Star Wars Celebration Chicago is over, and we’re still reeling from all the surprises they packed into five days of one of the biggest cons of the year. Everyone’s talking about The Rise of Skywalker, but Monday brought a new reveal to totally obsess over: Project Luminous, which several major Star Wars authors will be involved in.
The mysterious project was teased at Del Rey’s Star Wars publishing roundtable and will feature work from Cavan Scott, Justina Ireland, Charles Soule, Daniel José Older, and Claudia Gray. That’s about all we know about the project, as well, except for the fact that it’s coming out in 2020. With so little to go on, it’s hard to speculate, but that sure won’t stop me from theorizing, because this is one of the most exciting things to come out of Celebration for me.
Star Wars publishing has been one of my favorite parts of the new canon since 2015. From epic trilogies to character-driven standalones, there’s something in the publishing world for everyone. In 2017, to celebrate 40 years of Star Wars: A New Hope, Del Rey gathered 40 authors to tell 40 different short stories from the point of view of minor characters in From a Certain Point of View. 2020 will see 40 years of The Empire Strikes Back, but I think Project: Luminous is something else.
The project’s codename most likely refers to the famous quote from Yoda, “Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter,” which is, incidentally, my favorite Star Wars quote. It comes from The Empire Strikes Back, as Luke says he cannot lift his X-Wing from the swamp because it’s too big.
Yoda says, “Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you, hmm? And well you should not, for my ally is the Force. And a powerful ally it is. Life creates it. Makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us, and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you. Everywhere. Here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere.”
If your mind jumped to something involved weird Force mythology, you’re not the only one.
If I were to hazard a guess about what Project: Luminous is (and really, that’s why we’re reading this), I would say that it might involve some ancient Force mythology. These writers could find a way to combine ancient Force texts with stories about popular Force-sensitive characters. We could get stories that span the entire Skywalker saga, from the Jedi of the prequels to Rey in the sequels.
Publishing could fill in the gaps left behind by the movies, and explore characters as both the Rian Johnson and David Benioff/D.B. Weiss trilogies go into production. They can expand on the mythology and increase our understanding of the Force, and the Skywalker family and those around them.
It could also very well be two different mediums combined to tell whatever story they are trying to tell. Both Soule and Scott are comic book writers—could this be a combination of prose and comics? If so, I can’t wait to cry over the beautiful artwork that will undoubtably bring the stories to life.
What do you think Project: Luminous is? Are you excited for the next stage of Star Wars publishing?
(image: Lucasfilm)
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