Star Wars fans are losing it over ancient-era prequel teaser: 'they're going way back'

It’s been a long time since Lucasfilm treated us to a silver screen outing.

The Rise of Skywalker landed six years ago, if you can call that film a treat; I’m not so sure.

In recent years, Lucasfilm and Disney have very much been focused on the franchise’s TV output on Disney Plus - an effort that’s brought us some incredible shows, including the likes of The Mandalorian, Skeleton Crew, and Andor.

The Mandalorian is actually the IP that’ll soon take us back to the silver screen with the release of the upcoming The Mandalorian and Grogu, the film replacement for what would have been season four.

Beyond that, there are plans for several other new films including Star Wars: Starfighter starring Ryan Gosling, Simon Kinberg’s new trilogy, a new Rey centric film, and the topic of today’s story, James Mangold’s Dawn of the Jedi film.

I should stress that Dawn of the Jedi has not been confirmed as the official title, despite having been supposedly leaked by various industry publications.

What we do know is that the film will be set thousands of years before the events that we’re familiar with, focusing on the very first set of Jedi.

As reported by GamesRadar, this is what Mangold had to say at Star Wars Celebration earlier this year: “When I first started talking to [Kathleen Kennedy] about doing one of these pictures, what occurred to me was thinking about what kind of genre of movie within Star Wars I wanted to do.”

He continued, “And I thought about a biblical epic, like The Ten Commandments, about the dawning of the Force. Where did the Force come from? When did we discover it? When did we learn how to use it?"

Well, a new tease has now arrived courtesy of Andor creator Tony Gilroy.

In an interview with Empire Magazine, as shared by Star Wars Holocron, Gilroy said that Mangold’s film is “interesting, because it’s free”.

“They’re going way back,” he added.

By the sounds of it, Gilroy doesn’t know much about the film beyond its general concept, but that hasn’t stopped this brief comment from sending fans into a hype frenzy.

“That era is where we need to go,” one Twitter user wrote.

“DO IT. Go even further back than KOTOR! This is the way,” added another.

There’s no indication as to when the film might finally arrive but we’ll be keeping an ear to the ground.