Why would the franchise want to go back to the post-Rise of Skywalker era, when all the interesting action in the Star Wars universe is occurring in the timeline of The Mandalorian?When the Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk described modern consumer culture as “a copy of a copy of a copy”, he was probably thinking of Ikea churning out coffee tables with all the personality of an overcooked noodle, rather than the next episodes in a long-running space opera known for heroes who use quizzically reversed syntax. Nevertheless, he might easily have been talking about Star Wars, and the once great saga’s descent into self parody in the wake of reports from Hollywood that the future of the franchise on the big screen is to be based on ... yep, you read it right ... Daisy Ridley’s Rey. It had already been announced that Rey, whose presence lent the sequel trilogy all the emotional resonance of a damp tea towel, will return for a movie set 15 years after the events of the execrable Rise of Skywalker, as she endeavours to build a new Jedi order. (Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is attached to direct.) That was worrying enough for those fans of the saga still reeling from the most recent episode’s attempts to tie up loose ends by lighting them on fire and hoping nobody noticed. But according to the Hollywood Reporter, Lucasfilm has decided that Rey is now seen as Star Wars’ “most valuable cinematic asset” – admittedly because “the closet is a little bare” following the deaths either on or off screen of pretty much the entire cast of the original trilogy.It’s hard to argue with this – except to point out that if Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker and Harrison Ford’s Han Solo are no longer available for new Star Wars adventures in the current timeline, it is almost completely Disney and Lucasfilm