Star Warsis a franchise rife with drama both inside and out. While the series itself always tends to have lots of juicy gossip around it, the fandom keeps things interesting by continually struggling to reconcile their differences in opinions about space wizards and green puppets. Luckily, for the sanity of those involved, this particular story isn’t about that aspect of the long-running debate magnet. Unfortunately, it’s about that one word thatStar Warsfans have grown to dread: cancelation.
After a solid year of speculation and scattered turbulence, it seems as though the mysteriousStar WarsspinoffRangers of the New Republichas more than just been put on hold. Recent comments from Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy seem to heavily imply that the entire project has been scrapped, with many of the elements originally meant for the new series set to be integrated into future episodes ofThe Mandalorian. Considering how the only real rumors regarding the series over the past year have been largely of the negative variety, this may not come as a surprise to some.
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“We’d never written any scripts or anything on that,” Kennedy said to Empire on the subject ofRangers. “Some of that will figure into future episodes, I’m sure, ofMandalorian.” So it looks like the series can forget spawningits own successor toKnights of the Old Republic. Kennedy’s answer essentially confirms that the series never got past the planning stages, which sort of makes sense when one considers the controversies it inevitably took part in due to one particularly problematic actress.
ManyStar Warsfans who have been keeping up with all the latest news regarding that galaxy far, far away are likely familiar withRangers of the New Republic. Announcedalongside several other spinoffs ofThe Mandalorian, the show was most unique for having so little to show compared to its much more robust brethren. At the time, it may have simply been due to scheduling giving priority to the other series, which would all be arriving well beforeRangers. But over time, things steadily became direr and direr.
Only a few months after the announcement ofRangers,The Mandalorianactress Gina Carano’s hateful transphobic (and just generally toxic) comments came to light, prompting fans to launch a campaign to have her removed from the show. Whether out of acquiescence or because they’d been holding on to this for a while now, Disney did just that,firing Carano fromThe Mandalorianin February of 2021. Her character, Cara Dune, had been heavily implied to be one of the leads inRangers of the New Republic. So many quickly began speculating on what this would mean for the upcoming spinoff.
Well, it seems those fans may now have an official answer, for better or worse. Looks like fans won’t get thatHera SyndullaStar Wars Rebelsspinoffthey’ve been hoping for just yet. But perhaps this is for the best.Rangerswas pretty much associated with Carano from the beginning. So the moreStar Warsdisconnects from hate, the better.
TheStar Warssaga is now available on Disney Plus.
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