5 Questions for ROTJ “From A Certain Point of View”

We knew it was coming. A trilogy necessarily happens in three parts.

Still—the official announcement of the forthcoming From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi is SO exciting. 40 new stories from a smattering of 40 different characters to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the 1983 film.

Who will we meet? What will we learn? Here are five things (so far) I hope to see:

1.     What is Captain Rex actually doing on the forest moon of Endor?

We know he was there—Sabine told us as much in the series finale of Star Wars Rebels. We know he fought alongside Hera Syndulla in service of the Rebellion.

We know, too, that there’s that bearded guy who looks like Rex, though he’s still canonically named Nik Sant. And despite the recent kerfuffle with Hasbro’s “Endor Trooper” toy, it’s still very possible that Nik Sant and Captain Rex are one and the same.

Rex is a Dave Filoni character, and so we shouldn’t be surprised if Filoni wants to have the final word on Rex’s fate. But still—I hope we see something of what the good captain was up to during the timeline of Return of the Jedi. The decisions that led to him being on the forest moon, perhaps?

2.     What’s the status of the Empire’s cloning operations?

We know from the Clone Wars era that Palpatine was already interested in and manipulating cloning technology across the galaxy. We know from The Bad Batch that the Empire amped up its interest in cloning in the early days of Imperial rule. We know from The Mandalorian that those efforts continued, even under the Imperial Remnant. We know from The Rise of Skywalker—not to mention Adam Christopher’s novel Shadow of the Sith—that those efforts met with some success. After all, Emperor Palpatine was not quite as dead as we would have thought and had clone offspring.

All that to say, who’s at the helm of the cloning operations during Return of the Jedi? What’s the status? Will we meet a younger Doctor Pershing?

3.     Speaking of Mandalorian characters, what are the Mandalorians up to?

By now we know the surviving Mandalorians had very few kind things to say about the Empire, what with the Imperial bombardment of their home planet. Still, aside from licking their wounds, we know next to nothing about what the Mandalorians were up to during Return of the Jedi.

A story from Din Djarin’s perspective could give us some insight on what the Children of the Watch thought of the Rebellion’s attack on the second Death Star. A story from Bo-Katan’s perspective could help us understand why this warrior princess didn’t go to aid the rebel cause. A story from the Armorer’s perspective might help us put some more pieces together about this close-knit, insular sect—and why they seemed to disappear from galactic history for the entirety of the original trilogy.

4.     Will we learn anything about Ahsoka?

This anthology is likely hitting bookshelves not too long before we get the Ahsoka series. Seems like a good opportunity to shed a little light on what this fan-favorite character was up to during the events of the original trilogy. Had she already begun her search for Thrawn? Was she still trapped on Malachor? Was she wandering the World between Worlds? Or, maybe we just get a simple tale exploring the relationship between Ahsoka and Morai.

Again, I don’t think we’ll get big story beats here. But I do think there’s an opportunity to give us a little taste for what’s to come on Disney+.

5.     Will we connect some dots with Star Wars Resistance?

Not a lot has been done with the array of characters we met in the two-season run of Star Wars Resistance. And while many of them weren’t yet born during the time period of the upcoming anthology, we do know at least one character was fighting for the Rebellion: Jarek Yeager.

Yeager is a great example of a minor character that could get a ton of compelling and interconnected backstory. We know he fought on Jakku; it’s not much of a jump to put him at the Battle of Endor. Let’s see the man in his prime—and introduce readers to a character they might know nothing about.

Regardless of the characters we meet and the stories we’re told, I’m looking forward to getting my copy of From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi on September 5, 2023.