Out With A Whimper: The Quiet End Of 'The High Republic'
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The original announcement of The High Republic was a big deal. It had its own press conference, a trailer video exploring the key details of the new publishing initiative, and teases at the future that were quickly followed up with articles on StarWars.com as various people were interviewed and the era was further explained to Star Wars fans. With The High Republic ending in the coming weeks, the stark decline in support and focus on the initiative by Lucasfilm is clear to see. We at CultureSlate want to lament this loss of support, and understand why it might have happened and what it means for the future of Star Wars publishing.
Phase 1
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As mentioned above, the launch for The High Republic was a lavish affair compared against other novel series releases. The press conference, announcement video, and other written promotions were joined by a number of great short form animatic videos introducing us to characters and concepts of the era. In the months that followed as the initiative approached, copious interviews, previews and more for books and comics alike were dropped, and a ton of character art was also revealed showing us the faces of so many figures that populated Phase 1. As the project launched, there was a launch trailer as well, and even an entire YouTube show dedicated to the project (hosted by Krystina Arielle) which gave summaries, conducted interviews, and hosted reveals of art and information about upcoming releases. It was a huge undertaking, and it showed that Lucasfilm was solidly focused on The High Republic. Even at a time when The Mandalorian was releasing and other Disney+ shows were on the horizon, their attention was dead set on publishing.
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But there were already a few worrying signs for the future. The internet’s reaction to The High Republic was soured by those who loudly made their disdain of the effort known because they didn’t like the initiative’s focus on diversity, equality and inclusion. There were also others who aggressively brigaded many High Republic videos with the same endlessly copied message, frequently upvoting one another’s comments, all calling for the rehiring of Cara Dune actress Gina Carano in the wake of her firing. This issue uniquely impacted High Republic videos as well, since a trailer for The Bad Batch was lavished with praise by fans, and the comments noted that the brigading was nowhere to be seen. In response to this targeted negativity, Star Wars disabled the comments on many of their YouTube videos, leaving the end of Phase 1 on a more muted note publicity-wise.
Phase 2
Image Source: StarWars.com
The decline of support for The High Republic began to appear in Phase 2. It initially started off strong with a new trailer teasing the new stories and characters that fans would get to explore. The comments on that YouTube video were filled with fans who expressed excitement, and it seemed like the Phase would go well, and animatics released both on YouTube and on the Star Wars website. Then problems began to appear. The first of two notable issues were the changes in release dates for several Phase 2 products. While some date shifts were small, others saw releases months later than originally planned, particularly impacting the Star Wars Adventures comic run. This created issues where promotion was difficult, as it was possible something hyped on The High Republic Show the previous week was now coming out months later than had recently been emphasized. This was not Lucasfilm’s fault, as there were a number of supply chain disruptions around this time across the world, but the knock-on effect was still a disruption in how Phase 2 progressed.
The second issue was more substantial, and it focused on character artwork. While imagery did release focused on manykey characters, and we saw depictions of these figures in the animatics, Phase 2 was lacking in the same depth and breadth of depictions as seen in Phase 1. For example, the Phase 1 novel Out of the Shadows saw the release of art depicting Sylvestri Yarrow’s crew, who are only in the story for a handful of pages. Meanwhile, several main characters of the Phase 2 adult novels went without canon visual depictions, an issue that still exists two years later, and they were not the only important figures to lack artwork. As a final note, despite running through Phase 2, The High Republic Show was moved off YouTube at the end of Phase 2 and instead aired only on the Star Wars website. It then ended, and was not replaced as Phase 3 loomed.
Phase 3
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It is important to note a change that began to take place with the Star Wars website during the lead up to Phase 3. Articles covering The High Republic began to decline, and while the pre-launch to Phase 3 featured reveals and discussions with the authors, the transition of 2023 into 2024 brought this to a screeching halt. There was no Phase 3 trailer teasing fans with the final stories in The High Republic, there were no animatics, and May 20204 saw the last article solely dedicated to High Republic content published with an excerpt from Temptation of the Force.
To be sure, some of this was because Phase 3 was the longest Phase in the initiative, set to take place over nearly two years instead of the one Phases 1 and 2 had been. That is a long time to keep drumming up topics to discuss, but comics released monthly throughout this entire period, meaning it wouldn’t have been that hard to sit down with some of the authors or illustrators. There were also major shifts in how Lucasfilm handled their online content. In addition to no continuation for The High Republic Show, YouTube slide-based Shorts without a host or narrator entirely replaced the filmed show This Week! in Star Wars hosted by Kirstin Baver, and articles about broader Star Wars projects decreased. The focus instead mostly fell on live action projects, with the announcement and reveal of books and comics often going to other online news sites like Screen Rant. The reveals of official High Republic art also transitioned over to these external sites, abandoning StarWars.com as a centralized source of High Republic character art. Mike Siglain even had to tweet out some of the art himself, since official promotion for Phase 3 was so low at certain points!
All of this leaves us with the fact that not a SINGLE article mentioning The High Republic’s Phase 3 stories has been written on StarWars.com since the end of last year. It is now six months into 2025, and Phase 3’s entire Wave 3 has come and gone with only author-based social media promotion, external sites and content creators to generate interest in the finale. So, what happened? Why did Lucasfilm cut back on support for The High Republic so much when it was approaching the finish line?
Theories
We’re not trying to stoke drama or wild ideas with these speculations, but the lack of clear information on just what has happened means we’re here to present several possible reasons why The High Republic isn’t getting the support it once did. It may be that some of these are factors together, it may be that none of them are true, or it may be an idea not mentioned here. Still, let’s go through some of the most likely reasons.
The High Republic Failed Commercially: While this seems unlikely, especially with the very vocal fanbase and positive reception to most High Republic media, we do not know the sales numbers for High Republic books. They may be incredibly low, even for Star Wars, and that is why Lucasfilm has chosen to focus their efforts elsewhere, understanding that trying to promote and increase those numbers might be a money pit.
The Return of Live Action: While we noted that The High Republic co-existed with projects like The Mandalorian, the overlap between the two might have produced a situation where Lucasfilm had to choose which medium to promote. Do they promote novels and audio projects where the return might be minimal, or do they focus on just how darn cute Grogu is and absolutely rake it in? There is also simply the fact that the new live action films are coming, and internal, behind the scenes resources are likely focusing on preparing for both The Mandalorian and Grogu, as well as Shawn Levy’s new Star Wars film.
They Think They Don’t Need To: This is perhaps the most annoying option, but might make sense. The High Republic has a very dedicated fanbase, people who generally keep aware of new releases and content because of a network of social media profiles and creators who are also invested in The High Republic. As Phase 3 continues the Phase 1 story, perhaps Lucasfilm decided that they didn’t need much to reintroduce content, or hype up readers.
Broader Shifts in Publishing: There is a broader shift going on in publishing right now. Authors are now being asked to play a greater role in promoting their books because of their personal brands and ability to connect with fans, which might have been why Lucasfilm made the shift they did. Many of the initiative’s authors are well known and beloved by fans for both their recent and past Star Wars work, so why not rely on that for the finale to the initiative instead of trailers and animatics?
Conclusion
Image Source: StarWars.com
Regardless of how or why it happened, The High Republic is ending with a whimper. There is no great fanfare, there is no open celebration of the achievement from Lucasfilm, just frequent, earnest plugs for the final novel, Trials of the Jedi, by its author, Charles Soule and similar posts from the authors working on the final comic issues. In the aftermath of this situation, what can we expect to see in the future of Star Wars publishing? Despite statements by Mike Siglain, it seems incredibly unlikely that anything like The High Republic will happen again anytime soon.
Lucasfilm’s resources are almost certainly turning toward support for the upcoming films, as The High Republic was always meant to fill a gap in the release schedule Lucasfilm knew was coming after Episode 9. That gap is now over, but what The High Republic achieved during its 4 year run is nothing short of spectacular. The fans and content creators who have embraced the new era of the franchise will celebrate its end every way they know how, and that will hopefully be enough in the coming weeks.
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