacc Adventures

We are tired – so tired – of Lucasfilm mining its original characters for new content. That said, Boba Fett is not technically a major character, with no ties to the force, and (besides that one time he turned Han Solo over to Jabba the Hutt to become a human popsicle) he has not had all that many run-ins with the other Star Wars canon characters.

There have been rumors about a Boba Fett spinoff in the works for decades, and during Solo’s release, there were reports that Logan director James Mangold would develop the film. However, since then there has been no news related to the project, nor updates about future developments.

Sadness ranking: 2

Unless the entire show revolves around how he gets out of that sarlacc pit – in that case our ranking moves up to a solid 3.

Whatever Episode IX would have been with Colin Trevorrow

A long time ago in a media landscape far, far away from what we now know, Colin Trevorrow was listed as director for Star Wars: Episode IX after he pitched his idea to Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy, Disney President Alan Horn, and Disney CEO Bob Iger. 

A Wall Street Journal report said Kennedy was unhappy with the drafts Trevorrow and his frequent collaborator Derek Connolly were providing; then Lucasfilm hired Harry Potter and the Cursed Child writer Jack Thorne to develop a draft for Episode IX that led to more unhappiness; then Kennedy made the decision to fire Trevorrow and move on rather than go through more rewrites. 

Sometimes, in the dead of night, we wonder why Trevorrow was hired in the first place, as he had only directed Safety Not Guaranteed and Jurassic World up until that point. One of those was a good movie, the other was a movie with a dinosaur that could turn invisible.

Sadness ranking: 0

We all dodged a dinosaur-shaped bullet with this one.

Whatever mess those Game of Thrones guys would’ve barfed out

We understand there has to be an enormous amount of pressure placed on the people at Lucasfilm to develop new films in the Star Wars universe. It’s an unwinnable task, as old fans will be angry the films aren’t replicas of the original series, the young fans will be angry the films are replicas of the original series, and racists and misogynists will be angry the films give agency to anyone who isn’t a white guy or wookie.

Game of Thrones was a cultural phenomenon for a few years, so we can understand why Lucasfilm might have wanted Game of Thrones co-creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss to take the helm for another Star Wars trilogy. 

However, after the Red Wedding and George R.R. Martin’s source material ran out (not to mention the author’s steady hand on the series’s wild tiller), it became clear that it wasn’t the writing that people were tuning in to watch, but rather the dragons, t**s and death count. 

Sadness ranking: 0