New 'Star Wars: Galaxy of Adventures' features General Leia Organa and new adventures with the sequel characters (exclusive first look)
The Skywalker Saga is over, but the keepers of the Star Wars flame want viewers — especially younglings — to know there’s still a galaxy of adventures left to enjoy. To that end, Lucasfilm is launching a new season of the animated series, Star Wars: Galaxy of Adventures, on March 13 on the company’s Star Wars Kids YouTube page. These bite-sized samplings of Star Wars lore are designed to remind, or introduce, young audiences to the major characters and events that define George Lucas’s far, far away galaxy. While the first season focused primarily on the original episodes, from A New Hope to Return of the Jedi, the new batch of episodes will fast-forward to the sequel trilogy that started with 2015’s The Force Awakens. Yahoo Entertainment is exclusively premiering the first episode from Galaxy of Adventures’s second season, which focuses on its defining heroine: Rey. (Watch the episode above.)
Just as J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson’s saga films highlighted how Rey walked in Luke Skywalker’s footsteps from galactic outsider to full-fledged Jedi, this Galaxy of Adventures short deliberately echoes a Luke-centric installment from the first season. “We want it to feel like how we started Luke’s journey,” Vice President of Lucasfilm’s Story Group, James Waugh, tells Yahoo Entertainment. “We thought, ‘Let’s do that with Rey, and then take you on a new adventure.”
And Waugh teases that these new episodes will feature some new adventures not seen in the feature films. “There’s this broad swath of time between Episodes VII and IX — like six months to a year — and and that gave us an opportunity to say, ‘We’ve rendered scenes that people are familiar with and made interesting montages, but could we tell a story? Could we fill in the gap in a fun one-minute way and really showcase the characters?” Working with the animators at the acclaimed production company, Titmouse, the Lucasfilm team devised mission-based episodes that showcase how Rey and her Resistance friends work as a team.
“One of the things that’s special about the new trilogy is the camaraderie between the characters,” Waugh says. “So one episode features a mission where they have to steal a data disk from the First Order, and you get to see Rey, Poe, Finn and BB-8 all work together. It’s mostly visual storytelling, but you see the playfulness of them together.” And don’t worry Rose Tico fans: Kelly Marie Tran’s breakout Last Jedi character gets in on the action as well. “She’s so much a part of it,” Waugh promises. “There’s not a Rose-specific story, but Rose is woven through the shorts.”
Waugh is also thrilled to spotlight General Leia in Season 2 in an episode that will illustrate just how important she — and Carrie Fisher — are to the legacy of Star Wars. “She’s the core of the franchise in so many ways. The cool thing about the Leia short is it shows over the generations how her leadership has inspired so many people, building to that moment in Episode VII where it’s time for her to pass the torch to Poe. That’s the way we approach all of these stories: it has to have some substance and reflect values that kids can be inspired by.”
With the feature film series taking an extended time out, future Galaxy of Adventures seasons might have to look elsewhere for material. Waugh says that he’s personally excited by Lucasfilm’s recently- announced “High Republic” line of books and comics. “It’s the kind of samurai story I’ve always wanted to see with the Jedi.” And his early glimpses at what’s in store for Season 2 of the hit Disney+ series, The Mandalorian, is sparking his imagination, too. “It would be fun to see Baby Yoda in Galaxy of Adventures,” he says, laughing. Adorable, that would be.
Fresh episodes of Star Wars: Galaxy of Adventures premiere on Star Wars Kids on YouTube on March 13.
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