“He’s my brother” says Leia to which Han Solo replies with a simple “Oh” and with that one syllable word the Star Wars saga came to an end in terms of spoken words. Of course there was a scene or two more but that was basically ‘The End’ ……….. until the LucasFilm company was sold to Disney on October 30th last year for $4.05 billion.

When that news broke I was having a rare lie-in and woke to many mails telling me the news which is quite rare in this era where one gets most news from Twitter! My feeling that morning was one of surprise that’s for sure and when I was asked a while back to pen my thoughts on the return of this mammoth franchise I declined the opportunity.

Why would I do that I hear you say when I’ve spent fortunes travelling Earth in search of finding the filming locations. Well, for me, I just can’t get into the idea of there being a storyline that goes beyond ‘Episode VI: Return of the Jedi‘ where the story came to a perfect conclusion and rounded off the saga.

I’m certainly no huge EU (Expanded Universe) fan but I did read Timothy Zahn’s 1991 book ‘Heir to the Throne‘ and whilst I certainly didn’t hate it I just couldn’t get into it. Hearing about the children of the characters we all love just didn’t appeal. Of course, they’re not necessarily gonna follow any of the events that have happened in EU books after ROTJ but it does seem like Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford will be back in some way for the sake of continuity before their kids and/or other new characters help move the story along to wherever its going. I guess, in a way, thats quite nice as there’s no finality like there was when the prequels were made so anything really can happen.

Of course I am following all the news and rumours (and there are many!) on RebelForce Radio and The ForceCast and I have to say that I am enjoying all the speculation, rumours and gossip which the hosts of those podcasts sure do analyse in comprehensive detail. I’m not gonna worry about which characters will appear or more importantly re-appear, or where it will be set and filmed because likelihood is that it will all be done in the studio like ‘Revenge Of The Sith‘ (2005) was.

I have no doubt that by the time the film comes out in 2015 I’ll lap it all up and hopefully change my mind. Don’t get me wrong, I want to like it and I’m confident, having seen his work on the Star Trek films, that JJ Abrams will not disappoint but that doesn’t mean I’m not a little bit worried about how Star Wars will fare in the hands of someone other than George Lucas.

Far more of interest to me has been the recently wrapped up ‘Clone Wars‘ TV series which filled in the gaps and a lot, lot more between Episodes II and III. A new animated series ‘Star Wars Rebels‘ is on the horizon and with it being set between episodes III and IV it sounds like it could be the perfect way of bringing old and new fans together.

I think I’m probably in the minority when I say that I don’t mind the axe falling on my favourite shows and in a way actually like it as I firmly believe that you can have too much of a good thing and its better to go out whilst you’re on top before story-lines inevitably get more ridiculous and desperate as the years roll by. ‘Clone Wars‘ didn’t finish off every story but that’s not always the way. However, with the fate of Ahsoka finally known, it did come to a fitting end with such a dramatic and deeply moving conclusion………….just like ‘Return Of The Jedi‘ did 30 years ago.