Remember Solo: A Star Wars Story? The spin-off entry that “only” made $400 million worldwide a few months back? The one that sparked rampant fan disappointment, suggesting that the world has already succumbed to “Star Wars fatigue”? The would be-blockbuster that wasn’t bad but was also instantly forgettable? Well, Disney is moving past that slip-up and pushing George Lucas’ franchise to the limits. Case in point: the trailer for Star Wars: Resistance, the series’ first animated series under the new regime, which is set to bow on Sunday, October 7 on the Disney Channel.
Prequels don’t always work out for the Star Wars-verse, and yet that’s just what Resistance is. The show fills in the gaps leading up to The Force Awakens, even dragging contractually obligated actors like Oscar Isaac and Gwendoline Christie into the recording booth to voice good guy rebel Poe Dameron and metallic-suited baddie Captain Phasma, respectively. The trailer is also about 20% BB-8, because to offer less BB-8 would cut down on the cute factor.
Poe would make a great hero were this a gritty, live-action Star Wars series. But Resistance appears to be more Disney than Lucas (or Rian Johnson, or J.J. Abrams). And so we get plucky and chipper Kazuda “Kaz” Xiono (Christopher Sean), a young pilot who joins up with the Resistance to spy on the First Order. The show looks more colorful and zippier than the live-action movies, if not as kiddie-centric as Clone Wars, the animated show from the old prequels era. Those ran between three and fifteen minutes; Resistance episodes clock in at a full hour, so it should fit right into our current Golden Age of Television.
The Resistance voice cast also boasts the likes of Donald Faison, Jim Rash and — why not! — Bobby Moynihan. This should keep you sated until the next proper movie, Episode IX, arrives next holiday season.