With the announcement of a further Star Wars trilogy this week, that will depart from the through storyline and characters that the three previous trilogies chronicled, it seems as though Disney is keen on expanding the franchise as far as possible. With the already existing set of spinoffs, on top of the main trilogy, we are getting a much more expansive view of the Star Wars universe away from the Skywalker bloodline, but is it a risky business?

Of course, statistically, the more films you release, the more likely you are to release a bad one, but also the assumption being made here is that the audience’s interests lie not only in the characters they know and have become attached to, but in the world in which they reside. Now, the imagination of the Star Wars world – the lightsaber fights, the alien creatures, the space craft – has seriously captured the world’s imagination, helping the films to endure as years have passed, and more generations have embraced it. However, if you look at the reception to Rogue One (the first non-Skywalker film), yes it still earned a lot of money, but there was much less hype around it or cultural impact. Arguably, the lack of the characters can detract from the influence of the film; it is probably the heart they provided that really helped to launch the franchise initially. Extending the franchise far away from this central thread of characters could lead to it simply diluting the franchise.

However, the promise of a new trilogy, rather than a string of stand-alone spinoffs, gives new opportunity to create a new saga that can have as much space to impact as the original. It could be interesting to see new parts of the galaxy, and spend more time in the world. The films will just have a different challenge; instead of being under pressure to handle beloved characters in an appeasing way, they will have to build a foundation for new characters and a new story, that can draw audiences in on its own merit, not just because it features lightsabers. It also means that potential exhaustion with the current storyline (which itself may be unable to sustain a further trilogy) won’t be an issue, as the whole thing will be refreshed.

The more industry-wide impact of this announcement is it contributes to the extensive expansion of franchises into universes which result in a flood of huge blockbuster films constantly being released into multiplexes. Concerns have increasingly arisen regarding whether these ‘universe’ films are seriously diluting the film market, and pushing out smaller or medium-budgeted films based on original fair. There has been a sense of increasing audience fatigue over these types of films, primarily superhero-based, so hopefully for the health of the Star Wars franchise as a whole this expansion won’t wear out audience appetite for intergalactic adventure.

At the moment, the franchise shows no sign of slowing down, so hopefully by the time this trilogy is released (we still at least have four other films to go before then), we won’t be all Star Wars’d out, and still be hungry for new stories.