Disney + Originals
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Since getting the brand, Disney has been pumping out Star Wars originals on their personal streaming service like their lives depended on it. The first and most popular of these is The Mandalorian, but there have been plenty of others since. This page lists them all in detail.
Star Wars: The Bad Batch
See here. TL;DR, not too bad. It shows a nice take on the Empire’s hiring process, as scenes with conscripted troopers who try to be good soldiers get punished for their insubordination. Dee Bradley Baker is back playing all the main characters, and giving most of them a unique accent to discern between them, such as the heroic Hunter, the cyborg Echo, strong man Wrecker, techsavvy Tech, and the villainous Crosshair. The first season released in 2021, and the second is coming the year after that.
LEGO Shorts
Initially, it just seemed like the idea was to do a Star Wars Holiday Special that doesn't make you question your status as a Star Wars fan and/or want to claw your eyeballs out. But it has since become clear that Disney+ has opted to do these as a sort of "seasonal" thing, with a follow-up short based around Halloween (called "Terrifying Tales"), and another based on Summer Vacation (creatively titled "LEGO Star Wars: Summer Vacation"). Not terrible for what they are, but being both LEGO and Disney, they can't have the same satirical bite that, say, the Family Guy Star Wars parodies do. Tellingly, the second of these managed to do more with the Knights of Ren than the actual Sequel Trilogy movies did.
Star Wars: Visions
Basically, the prayers of every Anime fan with even a passing interest in Star Wars were finally answered. And even if you aren't an Anime obsessive, Star Wars: Visions is still Awesome. A series of shorts, all of which are decent to great, they managed to do well with both critics and audiences, proving that it is still possible for Star Wars products that don't have Baby Yoda in them to do that. The shorts are:
Season 1
- The Duel: Where most of the shorts are meant to be neither clearly canon or non-canon, first one, The Duel, is the exception. It explicitly takes place in a kind of "Elseworlds" Star Wars universe that is basically if Kurosawa (one of George Lucas' main inspirations) had done Star Wars himself. This short in particular borrows heavily from Yojimbo (morally gray ronin anti-hero fights a bunch of thugs in a suffering town). One of the characters has a lightsaber umbrella (trust us, its much less stupid than it sounds).
- Tatooine Rhapsody: About a Jedi survivor of Order 66 who finds a new life as the singer in a band that also includes a young Hutt who is on the outs with Jabba. Temura Morrison guest-stars voicing Boba Fett.
- The Twins: Takes place some time after Episode IX, and deals with a couple of super powerful, Force-Sensitive twins who aren't Luke and Leia. Takes full advantage of its being Anime to have some truly crazy, over-the-top action (as in, the title characters fighting on top of a Star Destroyer in outer space without space-suits and somehow being able to breath), and not-Luke slicing through a Star Destroyer with a fucking giant lightsaber. Villain's design is like a female blend of Darth Vader and General Grievous.
- The Village Bride: A more slow-paced, low-energy short focusing on a low-tech village under the heel of some local dickheads that a mysterious masked Jedi fends off at the end. Has a "beauty of nature" type feel.
- The Ninth Jedi: Takes place an undetermined amount of time after Episode IX. It's an era where lightsaber construction has become a lost art...which is why what Jedi and Sith are left all want a piece of one of the few folks left who can make them. Notably, the lightsabers in this short change color to match the alignment of whoever is wielding them...leading to one heck of a plot twist towards the end. One of the most popular and beloved of the shorts.
- T0-B1: Basically Astro Boy meets Star Wars, going for a very similar art-style and protagonist to the former.
- The Elder: Set before Episode I, it centers on a Jedi Master/Apprentice duo who cross paths with an elderly Dark Sider who isn't a Sith (though might have been once). Moody and slow-paced.
- Lop and Ocho: Centers on a rabbit girl alien who gets taken in by a father and daughter pair. The latter joins the Empire later, forcing Lop to combat her. Believe it or not, not the first time Star Wars has had rabbit people.
- Akakiri: Short loosely based off of the Kurosawa movie "The Hidden Fortress" (a major inspiration for Star Wars). Ends on a notably downer note compared to the rest of the shorts.
Season 2 Coming Soon!
The Book of Boba Fett
Basically a spin-off/midquel to The Mandalorian, centering on Boba Fett and his efforts to succeed Jabba the Hutt as Tatooine's Corleone/Soprano overseer. Naturally, fan expectations were high, but at this point we should all know what tends to happen next.
Of the stuff released after the end of the sequel trilogy, it has been the least beloved thus far, though nowhere near to the point of the Sequel Trilogy. Currently Youtube Video reviewers' favorite whipping boy, with over a dozen different videos as of this writing bashing it. Sadly, its probably most remembered for a very slow chase scene involving neon-colored scooters going 5mph at best. You can probably compare it to the Prequel Trilogy: cool fanservice and good actors, actually coherent character progression (in theory), and shaky execution at various-to-most points, and probably amplified by stratospheric expectations for the fan-favorite character in the hands of well-regarded showrunners which made the flops bomb harder. Basically, it had good intentions of worldbuilding and character growth, but didn't quite stick the landing, and hardline fans wanted their Fett to be a stone-cold badass crushing his opposition instead of trying to grow out of it and try negotiation to inspire loyalty and respect or a green armored nice guy. Also a popular point of mockery/criticism was in how two whole episodes focus on Din Djarin instead of Boba Fett himself, leading to Fett getting effectively upstaged in his own mini-series. A second season might be coming, so hopefully the writers can course-correct.
Obi-Wan Kenobi
Live-action series featuring the return of Ewan McGregor as the titular character set 10 years after Revenge of the Sith. Hayden Christensen also has returned with voice over work from James Earl Jones, albeit with possible digital voice de-aging assistance like Mark Hamill received. Released May 27th 2022 (around the time of the 45th anniversary of the franchise) and ran as a six-episode mini-series. Went for sort of a "Logan" style tone according to the director, having a 10 year old child serve as a foil to a reluctant hero forced out of retirement.
Unfortunately, where Logan was/is universally adored, Obi-Wan Kenobi...less so. To be clear, this mini-series nearly rivals the Sequel Trilogy in terms of pure Skub, Flame-Wars, and Rage generated. In this case, largely due to a mix of plot holes fixed vs ones that were caused, with jarringly bad/mediocre episodes (mostly Episode 4) in between the legitimately good parts.
The best parts were the performances from the actors, the lightsaber duels, and especially the writing of the relationship between Obi-Wan and Anakin. Even Leia's child actor turns in a good performance, which is great because usually child actors are utterly despised. Its ideas, in a vacuum, are popular concepts on most fans' wishlists of material to adapt: a look at the galaxy during the Dark Times of the Empire, Jedi falling to bitterness, and Inquisitors conflicted about their purpose, but y'know...execution.
Its biggest source of Skub by far is Inquisitor Reva; to sum up, the writing behind her is more of that "interesting ideas, bad execution" stuff a lot of modern Star Wars is known for, tending to rush her into situations without convincing or sufficient buildup, but it only got worse with the usual IRL toxicity from fan harassment and the politicized responses and accusations from Disney and the actress herself (though the latter did give evidence to back up the claims of harassment), to deflect the legitimate criticisms wading through the salt.
Star Wars | |
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About: | The Franchise, The Setting, The Movies, The Video Games |
Television Shows: | The Clone Wars, Rebels, Resistance, The Mandalorian, The Bad Batch, Disney + Originals |
Star Wars Games | |
Miniature: | X-Wing, Armada, Legion |
Tabletop: | Rebellion |
Roleplaying: | FFG, WotC (d20), WEG (d6) |