{"id":653318,"date":"2026-05-19T23:37:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T23:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/653318\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T23:37:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T23:37:12","slug":"damon-lindelof-equates-his-star-wars-firing-to-the-franchises-biggest-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/653318\/","title":{"rendered":"Damon Lindelof Equates His ‘Star Wars’ Firing to the Franchise’s Biggest Issue"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even with a new Star Wars movie opening<\/a> in theaters this week, the future of the franchise is very much up in the air. Three years after announcing three different films<\/a> at Star Wars Celebration in 2023, none of them have seen any significant public movement. Odder yet, the two movies that have progressed are completely unrelated<\/a>. So what\u2019s the deal? Someone who was there, on the inside, has an idea, and it may be why he\u2019s no longer on the inside.<\/p>\n

Damon Lindelof, one of the writers behind Lost, Watchmen, the upcoming Lanterns, and more, was recently on House of R<\/a> to talk about this week\u2019s The Mandalorian and Grogu as well as Star Wars as a whole. Eventually, Lindelof felt the need to address \u201cthe bantha in the room<\/a>,\u201d which was the fact that he was fired from a Star Wars movie<\/a>. That movie, which would\u2019ve been directed by<\/a> Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, was believed to be an early iteration of a Rey-centric New Jedi Order story set after the events of The Rise of Skywalker.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey asked me, \u2018What do you think a Star Wars movie should be?\u2019 And I said, \u2018Here\u2019s what it should be.\u2019 And they said, \u2018Great, you\u2019re hired.\u2019 And then two years later, I was fired. And so I was wrong. At least through that prism,\u201d Lindelof said. \u201cWhat we were attempting to do, my partner Justin Britt-Gibson and Rayna McClendon and I, was to have this conversation [that he was currently having on the podcast] in the movie, which is to say there is a force of nostalgia and there is a force of revision and and they are at odds with one another and let\u2019s do the Protestant Reformation inside Star Wars and and it didn\u2019t work. [\u2026] The conversation that the fandom is having without winking and looking at the audience\u2026 that didn\u2019t feel necessarily that risky.\u201d<\/p>\n

The issue, according to Lindelof, is that there was no clear vision of the movie\u2019s purpose, which slowed things down considerably. So he thinks that had more to do with his firing than anything else.<\/p>\n

\u201cI may have been fired, they seem to like the premise, just the writing was really hard. It was slow. The tone. Getting it right. Where it was inside of the canon? What its relationship was with to Episode IX? Is it starting a new trilogy? All of those things. They\u2019re so massive. They\u2019re so big. It\u2019s sort of the tanker equation which is you turn the wheel and it takes 5 minutes before it turns a little bit like this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Lindelof added that the difficulty at this stage, in a world after Episode IX, is finding what he calls \u201cthe center of Star Wars. \u201cWhen Episode VII came out, we all knew what it was,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was Rey and it was Finn and it was Poe and then we were migrating back in and Luke and Leia and Han and Chewy and all those guys. But we got the sense that, when this new trilogy was over, we were going to be launching with these new characters, and that was the center of Star Wars. The new question are Mando and Grogu the center of Star Wars?\u201d<\/p>\n

We can\u2019t answer that question, at least not until next week, and fans vote with their wallets. Plus, Lindelof and the Ringer team discuss it much more on the podcast (which you can watch below). But it does make a lot of sense. There is no center now. Is it Mando and Grogu? Is it Ryan Gosling? Is it still Rey, Finn, and Poe? Those decisions have yet to be made. And until they are, Star Wars fans\u2014Damon Lindelof among them\u2014are going to be trying to figure it out.<\/p>\n

Watch the full podcast below. The quotes above come in around the 45 minute mark.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even with a new Star Wars movie opening in theaters this week, the future of the franchise is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":653319,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[101357,88,206,5295],"class_list":["post-653318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-damon-lindelof","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-star-wars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}