A new Jedi Order has finally made it to screen under Disney. It didn’t happen in a film. It didn’t happen in canon. It happened in an animated anthology spinoff that most people scrolled right past.
When episode 8 of Star Wars: Visions Presents – The Ninth Jedi wrapped, Lah Kara had reassembled the Order with seven confirmed members. It’s the first Jedi reconstruction to actually stick since the old Expanded Universe, and the first Disney has pulled off since acquiring the franchise.
Canon doesn’t recognize it. It matters anyway.
Why the galaxy went so long without Jedi
Consider just how odd this drought has been. The prequels showed the original Order collapsing right alongside the Republic. Luke never established a replacement across the original trilogy. And the Jedi Academy he did build in the comics was destroyed by Ben Solo long before the sequel trilogy opened.
The result: for decades — in our world and within the timeline itself — no Jedi Order has existed in the galaxy since Revenge of the Sith wiped out the first. Many fans figured Luke would take care of the rebuild once Return of the Jedi ended. He did attempt to train younglings between films. That effort was thwarted. Nothing was ever resurrected.
After The Rise of Skywalker, the responsibility fell to Rey Skywalker. Seven years later, nothing has come of it.
The movie that keeps not arriving
Announced back in 2023, the New Jedi Order film has been parked in development limbo ever since. Simon Kinberg’s trilogy of forthcoming Star Wars movies — widely speculated to be Episodes X, XI and XII — will presumably showcase Rey’s new Order. Theaters won’t see any of it for years yet.
That leaves a non-canon anthology series as the sole place where the Jedi have genuinely been rebuilt.
Lah Kara runs the place
Grand Master is presumably Kara’s title now. She earned the position by defeating the series antagonist Nawaam in combat and by gaining command over her emotions — credentials that mark her as the strongest Jedi of the group, both in the Force and in a lightsaber duel.
For brief stretches she carried a red blade and then a silver one, symbols of the dark side and of balance respectively. She ultimately recommitted herself to the light, and hers is the only green lightsaber in the show.
Homen and Ethan, the founding two
Both men belonged to the original group that responded to Margrave Juro’s call to rebuild the Order all the way back in season 1 of Star Wars: Visions.
Ethan has been a Jedi the entire time. Homen hasn’t. The dark side had consumed him until Juro stepped in — at that moment his lightsaber turned purple and he committed for real.
Across the series, Kara, Ethan, Homen and Juro distributed lightsabers, and each recipient formally joined the Order by the finale.
Dunbai, Kwana and Lady Tafflah
Lord Dunbai, who leads Makoma Ko, received the first saber. He’d worn the Jedi title before — either at Reno Tsutara’s Jedi Academy or perhaps even further back in the original Order. By then he’d settled comfortably into a merchant’s life defending Makoma Ko. He signed back up regardless.
Next came Kwana, who runs a mining asteroid. He trained at Tsutara’s academy beside Juro and Lah Zhima, though the Force never came easily to him. That hardly slowed him down. He threw himself into the fight against Nawaam and demonstrated real skill as a duelist, a strategist and a leader.
Lady Tafflah, one of the planet Bibin’s leaders, waited far longer for hers. She had no Jedi training at all, but she was living on Bibin during the period when Tsutara was training new Knights, so she was aware of Lah Zhima’s part in his death. That knowledge left her suspicious of every Jedi she encountered. The group earned her trust by assisting with Bibin’s evacuation when Nawaam’s super weapon struck.
The seventh member used to hunt Jedi
Bee-Toh belonged to the group of hunters who seized Lah Zhima on Nawaam’s behalf. Kara chose not to kill him, and he sided with her — partly because of that mercy, and partly because he relishes pitting himself against powerful opponents.
Whatever link he has to the Force appears slight. Even so, his lightsaber flared blue right away, identifying him as aligned with the light side.
The two members the show won’t confirm
The confirmed tally is seven. The actual figure could well be nine.
Both Lah Zhima and Nawaam might have signed on off-screen, even though neither showed up for the Council’s first session. Zhima’s return is close to a certainty — he was a Jedi before he killed the corrupt Reno Tsutara, and his daughter now holds a Council seat.
Nawaam makes for the odder case. For most of the series he’s the antagonist, determined to impose order on the galaxy through force. Yet moments after the new Council is unveiled, the show cuts away to Zhima handing the captured Nawaam a new lightsaber — apparently trusting him to turn the blade back to a Jedi color such as blue or green. The outcome is never shown. What’s implied is a change of heart and a return to the light.
The title fits him better than it fits her
Should Nawaam have converted, he’d be member number nine of the new Order — assuming Zhima came back as well. In the cleanest possible sense, that would make him the ninth Jedi.
Kara carried the title first, having been the ninth person to answer Juro’s call in the original Visions episode. It never sat quite right on her. Most of those who answered turned out to be Sith, and for the bulk of her story Kara was one of only four Jedi.
That vague ending is intentional, and that’s rather the point. Season 1 of The Ninth Jedi is streaming in full on Disney+, and whether this remains the newest Jedi Order in Star Wars comes down entirely to whether Kinberg ever gets his cameras rolling.