Via theverge.com:

We’re less than three weeks away from a new Star Wars movie — Rogue One will be our second in two years — and if all goes to plan, we should be getting Episode VIII next December. Growing up with the expanded universe and, latterly, the prequels, I never thought we’d get to this point. To a young me, Star Wars movies were scaffolding, a fossilized skeleton on which to hang other stories told by book, comic, or video game.

George Lucas tried to breathe new life into that skeleton at the turn of the millennium, but the prequels ended up feeling like a funeral for the body of Star Wars, marking a time the films should be buried. But Disney and J.J. Abrams exhumed that corpse again last year, imbuing it with movie magic and making Star Wars movies feel fresh again. Now the franchise’s new owners promise a swathe of new films, starting with Rogue One, and following up with a range of spinoffs.

It’s certainly an exciting time to be a Star Wars fan, but I’m also a little worried. If Rogue One fails, then Disney has indicated that it may dial back production on spinoffs and standalone movies. But if it succeeds — and most evidence so far indicates that it will — then we could be getting a Star Wars movie every year from now until end of time. That’s fine for a while, because the Star Wars galaxy has a surfeit of memorable characters on which to draw, but what comes after Disney has exhausted the series’ main characters? Once Boba Fett, Wedge Antilles, and Mon Mothma get their own movies?

Click below to read the full article.