Star Wars Producer Kathleen Kennedy has laid out the two very different narrative tracks for the Star Wars movies that will be produced under the Disney banner.  Kennedy explained to the Costco Connection that there would be two very different streams of Star Wars films: “The Saga films focus on the Skywalker family saga.  The stories follow a linear narrative that connects to the six previous films.  The Force Awakens follows Return of the Jedi and continues that generational story.”

The other stream of Star Wars films, which Kennedy called the “Anthology” movies, “offer opportunities to explore fresh characters, new storylines, and a variety of genres inside the Star Wars universe.”  While the general nature of what we in the press had been calling the “one-shots” (see “Star Wars Stand-Alone News”) has been well known, the big news in the Costco interview is the narrow focus of the Saga films, which likely indicates that Star Wars Episode VIII, which Rian Johnson in directing for a 2017 release, and Star Wars Episode IX, which Colin Trevorrow is helming for a 2019, will follow the exploits of various generations of the Skywalker family.

The strong linkage to the previous Star Wars movies provided by focusing on the Skywalker family fits in perfectly with everything that Disney and Lucasfilm have been saying abou the first of the “Saga” movies, J.J. Abrams’ Episode VII, which opens on December 18 (see “New Star Wars Movies Will Stick to the Canon”).