Game of Thrones and Star Wars certainly have their differences, but especially in recent years, the two franchises have been incredibly similar. Specifically, Star Wars has really struggled to move on from the disastrous sequel trilogy that came into existence during the earlier years of the Disney era, and Game of Thrones has been fighting a near-identical battle to leave its despised final season behind. That said, Star Wars is slowly figuring out how to repair its damaged reputation and what it’s going to take to do so. Game of Thrones, although still expanding as a franchise, has already backed itself irreversibly into a corner.
Game of Thrones Season 8 is still one of the biggest horror stories in all of TV history. After seven historic runs that were hailed as masterpieces, the HBO show’s final batch of episodes saw the saga exhaust the source material from George R.R. Martin, and the author had stopped being directly consulted years earlier. Season 8 was almost universally despised, bringing what was easily one of the best and most successful TV projects of all time to its knees with a whimper. In the time between the show’s 2011 premiere and its 2019 finale, Star Wars experienced a long-awaited renaissance that ultimately went as poorly as Games of Thrones‘ climax. In 2026, Star Wars is proving itself capable of the comeback that Game of Thrones still hasn’t been able to pull off.
How ‘Star Wars’ Is Finally Bouncing Back After Its Failed Sequel Trilogy
2015’s The Force Awakens actually performed well with critics and fans alike, as well as making over $2 billion at the box office. It had been a while since the previous Star Wars movie, and fans turned out in droves to show their support. Sadly, although the following two Skywalker Saga movies also made hefty profits, they were heavily criticized by those who had paid good money to go and see them. Although The Mandalorian & Grogu is bringing the franchise back to its rightful place on the big screen this year for the first time since 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker, it’s been a long road back for Star Wars.
The Mandalorian and various other Disney+ projects became how Star Wars remained afloat. Due to the damage the sequel era had inflicted on Star Wars‘ decades-old reputation as a sci-fi/fantasy juggernaut, the small-screen efforts all but avoided even referencing those events. Instead, earlier points in the Star Wars timeline were fleshed out. Any storylines that dared approach the sequels were never brave enough to actually catch up with the events of The Force Awakens or beyond. The sequel trilogy remains part of the official canon, but it has become an unspoken rule that no one should ever discuss it.
The biggest issue with this was that other portions of the timeline started to run out of room. For instance, 2022’s Obi-Wan Kenobi miniseries fleshed out a key period between the original trilogy and the prequels, and The Acolyte even tried (and failed) to make the High Republic the new home of live-action Star Wars. What little has actually landed during this period has largely been swept aside as little more than a brief diversion. The truth loomed over the space opera that the divisive events of the sequel trilogy were still thundering ever closer. They would need to be acknowledged eventually…or would they?
The answer is simple: kind of. Disney is finally using its creative freedom with Star Wars to move on from the events of The Rise of Skywalker while also acknowledging them. Although The Mandalorian & Grogu will stay in the pre-sequel era, other upcoming Star Wars movies are set to take place after the Disney trilogy. 2027’s Star Wars: Starfighter will take place roughly five years after The Rise of Skywalker, and will focus on a new set of characters in the wake of the Resistance’s victory over the First Order. Then, Daisy Ridley will reprise her role as Rey in New Jedi Order, which will serve as a spiritual sequel that’s expected to pick up around 15 years after the conclusion of the trilogy that introduced her character. After years of flops, there’s no more active avoidance of what could be a rewarding Star Wars era, given the right love and attention.
Why ‘Game of Thrones’ Can’t Do What ‘Star Wars’ Is Doing
Star Wars has the very notable advantage of having no source material. While new installments do need to consider what’s come before, Star Wars has always existed as a more flexible form of original storytelling. So, sidestepping the fallout of the sequel trilogy is a very feasible option, which is why it’s finally been chosen as the route forward. Inversely, Game of Thrones has always been heavily reliant on George R.R. Martin’s literary works. While the original show did diverge from Martin’s books as it progressed, the fact that Season 8 was so atrocious speaks volumes about how important it is to stick to the author’s ideas as much as possible.
HBO could probably make a sequel series to Game of Thrones, but Season 8 already functionally went beyond the source material, and that didn’t work out well. After all, Martin infamously still hasn’t finished writing the books on which Game of Thrones is based. That said, his body of work does include other literary works that have added to his iconic fantasy universe. This other material has been used as the basis of House of the Dragon and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. While both are welcome additions to the HBO franchise, they serve as prequels that take place decades and even centuries before the events of Game of Thrones.
It’s really cool learning about the history of Westeros, but given what happened with Game of Thrones Season 8, the two prequel shows also feel like an oddly desperate attempt to keep the franchise alive. Because the show ended so poorly, but was so character-driven, adding more to the timeline beyond Season 8 probably isn’t what many fans would care all that much about. This is the battle Star Wars has been fighting for years now. As such, HBO’s only real option with Game of Thrones is to head backward instead of forward, refocusing on tales already told in other media by George R.R. Martin.
I think it remains a very real possibility that the Game of Thrones franchise will one day receive a hard reboot and be remade, potentially if and when Martin ever finishes the books. Until then, HBO seems satisfied with keeping the more divisive parts of the on-screen lore intact, but simply dancing around them, largely pretending they don’t exist. Prequels are a great way of doing that, but as with Star Wars, fans will eventually lose interest in knowing only so much can happen without impacting the events they already know are waiting at a distant point in the Game of Thrones timeline.
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