Daisy Ridley’s New ‘Star Wars’ Movie Has An Interesting Timeline For Rey And The Jedi

Lucasfilm just shocked Star Wars fans with the surprise announcement of three new movies. Going into this year’s Star Wars Celebration event that kicked off the holiday weekend, fans expected to maybe hear about the long-simmering Taika Waititi project, if anything at all on the movie front. Instead, they were greeted with the news of three films, one of which will include the return of Daisy Ridley as Rey Skywalker in a follow-up to The Rise of Skywalker.

Considering Rise of Skywalker did not go over well with Star Wars fans across the board, the Rey film is an interesting choice. However, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy recently shared some details about the movie with IGN, and the story will reportedly have some significant distance from the Sequel Trilogy’s final installment.

Via Variety:

“Well we’re 15 years out from ‘Rise of Skywalker,’ so we’re post-war, post-First Order, and the Jedi are in disarray,” Kennedy confirmed. “There’s a lot of discussion around, ‘Who are the Jedi What are they doing What’s the state of the galaxy’ She’s attempting to rebuild the Jedi Order, based on the books, based on what she promised Luke, so that’s where we’re going.”

After enduring several years of online hate from a small, but vocal corner of Star Wars fans, Ridley’s return was a huge surprise. The actress seemed ready to move on from the franchise, but according to Kennedy, she was thrilled to announce the new film, which is the secret Star Wars project that David Lindelof helped write. (Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight is now working on the script after Lindelof exited the film.)

“I started out by just saying, ‘Hey, I think we’re getting near being ready,'” Kennedy told Variety. “We’ve been talking a lot about what we’re doing in the movie space and I said, ‘I think we’re getting close to being ready. How would you like to go to Celebration’ That was really the beginning of it. She was out of her mind excited.”