With the recent announcements from Disney/Lucasfilm about Rian Johnson’s new Star Wars movie trilogy, as well as the new live-action series which will be released on Disney’s forthcoming proprietary streaming service, it seems our petition is basically a moot point now, having stalled at a little over 207K signatures. Even so, the underlying motive of the #TORonNetflix movement and our petition to bring the Old Republic to Netflix was always more about finding a way to get this era and setting from a galaxy far, far away portrayed on-screen. While Netflix was the preferred vehicle for that depiction, the landscape has changed quite a bit since the petition was originally created.
A New Opportunity
Disney plans to launch its own streaming service sometime in 2019 and, according to Bob Iger, Chairman and CEO of the Walt Disney Company, they intend to bring it to market at a lower price point than Netflix. In the company’s recent quarterly earnings call, Mr. Iger stated,
“It’ll have a lot of high quality because of the brands and the franchises that will be on it that we’ve talked about. But it’ll simply launch with less volume, and the price will reflect that.”
This new streaming service will bring all of the Disney properties under one banner (although, it seems there are plans for a separate ESPN service, but I digress). Movies and series from Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar, as well as the “vanilla” Disney studios (i.e., Walt Disney Pictures and Walt Disney Animation) will all apparently be available for streaming exclusively through this as-yet-unnamed service. Also, with the reports of talks between Disney and Fox, it’s possible that even more of the properties that have thus-far eluded the Mouse’s grasp – Marvel’s X-Men and the original Star Wars trilogy (Episodes IV, V and VI) to name a couple – may finally be consolidated into a single, unified entity.
What Does This Mean for #TORonNetflix?
So, I’ve tried to paint a somewhat broad panorama of the current tableau in which we find our petition languishing. We may get the occasional signature here and there, but it’s now obvious that Netflix will not be the content provider for any sort of official Old Republic series. While Netflix subscribers will still have access to Disney films through the end of 2019, including movies opening in theaters throughout 2018, our best chance for seeing any sort of storyline involving Revan, Darth Bane, Nico Okarr, Emperor Valkorian, Meetra Surik, and so many other beloved characters – or, at the very least, some sort of analogous character(s) – will likely be in or after 2019. We don’t yet have enough details about the new live-action series or Rian Johnson’s new trilogy to say for certain if either of them will bring TOR to life, but according to the Disney/Lucasfilm news release,
“In shepherding this new trilogy, which is separate from the episodic Skywalker saga, Johnson will introduce new characters from a corner of the galaxy that Star Wars lore has never before explored.”
I’m not sure what that means, exactly, but I like to think that it’s possible that, in this context, “lore” is synonymous with “canon” or even “Legends“. I, for one, refuse to give up on the idea that we may one day soon see the Old Republic represented on the big screen. We may have to shift our focus a bit (and maybe come up with a cool and catchy new hashtag), but we aren’t going away. At the very least, all of this news has given me a somewhat renewed hope that the Old Republic may finally have its day.
-Master Erudian Starbreeze of the Jedi Order
References:
https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/10/disney-ceo-says-their-streaming-service-will-be-cheaper-than-net/
https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/disney-streaming-service-netflix-coming-soon
https://www.polygon.com/2017/11/9/16630894/star-wars-new-trilogy-rian-johnson
Diary of a Sith Chick 