Disney announced earlier this week that instead of waiting until fall 2014 to premiere the brand new Star Wars installment, they’ll be airing a full-length movie on The Disney Channel this summer! Also set to air are an indeterminate number of shorts before the “official” premiere later this year on Disney XD.
The news was released in a letter addressed to shareholders on Disney’s official site. The excerpt below focuses on Rebels:
As with Marvel, the rich universe of Star Wars has tremendous creative potential for the entire company. While the world eagerly awaits Episode VII to open in theaters, we’re introducing Star Wars Rebels to television audiences this summer with a movie and a series of shorts on Disney Channel, followed by a continuing series on Disney XD. Our success in building a robust pipeline of original Star Wars content for various platforms will be an integral part of our long-term strategy to leverage the franchise across a variety of our businesses, from theme parks to consumer products.
Starting series off with a movie seemed to work for The Clone Wars, but it also threw continuity off: the events of the Clone Wars movie actually didn’t happen timeline-wise until after episode sixteen of season one. Kinda throws you for a loop, doesn’t it? Hopefully the timeline will be a little more neat and orderly for this new series.
ScreenCrush also says that several voice actors are being tapped for roles in the show (if Steven Jay Blum is cast as the Inquisitor I can die happy). The site also reports that Rebels will pick up where The Clone Wars left off. While I would love nothing more than to get some closure for certain storylines, namely that of Ahsoka, Asajj Ventress, and Maul, given that Rebels will be set between Episodes III and IV it’s unlikely that any of the TCW characters will play any major roles. But we can dream, right?
While we wait impatiently for more SW news and farfetched rumors, here’s a sneak peek at one of the new characters created for Rebels: meet Chopper!
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