State of the Empire Episode 48: The Future is the Past

February 26, 2018 | 1:26am ET

To keep tabs on the ever-growing pop culture zeitgeist that is Star Wars, we bring you State of the Empire. Led by Art Director Cap Blackard, the series speculates on the future of the franchise and looks for news in Alderaan places.

We’ve often heard that in the Lucasfilm archives nothing goes to waste.

We knew that Solo‘s story samples from an abandoned plot thread from The Empire Strikes Back, we’d noticed similarities between early drafts and some events from The Last Jedi, but folks it turns out we don’t know the half of it. In digging through an assortment of early scripts we’ve found many more instances where the new films have pulled from George Lucas’ garbage chute and now… we might actually know how Episode 9 ends. Seriously!

Join Cap, Doug, and Matt as they do dramatic script readings, recount the latest emerging details on Solo: A Star Wars Story, share details and more recycled concepts making their way to the toy aisles, and assemble a conspiracy web that bridges Rebels to details on the forthcoming theme park (Galaxy’s Edge), a newly-trademarked Star Wars property (Resistance), and every era of the saga. Sound too crazy? Well, Honey-Thrusters, this is State of the Empire – you best get yourself a protocol droid, ’cause crazy’s the only language we speak.