We finally know when Jon Favreau’s Star Wars TV series will take place in the broader timeline, during a crucial time period for that galaxy far far away. The story will fill in that lengthy 30-year gap between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens.
At the world premiere red carpet for Solo: A Star Wars Story on Thursday night, Jon Favreau confirmed to Nerdist that the time period for his new live-action Star Wars TV show — announced in March — was seven years after the events of Return of the Jedi, or 11 ABY. We’ve seen almost nothing from this time period so far, but we can make a lot of inferences based on other events. The only confirmed noteworthy event that takes place that year is Finn’s birth, and because we know Finn was abducted at an extremely young age, then we can safely assume these are the early days of the First Order. Favreau has said the show will focus on entirely new characters, but much like with Star Wars Rebels, we’re bound to get tons of cameos in some fashion. Will they be the good guys or the bad guys?
Another good touchstone for this time period is the Battle of Jakku, which is when the Rebel Alliance finished off the Empire for good in 5 ABY (a year or so after Return of the Jedi). The story campaign for Star Wars: Battlefront II covers events that happened between the end of the original series and this battle. The novel Star Wars: Bloodline implied that the First Order was established sometime between 5 ABY (that battle) and 21 ABY. Snoke assembled the remnants of the Empire during that time. So what could this mean for Favreau’s series?
We’ll almost definitely get cameos at some point from characters like Mon Mothma and Admiral Ackbar, leaders in the Rebel forces, who’ve been established with new actors in Rogue One.
Genevieve O'Reilly as Mon Mothma in 'Rogue One'.
This is more than a decade before Kylo Ren destroyed Luke’s Jedi academy when Ben Solo is only six years old. Given that, the show could overlap somewhat with the Solo tie-in novel Last Shot and show us a young Ben Solo. And if it eventually spans several years, then it could potentially cover Rey’s birth in 15 ABY.
Perhaps best of all, it’s entirely possible that this new series could feature cameos from the original Star Wars heroes, especially Alden Ehrenreich’s Han Solo and Donald Glover’s Lando Calrissian. Better yet, they could get Sebastian Stan to play young Luke Skywalker. (Mark Hamill already approves, and Stan himself is totally down.)
So even though this new show will feature all-new characters in the Star Wars galaxy, we’re still bound to see plenty of familiar faces along the way.
