It has been about six months since the acquisition of Lucasfilm by Disney and most of the news surrounding that monumental announcement pertained to the upcoming live-action trilogy with the first film being helmed by ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ director J.J. Abrams. But over on the animated side of things, there was quite a shake up.
Though at first there were talks of moving the highly popular ‘Star Wars: The Clone Wars’ series from the Cartoon Network to Disney XD, the decision was ultimately made to end the long-running animated program. Additionally, the comedic take on the galaxy far, far away from ‘Robot Chicken’ creators Seth Green and Matt Senreich titled ‘Star Wars: Detours’ was put on hold and is being saved for some time in the future.
While that news was pretty disheartening, a glimmer of hope appeared in the form of a new animated series in the works titled ‘Star Wars: Reclamation’, which was supposed to be set in between the two trilogies. Well, there’s good news and there’s bad news today. The bad news is that this new animated series isn’t moving forward at the moment. The good news is that there is another one on it’s way and it’s slated for Fall 2014.
According to Deadline, the studio announced that production is underway on ‘Star Wars Rebels’ from executive producers Dave Filoni formerly of ‘Star Wars: The Clone Wars’, Greg Weisman of ‘Young Justice’ and ‘The Spectacular Spider-Man’, and Simon Kinberg, who has been attached to the Star Wars universe for some unknown projects for some time now. Kinberg will also pen the one-hour premiere that will air on the Disney Channel as a special telecast to debut the new series before it moves over to Disney XD.
Similar to ‘Star Wars: Reclamation’, ‘Star Wars Rebels’ will explore the time frame of the twenty years in between ‘Revenge of the Sith’ and ‘A New Hope’, which has never been explored onscreen before now. According to the official press release (via Collider), this new series “takes place in a time where the Empire is securing its grip on the galaxy and hunting down the last of the Jedi Knights as a fledgling rebellion against the Empire is taking shape”. No details on which characters will be included or what actors will be joining the production, but word is that guests of Star Wars Celebration Europe later this summer will get the first public look at the show.
Until we also get that first look, we have the following video of Pablo Hidalgo speaking with Filoni, who goes into a little detail of who else is on board for the project so far and where they drew their inspiration for this series from:
It’s quite an exciting time for fans of ‘Star Wars’ and animation right now with the announcement of ‘Star Wars: Rebels’, so go ahead and let your feelings about it all out in the comment section. As a fan myself, I know that I’ll definitely be looking forward to it.
