Daniel José Older is writing IDW’s Star Wars: The High Republic: Adventures and we spoke about how he approached creating the new era of Star Wars.
With Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker ending the end of the Skywalker Saga, the next era of Star Wars is beginning in The High Republic. The new era will stretch across both comics and prose in a massive publishing crossover. Now, writer Daniel José Older, best-selling author of Star Wars: Last Shot, and artist Harvey Tolibao bring IDW into The High Republic with the upcoming series Star Wars: The High Republic: Adventures
Star Wars: The High Republic: Adventures takes place 200 years before the adventures of Luke, Han, and Leia, when the Jedi still stood as a beacon of peace and hope across the galaxy until a new threat known as the Nihil arrives. Now a group of young Padawans, training under Master Yoda, must protect the Republic while learning the lessons that will one day lead them to become powerful Jedi in their own right.
CBR spoke with the writer, Daniel José Older about his experience in helping take part in the creation of this new era of the Star Wars franchise.
CBR: When you started working on The High Republic, codenamed Project Luminous, what was something of importance to see in this new era of Star Wars?
One thing that’s so exciting about writing in the High Republic era is that, while there is conflict and strife, we also get to envision what it looks like when things are working well when the Jedi are at their height and they’re truly serving their mission as beloved peacekeepers. So it’s great to be able to explore that, including thinking through how things ultimately ended up going so wrong down the road. That’s something we haven’t gotten to see in Star Wars much — even the New Republic starts showing its cracks pretty early. Now more than ever, it’s an important time to imagine ways that different worlds can work together amidst crisis, and that’s what we get to do here.
It’s also just been so much fun figuring out what the parts of the galaxy that we know so well would look like centuries earlier.
With building this time period as a team, what was that creative process like? Did you create and swap characters or did you take more control of individual projects?
It’s been very collaborative throughout, and that’s truly been one of the great joys of this project. From the beginning, it’s been a fun pot to toss different ideas into and then mix them all up and see what comes up, whether it’s with Story Group, the publishing team, or each other. There are so many new characters and creatures and planets, and I think most of us have lost track of who came up with which, in part, because they’ve all changed and grown with the project over time. It’s also great to be able to bounce ideas and doubts and possibilities off each other in our meetings.
How do you approach writing a Star Wars story compared to other things you write? Is there pressure based on it having such a wide fan base?
I always come back to the joy and excitement I felt watching Return of the Jedi as a little kid and then all the many moments since then that I’ve felt that thrill echoing through as I watch another installment or read a novel or comic. It’s a very particular feeling, that Star Wars joy, and it has to do with the balance of danger and hope and humor, the wild creatures and planets, the mysteries of the Force, the connection with other fans experiencing the same thing, and the sense of history. That zone, the one I’ve learned to channel when I’m writing, is relatively straight forward to tune into because it’s one I’ve had with me all my life, we’re on a first-name basis. Star Wars feels like home. The difference between that and my other work is that with Star Wars, it’s this wide collaborative world—you’re automatically in conversation with so many other creators across so much time and so many mediums. That is a really cool way to create, and it’s very different than when I’m writing in the Shadowshaper or Dactyl Hill universe and it’s just me in there, calling all the shots.
Having a hand in the creation of an entirely new chunk of the Star Wars galaxy is not something many people can say they’ve done. How does that feel? Does it make you nervous for your story to come out or excited to share your slice of the galaxy far far away?
Mostly, I’m able to focus on the excitement because that’s the main thing I feel. Of course, different readers will bring different expectations and hopes to whatever we put out, and there’s no way we’ll please all of them — nor should we try! That’s impossible and would result in some seriously mediocre, neither-here-nor-there type work. What’s great about working with a team is that we collectively bring such a wide variety of voices, styles, ideas, and themes to the work, and that makes The High Republic something truly special. This is a new era of Star Wars storytelling that is both very fresh and very Star Wars.
With your story being all ages, how did you write the story to be approachable for all readers? Especially in a brand new era?
It’s funny thinking about age-range in Star Wars because most Star Wars content is pretty much all ages – some skews older and some skews younger. With The High Republic: Adventures though, I really wanted to make sure that the young people stayed front and center, right there in the spotlight. It’s the crew of Padawans, particularly Lula, who drive the story forward, and we follow some other young people they meet along the way, Zeen and Krix, as well. They, collectively, are our entry point into this era and their saga will span the major galactic crises of the time period.
Your story revolves around Padawans and young Jedi ready to make their mark. How do you write for their voices as opposed to Jedi Masters?
It’s really such an exciting challenge because there are so many interesting conversations to have about the Force, particularly for young people who are just in the early stages of their journeys with it. Along with that, they’re at a pivotal moment in galactic history where the world they thought they knew is being upended, and there’s a very real threat to everything they thought was safe. For me, that meant being honest on the page about their struggles and hopes and tapping into the wonder of what it must be like to be coming of age with something as powerful as the Force moving through you. But along with that, they’re teenagers and they also have very real-world concerns, like spending time with their friends and being accepted, finding somewhere to call home within themselves.
In The High Republic Adventures, you have the chance to write one of the most popular characters ever, Yoda. With this being long before we met Yoda in the films, how does he differ from what we are used to?
This is Yoda out in the world, a journeyman who isn’t tethered to one place. He’s always been passionate about raising up the next generation of Jedi, and here we get to see him doing just that in real-world scenarios, not a stuffy classroom. It’s basically like having Yoda chaperoning you on the coolest galactic field trip ever.
Is there a character in your story that you hope sticks out with fans?
Lula Talisola is one of my favorite new characters — she’s such a good friend and leader to her fellow Padawans but also struggles in a very real way with wanting to be the best at what she does and feeling competitiveness with others. It’s been such a joy to explore her journey and see her come to life in the incredible artwork of Harvey Tolibao, who is truly a legend and has shown me new aspects of these characters with his brilliant rendering of them.
I have to ask as you are thinking about Star Wars so often to write this story, what kind of lightsaber would you have?
Oooooh — definitely blue, my favorite color, and I’d have to go for one with one of the cool crossbeams. Truth is, even with a lightsaber of my own, I’d still be making the “vwooojshh” sound effects every time I swung it, which I’m constantly doing while I write these comics.
Star Wars: The High Republic: Adventures will be out in February 2021 from IDW.
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