The Star Wars franchise has always been the story of the Skywalker family. The original trilogy focused on how Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) rose to prominence as a Jedi Knight and learned to redeem his father from the dark side of the Force, and the prequel trilogy focused on a young Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) as he was persuaded to turn to the dark side by Darth Sidious (Ian McDiarmid) and fight against his former master, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor). The Star Wars sequel trilogy only doubled down on the importance of the Skywalker lineage within the franchise; while Rey (Daisy Ridley) ended up not being Luke’s daughter as some had suspected, it was revealed that Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) was the son of Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) and Han Solo (Harrison Ford) in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
While Disney has remained consistent in wanting to tell more Star Wars stories, it has become clear that basing them all on the lineage of one family will not result in any creative freedom for any of the directors interested in taking a chance on the saga. In fact, many of the best Star Wars stories told in recent memory have been those that have nothing to do with Luke or Vader. Andor proved that there was a place for heroes that weren’t force sensitive within the franchise, and many of the best episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars were the ones focused on characters like Ahsoka Tano, Clone Captain Rex, Plo Koon, and Yoda.
On the film side, it seems like Disney finally might be embracing a Star Wars franchise that doesn’t require Luke, Leia, Anakin, or Kylo Ren to be successful. The three upcoming films announced at this year's Star Wars Celebration are a film focused on Rey’s New Jedi Order, a story focused on the origins of the Jedi themselves, and a wrap-up of the ongoing storylines told across The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka, and Rebels. It’s certainly possible that any of these films could feature cameos from the Skywalker characters, they don’t specifically require them to be main characters. Here is every non-Skywalker saga Star Wars movie, ranked worst to best.
6 The Star Wars Holiday Special
The Star Wars Holiday Special was a notorious disaster of a television film that aired only once in 1978, only to never be released again in any form of digital media whatsoever. Even today, the only segment of the two-hour variety special that is included on Disney+’s archive of Vintage Star Wars content is the brief animated segment, “The Story of the Faithful Wookiee,” a short film from Nelvana that introduced the character of Boba Fett.
The rest of the special is an unmitigated disaster of comedy sketches that tried to center around a loose story of Han bringing Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew) back to his home planet of Kashyyyk to celebrate the Wookiee holiday Life Day.
5 Star Wars: The Clone Wars
The animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars from supervising director Dave Filoni is one of the greatest pieces of Star Wars media ever created, as the story of Ahsoka’s training under Anakin (Matt Lanter) strengthened the emotional weight of the prequel trilogy.
Unfortunately, the 2008 theatrically released film of the same name was merely a cobbled-together version of what was intended to be four individual episodes of the series that explored Ahsoka’s first mission with her new master. Hopefully, Filoni will get a chance to redeem himself among film fans if his upcoming live-action film is a better representation of his skills; it would be hard to get any worse than The Clone Wars movie.
4 Ewoks: The Battle for Endor
In the 1980s, Lucasfilm saw the popularity of the Ewoks in Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi as a sign that audiences would be interested in television spin-off films featuring Warwick Davis’ return to the character of Wicket. While the first film was a relatively straightforward fantasy adventure, 1985’s Ewoks: The Battle for Endor was far too dark and made the mistake of replacing nearly all the likable characters from the first film.
3 Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure
No, 1984’s Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure is not an all-time classic in the vein of The Empire Strikes Back or The Last Jedi. That being said, the standalone television film focused on Wicket and his village helping the survivors of a crashed starship on Endor is a perfectly delightful adventure film in the vein of 1980s fantasy classics like The Dark Crystal or Willow.
2 Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Andor proved that there was room for new heroes within the Star Wars saga through the origin story of Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), a young rebel hero. Cassian was first introduced in 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which served as an interesting experiment that didn’t entirely justify being a feature film.
While Luna’s performance was excellent, the film was bogged down by the generic villain Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn), the uninteresting lead character Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), and a haphazard third act that focused too much on fan service and tying into the events of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope.
1 Solo: A Star Wars Story
Ironically, the film focused on one of the central heroes of the original trilogy felt like the biggest diversion from the rest of the saga in terms of tone and narrative. In Solo: A Star Wars Story, Alden Ehrenreich gave a great interpretation of Solo by showing a less confident side to the galaxy’s most confident scoundrel, and Ron Howard embraced the western origins of the saga with a film that felt indebted to gunslinger classics like Sergio Leone’s The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.
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