Say Goodbye To The Prequel Era As Star Wars Officially Establishes A New Jedi Order
Merrick Morton/TM / Courtesy Everett CollectionWarning! This article includes spoilers for The Ninth Jedi.
Star Wars has finally established a brand-new Jedi Order, years after George Lucas' prequel movies chronicled the Jedi's downfall. The Star Wars prequel trilogy was as much about the Jedi Order's inevitable demise as it was about Anakin Skywalker's tragic destiny. Without the Jedi's widespread authority, the galaxy fell into chaos, the Empire free to spread its tyranny for years until the Rebellion grew strong enough to make a genuine difference. The handful of Jedi left did their part to protect what they could, of course, but they were scattered, forced to pick their battles wisely, hoping that the Order would one day return.
Since the harrowing events of Order 66, it's been undeniably difficult to resurrect the Jedi Order. Luke Skywalker came close, having set up a fledgling Jedi Academy during the New Republic era. Sadly, as shown in Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Star Wars: The Rise of Kylo Ren by Charles Soule and Will Sliney, Luke's efforts were in vain, with Supreme Leader Snoke (under Darth Sidious' influence) having already wormed his way into his nephew's mind. Ben Solo, falling prey to Snoke's grooming just as his grandfather once did, killed his fellow students and left Luke's Jedi Temple in ruins.
As a result, the prequel-era Jedi Order has remained the only on-screen Jedi Order in the galaxy for years — until now. Star Wars' first full-length anime series, Star Wars: Visions Presents - The Ninth Jedi, follows the courageous exploits of a handful of masterless Jedi as they attempt to free the galaxy from the masked General Nawaam's conquering crusade and establish a brand-new Jedi Order.
The Ninth Jedi Establishes The First New Order Since The Prequel Era
The Ninth Jedi is set in the galaxy's distant future, when the Jedi and the Sith are nearly extinct. All that remains is a lone Sith Lord and a few brave but largely inexperienced Jedi. It's a traditional Star Wars story, with a grassroots rebellion taking on a conquering force, much like the Galactic Civil War or the fight between the Resistance and the First Order. In the end, as we've come to expect from Star Wars, the good guys win. The surviving Jedi officially establish a new Jedi Order, set up in a gorgeous scene clearly meant to reference "The Knights of the Round Table."
Their leader, Lah Kara, a Jedi prodigy and daughter of lightsabersmith Lah Zhima, is positioned to guide them into this new era, following in the footsteps of her teacher, Margrave Juro. The relationship between Kara and Juro is very similar to the dynamic between Luke and Rey Skywalker in the Star Wars sequel trilogy. Kara, with the approval of her fellow Jedi, has everything she needs to lead an Order fit for the galaxy's current state, free from millennia-old restrictions and ideologies.
Kara's Jedi Order differs from the prequel-era Jedi in one significant way. In this timeline, Jedi aren't always chosen based on their connection to the Force. While Kara is undeniably strong in the Force, just like her father, some members of her chosen team aren't able to access the Force's power to the same extent. Still, they've been chosen to wield one of Lah Zhima's carefully crafted weapons because they embrace and defend the Jedi's most important ideals. This distinction may be the key to avoiding the pride that proved to be the previous Jedi Order's Achilles heel.
Where Does This Leave Rey Skywalker's New Jedi Order?
In The Last Jedi, after his nephew's betrayal, Luke Skywalker sentenced himself to exile, only for the Jedi's greatest hope to find him and pull him back into the fight one last time. Everything was set up for Daisy Ridley's Rey Skywalker to lead the next generation of Jedi. At Star Wars Celebration 2023, the franchise even announced a tentatively titled Star Wars: New Jedi Order movie, set 15 years after Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Sadly, that movie's development has remained stuck in limbo, with little to no new developments since Ridley and director Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy took the stage in London.
The Ninth Jedi's story doesn't impact Rey's potential New Jedi Order movie, though. Star Wars: Visions and any other future shows produced under Lucasfilm's new separate Star Wars: Visions Presents banner aren't strictly considered canon. Instead, Visions functions similarly to the old Expanded Universe, now better known as Star Wars Legends, offering up different, non-canonical interpretations of Star Wars' worldbuilding and lore, unrestricted by the franchise's primary history and timeline.
A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away · Eight Questions How Well Do You Know Star Wars? “The Force will be with you. Always.”
🗡️Jedi OrderLight-side guardians
⚡The SithRule of two
⚙️The RebellionA new hope
🪓Bounty HuntersThis is the way
👑The EmpireOrder 66
01
The original Star Wars film — later retitled Episode IV: A New Hope — opened in just 32 American theatres and proceeded to become the highest-grossing film of its era, redefining what summer blockbusters could be. In which year did it premiere?
✓ Correct! 1977 — specifically May 25. 20th Century Fox had so little faith in the project they only opened it in 32 theatres at first; queues quickly stretched around the block, and the film expanded to over 1,000 screens within months. It earned $307 million in its initial domestic run, won six Academy Awards (with another four nominations) and inverted Hollywood’s economics for the next 50 years.
✗ Wrong. The answer is 1977. 1975 is when the script was being shopped around. 1979 is when Star Trek: The Motion Picture released as a Star Wars-shaped countermove. 1980 is The Empire Strikes Back. The original Star Wars is May 25, 1977.
02
A New Hope’s writer-director was a then-32-year-old American Graffiti veteran who’d struggled to get the project greenlit and famously took back-end profit and merchandising rights in lieu of a higher salary — the deal that would build a billion-dollar company. He returned to direct the prequels but stepped away from the original-trilogy sequels. Name him.
✓ Correct! George Lucas. The merchandising rights he kept (because Fox didn’t value them) became the financial bedrock of Lucasfilm and the basis of the modern toys-and-licensing megabusiness. After A New Hope, Lucas produced but didn’t direct Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner) or Return of the Jedi (Richard Marquand), then directed all three prequels (1999–2005). He sold Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012 and stepped away from creative control of the sequels.
✗ Wrong. The answer is George Lucas. Steven Spielberg was Lucas’s close friend (and the godfather of his post-A-New-Hope career) but never directed a Star Wars film. Coppola was Lucas’s mentor at USC and at American Zoetrope. Irvin Kershner directed Empire Strikes Back. The original is Lucas’s.
03
In 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader delivers cinema’s most-misquoted line at the climax of his Cloud City duel with Luke Skywalker. Vader severs Luke’s hand and reveals their relationship. The exact line is — for the record — “No, I am your father.” What relationship does it confirm?
✓ Correct! Vader is Anakin Skywalker, Luke’s father. The reveal was so jealously guarded that Mark Hamill was only told the real line on set the day they shot it (the script said “Obi-Wan killed your father”), and even James Earl Jones recorded the dub without knowing the full plot context. The line — commonly misquoted as “Luke, I am your father” — rewrote what trilogies could pull off and is broadly considered cinema’s most famous twist.
✗ Wrong. The answer is that Vader is Luke’s father, Anakin Skywalker. The whole foundation of the Skywalker saga collapses to this single twist: Anakin (the Jedi prodigy of the prequels) becomes Vader after his fall. Luke and Leia are revealed in Return of the Jedi to be his twin children, separated at birth.
04
Yoda — the green, ear-twitching Jedi Master — was puppeted and voiced from his Empire Strikes Back debut through the prequels and the sequels by a single Muppet-show-veteran performer who also voices Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear. Name him.
✓ Correct! Frank Oz — longtime Jim Henson collaborator and voice/puppet work on Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal, Sam Eagle and Grover. Oz puppeted Yoda directly through The Phantom Menace before CGI took over for Attack of the Clones onward, but he’s continued to voice the character through the sequels and animated series. Yoda’s syntax was developed jointly by Lucas and Oz to feel old, foreign and hard-won.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Frank Oz. Jim Henson was Oz’s mentor and collaborator (he created the Muppets) but didn’t voice Yoda. Steve Whitmire took over Kermit after Henson’s 1990 death. Brian Henson is Jim’s son and runs the Henson company today. Yoda is Frank Oz’s.
05
In a deal that reshaped Hollywood, Disney acquired Lucasfilm Ltd. for $4.05 billion in cash and stock — bringing Star Wars, Indiana Jones, ILM and Skywalker Sound under the Disney umbrella. The deal also kicked off the sequel trilogy production. In what year did Disney close the acquisition?
✓ Correct! 2012 — specifically October 30. The deal was announced with simultaneous reveal that a Star Wars Episode VII was being developed for a 2015 release. Lucas had been quietly preparing his exit from Lucasfilm for years; Kathleen Kennedy had been brought in as co-chair months earlier specifically to take over. The Force Awakens came out three years later, in December 2015, kicking off the modern era.
✗ Wrong. The answer is 2012. 2009 is when Disney acquired Marvel ($4 billion). 2010 is the year before Lucas began signalling exit plans. 2014 is when production proper began on The Force Awakens. Lucasfilm joined Disney on October 30, 2012.
06
The Mandalorian launched as Disney+’s flagship original on November 12, 2019 — the day the streaming service itself launched. Created by Jon Favreau and run by Dave Filoni, the show centres on a helmeted bounty hunter who reluctantly becomes a foster father to “The Child” (Grogu). What is the Mandalorian’s real name?
✓ Correct! Din Djarin — played by Pedro Pascal under the helmet (with body double Brendan Wayne handling much of the physical work). The Mandalorian is widely credited with reviving Star Wars on TV, popularising the StageCraft LED-volume virtual production technology now used across Hollywood, and turning baby Yoda — Grogu — into the meme-economy phenomenon of late 2019. Three seasons have aired with a feature film, The Mandalorian & Grogu, set for May 2026.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Din Djarin. Boba Fett is the famous bounty hunter from the original trilogy, with his own Disney+ spinoff (The Book of Boba Fett, 2021). Cobb Vanth is the Tatooine marshal played by Timothy Olyphant. Bo-Katan Kryze is the Mandalorian princess played by Katee Sackhoff. The Mandalorian himself is Din Djarin.
07
Order 66 — the secret directive that turns the Republic’s clone troopers against their Jedi commanders and effectively ends the Jedi Order — is dramatised in the climactic third act of which prequel film?
✓ Correct! Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005). Palpatine’s “Execute Order 66” comm to the clone armies leads to the methodical, planet-by-planet liquidation of the Jedi Order — one of the saga’s most operatic sequences, scored to John Williams’ “Anakin’s Betrayal” cue. The same film features Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side, the Mustafar duel with Obi-Wan, and his rebirth as Darth Vader in the suit. Widely re-evaluated as the best of the prequels.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Revenge of the Sith. Phantom Menace ends with Qui-Gon’s death and the unveiling of Darth Maul. Attack of the Clones ends with the Clone Wars beginning. Rogue One is set just before A New Hope, after Order 66 has long since happened. The Order 66 sequence is the climax of Episode III.
08
Andor (2022–25) is widely regarded as the most adult, politically literate Star Wars project ever made — a slow-burn prequel to Rogue One charting Cassian Andor’s radicalisation against the Empire. The series was created and showrun by a writer/director best known for the original Bourne trilogy and Michael Clayton. Name him.
✓ Correct! Tony Gilroy. He’d previously been brought in for extensive Rogue One reshoots in 2016, and Lucasfilm gave him near-total creative independence on Andor. Season 1 (12 episodes, 2022) is widely regarded as Star Wars’ finest dramatic writing ever; Season 2 (also 12 episodes, in four three-episode jumps across 2025) closes the gap to Rogue One’s opening scene. Gilroy’s prior credits: Bourne Identity / Supremacy / Ultimatum / Legacy, plus directing Michael Clayton (2007).
✗ Wrong. The answer is Tony Gilroy. Rian Johnson directed The Last Jedi (2017). Jon Favreau created The Mandalorian and is Lucasfilm’s Disney+-era animation/live-action lieutenant. Dave Filoni runs the Filoniverse (Clone Wars, Rebels, Ahsoka, the upcoming Heir to the Empire film). Andor is Tony Gilroy’s.
The Force Has Spoken · Final Tally Your Galactic Standing
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Jedi Master — or moisture farmer on Tatooine?
There's even a chance Rey's New Jedi Order movie will be referenced and set up in Star Wars' next theatrical adventure, Star Wars: Starfighter. Starring Ryan Gosling and directed by Shawn Levy, Starfighter's story is set five years after The Rise of Skywalker, with Gosling's character protecting a potentially Force-sensitive youngling, played by newcomer Flynn Gray, from dark, unknown threats. If Gray's character does turn out to be Force-sensitive, Rey could be the one to take him in and teach him the ways of the Jedi.
Until then, though, The Ninth Jedi's newly formed Jedi Order offers a refreshing perspective on the role of the Jedi in the galaxy, the Force, and even lightsabers, exploring Star Wars' unlimited narrative and creative potential.
All episodes of Star Wars: Visions Presents - The Ninth Jedi are streaming now on Disney+.