Lucasfilm and Disney announce three new STAR WARS films

As part of the Star Wars Celebration events in London, Lucasfilm and Disney have announced three new Star Wars live-action films are in development.

First up, and most removed from the others, is a "Biblical" story set many thousands of years prior to all existing Star Wars media. This film will be about the very first person to become a Jedi and will be directed James Mangold, best-known for his acclaimed movie Logan (2017). He also directed Cop Land (1997), Girl, Interrupted (1999) and the upcoming Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023).

Dave Filoni's film will "close out" the interconnected series of stories being told in the Disney+ shows The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett and Ahsoka. The film is believed to unite all of the major characters from those series in an Avengers: Endgame-style battle against an ultimate foe, probably Grand Admiral Thrawn (who will debut first in the upcoming Disney+ series Ahsoka). Filoni is best-known for his work on the Star Wars animated shows The Clone Wars, Rebels and The Bad Batch, as well as his work on The Mandalorian and the upcoming Ahsoka. Filoni has previously only directed three episodes of The Mandalorian, one of The Book of Boba Fett and an unknown number of Ahsoka episodes, so this is a vote of confidence in his skills (intriguingly, the much-more experienced director and Mandalorian co-creator Jon Favreau is not doing this gig).

The final film will be directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (the 3 Bahadur trilogy, Sitara: Let Girls Dream and episodes of Ms. Marvel) and will be the first new Star Wars film set after the events of Rise of Skywalker. Daisy Ridley will return as Rey and will chronicle her rebuilding of the Jedi Order, possibly with appearances by other sequel trilogy characters and other Force-using characters from the other projects. Damon Lindelof developed the first draft of the script but has since left the project.

Not mentioned is Rian Johnson's trilogy idea (although he has indicated that project is on ice until he completes his Knives Out series) nor the Rogue Squadron movie from Patty Jenkins, with some reports indicating the latter has been cancelled outright. Taika Waititi's Star Wars movie is apparently still in development, but has not been mentioned amidst these new announcements.

With the disappointing box-office for Solo (2018) and The Rise of Skywalker (2019) and numerous projects getting stuck in development hell, there was some speculation that Lucasfilm might avoid returning to the cinema with the franchise for a long time. Today's announcement indicates they have renewed faith and confidence in the franchise.

By also "closing out" the current era of TV shows and establishing new material set after The Rise of Skywalker, they may also be looking at setting up a new era for Star Wars stories where they are not locked into the events of the earlier films and shows, which can only be a good thing, otherwise we will get an origin mini-series about Admiral Ackbar at the current rate.

First trailer for STAR WARS: AHSOKA name-drops HEIR TO THE EMPIRE, introduces REBELS cast to live-action

Disney+ have dropped the first trailer for Star Wars: Ahsoka, the upcoming live-action mini-series that will focus on the fan-favourite character of Ahsoka Tano.

Ahsoka debuted in the animated Clone Wars feature film from 2008, before becoming a mainstay of the seven-season run of Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008-14, 20). She was originally voiced by Ashley Eckstein. Ahsoka is a Force-sensitive from the Togruta species, and is assigned as Anakin Skywalker's padawan (apprentice) during the Clone Wars. Some months before the end of the conflict, Ahsoka is accused of a crime she did not commit and outcast from the Jedi Order. Although exonerated, the Jedi Council's lack of faith in her shakes her confidence and she quits permanantly, neatly avoiding Order 66 and the near-extermination of the Jedi Order.

She reappears fourteen years later in Star Wars: Rebels (2014-18) as an older intelligence operative working for the Rebel Alliance and acting as a liaison with the crew of the Ghost, who are running Rebel operations on the Imperial-occupied world of Lothal. Ahsoka confronts her former master, now known as Darth Vader, and is apparently killed by him in battle. Ezra, the would-be trainee Jedi of the Ghost crew, uses a powerful time-bending device known as the World Between Worlds to rescue Ahsoka at the apparent moment of her demise and rescue her. So as not to disrupt the timeline, Ahsoka goes into hiding until after Darth Vader's demise at the battle of Endor. With Ezra's disappearance in battle with Grand Admiral Thrawn in the Rebels finale, Ahsoka joins forces with Sabine Wren, a Mandalorian warrior from the Ghost crew, to track them both down.

Ahsoka made her live-action debut in Season 2 of The Mandalorian, now played by Rosario Dawson. Ahsoka works with the Mandalorian, Din Djarin, to overcome a mutual threat. She also appears in The Book of Boba Fett, working alongside Luke Skywalker to help train Grogu in the Jedi way. However, she references the threat posed by Grand Admiral Thrawn in both series.

The trailer for Ahsoka confirms that her quest to find and eliminate the threat posed by Thrawn now takes precedence. We see her join forces with Ghost crewmembers Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Chopper (Dave Filoni, probably) on a mission to find Ezra (Eman Esfandi) and Thrawn (cast, but not identified so far). Their mission will involve a journey to Lothal and meeting Baylan (Ray Stevenson) and an unknown pilot and lightsaber-wielder (Ivanna Sakhno), who may be friends or foes. They will also revisit the World Between the Worlds.

Genevieve O'Reilly also reprises her role from Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Andor as Mon Mothma (now, it appears, Chancellor or President of the New Republic). Diana Lee Inosanto also returns as Magistrate Morgan Elsbeth, whom debuted in Season 2 of The Mandalorian. David Tennant returns as the lightsaber-crafting droid Huyang from The Clone Wars, and Hayden Christensen will return as Anakin Skywalker (presumably in flashback).

The trailer also name-drops Heir to the Empire, the popular 1991 novel by Timothy Zahn that hugely popularised the Star Wars Expanded Universe. In that novel and its two sequels, set five years after Return of the Jedi, Grand Admiral Thrawn seizes control of the remaining Imperial factions and launches a war against the New Republic, including besieging Coruscant with cloaked asteroids which he threatens to drop on the planet. Thrawn strikes an ill-advised alliance with the mad dark Jedi clone Joruus C'boath to gain access to advanced weaponry and technology at Mount Tantiss (which recently made its new canon debut in The Bad Batch). Luke, Han, Leia, Lando and the rest of the old Rebel Alliance crowd help defeat Thrawn and Joruus in battle. Although no longer canon, the novel remains a beloved touchstone by old-skool Star Wars fans, and it might be that Ahsoka will draw on it for inspiration.

Star Wars: Ahsoka will debut in August this year on Disney+.

Ahsoka Tano Timeline

• 36 BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin): Born on Shili.
• 33 BBY: Found by Jedi Master Plo Kloon and taken to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. Begins training.
• 22 BBY: Assigned as padawan to Anakin Skywalker at the outbreak of the Clone Wars. Also serves as a commanding officer over the 501st Legion of the Grand Army of the Republic, meeting CT-7567 “Rex” and becoming his close friend and ally (The Clone Wars).
• 20 BBY: Framed for murder and treason, banished from the Jedi Order and forced to go on the run. She clears her name and is exonerated, but feels betrayed by the Jedi Order and refuses to return. As a private citizen, she fights alongside Bo-Katan Kryze in the liberation of Mandalore. Shortly after the battle, she is betrayed by Rex during the execution of Order 66. She saves Rex from his inhibitor trip and they escape. Anakin, now Darth Vader, believes her dead in a Star Destroyer crash (The Clone Wars).
• 18 BBY: After years in hiding on the Outer Rim, Ahsoka joins Senator Bail Organa’s nascent Alliance to Restore the Republic. She becomes an intelligence specialist coordinating the activities of dozens of autonomous cells, codenamed “Fulcrum.”
• 5 BBY: Ahsoka begins working with the Lothal rebels, principally the crew of the Ghost (Rebels).
• 3 BBY: Ahsoka battles Darth Vader on Malachor, confirming he is her former master, Anakin Skywalker. Ahsoka vanishes during the battle, Vader believing her dead. In reality, she is rescued by Ezra Bridger from two years in the future, using the time-warping power of the “World Between Worlds.” Fearing her survival has changed history, Ahsoka lies low (Rebels).
• 0 BBY: Liberation of Lothal, disappearance of Grand Admiral Thrawn and Ezra Bridger (Rebels).
• 3 ABY: Destruction of the Second Death Star at the Battle of Endor and death of Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader (Return of the Jedi).
• 5 ABY: Ahsoka and Sabine Wren join forces to search for the missing Ezra Bridger in the Unknown Regions of the Galaxy (Rebels).
• 9 ABY: Adopted Mandalorian Child of the Watch Din Djarin encounters Bo-Katan Kryze during his search for the Jedi. Bo-Katan directs him to find Ahsoka Tano, whom she believes is currently located on the planet Corvus (The Mandalorian). Ahsoka aids in the training of Grogu along with Jedi Master Luke Skywalker (The Book of Boba Fett). The events of Ahsoka take place (Ahsoka).

Eman Esfandi cast as the live-action Ezra in STAR WARS

Lucasfilm have announced that Eman Esfandi will be playing the live-action version of Star Wars character Ezra Bridger in their upcoming Ahsoka series.

The character of Ezra, voiced by Taylor Gray, was introduced in the first episode of Star Wars: Rebels in 2014. Ezra is a native of the planet Lothal, which has been occupied by the Empire. Ezra performs minor acts of rebellion and sabotage against the Empire before being recruited by Kanan Jarrus to join a rebel cell led by himself and Hera Syndulla. Kanan, an ex-Padawan, also discovers Ezra's budding Force powers and trains him in the ways of the Jedi, although Kanan's own incomplete training (and guilt for the death of his master during the Clone Wars) makes this a complicated affair. By the end of the series, Ezra has become an adept Force-user and a powerful ally of the Rebellion. In the final episode of Rebels, Ezra helps defeat the Imperial Grand Admiral Thrawn in a battle on and above Lothal, but in the process both Ezra and Thrawn disappear and have not been seen since. A post-Return of the Jedi epilogue reveals that Ahsoka and Ezra's good friend Sabine Wren are setting out to explore the galaxy to look for Thrawn and Ezra. Events in The Mandalorian suggest this search is still incomplete some five years later.

Esfani is a relative newcomer, having built up a steady stream of stage credits and appears in shorts, as well as in the film The Inspection and recent biopic King Richard. He has also directed several short films.

Esfani will join Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka Tano (reprising the role from The Mandalorian) and Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Sabine Wren for the cast of Ahsoka, with Hayden Christensen also poised to return as Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader, presumably for flashback scenes. Ivanna Sakhno, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Ray Stevenson have also been cast in undisclosed roles. Rebels characters Hera Syndulla and psychotic droid Chopper are also due to appear, but their casting has not been announced so far (it is possible that Ahsoka writer-producer and Rebels creator Dave Filoni will return to "voice" Chopper, as he did throughout Rebels).

Star Wars: Ahsoka is due to air on Disney+ in 2023.

The Book of Boba Fett: Season 1

Famed mercenary Boba Fett has laid claim to the former palace and territory of the crime lord Jabba the Hutt. The civic and criminal gangs which rule Tatooine warily watch to see how events will pan out, with Fett having to fend off challenges from Jabba's cousins, the Twins, and the merciless Pyke Syndicate. As Fett struggles to rule through respect, rather than fear, he revisits his past, how he escaped the Sarlaac beast and how his recovery was helped by unxpected allies.

The Book of Boba Fett is the long, long-awaited Star Wars spin-off focusing on the titular bounty hunter. A fan-favourite character ever since since he debuted in the otherwise woeful Star Wars Holiday Special, Fett received only limited screentime in the original trilogy, adding to his mystique, but was given more backstory in the prequel trilogy and the Clone Wars animated series. The second season of The Mandalorian saw his return as a grizzled veteran out to settle scores.

This series establishes a format it follows through its first four episodes: we follow both a present-day storyline as Fett wrestles with taking and keeping control of Mos Espa and also extensive flashbacks explaining how he survived the events of Return of the Jedi. Sometimes the flashbacks are dominant and the present-day storyline only gets a few scenes and sometimes the reverse. There is one key problem with this narrative structure: neither story has enough juice or momentum to warrant its screen time individually, let alone together.

The flashback stories flirt with dull colonialist tropes as Boba Fett teaches some Tusken Raiders how to be better warriors, whilst their acceptance of him into their tribe teaches him compassion and honour. This is set up to explain why Fett is now kinder, more willing to make friends and allies than the lone-wolf bounty hunter he was first introduced as. In the present day, we see Fett and ally Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) attempting to bring justice to the streets of Mos Espa through respect rather than fear. However, it all feels a bit half-hearted. Jabba inspired fear and respect through his ruthless crushing of the opposition and his power being backed by the Hutts. Boba has no such power base and it's unclear how he and effectively one hired gun and a bunch of droids can hope to replicate Jabba's power. This sets up a storyline as he recruits allies, including an irate Wookie bounty-hunter, a new pet rancor and a bunch of cyborg "mods" who race around the streets of Most Espa on hover-Vespas. It all feels a bit random, especially as the show sets up formidable enemies in the form of a brother and sister team of Hutts, but then immediately exiles them from the story in favour of the altogether vaguer Pyke Syndicate.

The Book of Boba Fett loses its story thread several times in the first four episodes, leaving the viewer to scratch their head about what the through-line of this series is. If Fett is no longer a ruthless, amoral bounty-hunter, why does he want to be a ruthless, amoral crime lord? If he learned respect and honour from the Tuskens living a simple life in the desert, why is he proceeding to take over the big cities with morasses of competing interests? It doesn't help that the show introduces potentially interesting characters and subplots and then does nothing with them.

Jennifer Beals plays the owner of a high-class cantina in Mos Espa and it's hinted that she has an interesting agenda. However, neither her character nor the stories of her cantina are fleshed out in any way. The exceptional Sophie Thatcher from Yellowjackets plays Drash, the leader of the cyborgs biker gang, and gets virtually nothing to do other than take part in a couple of very half-heated action sequences. Why does the Mod gang join forces with Boba? How does he retain their loyalty? Why does everyone treat Boba as a respected and honoured warrior when five seconds ago he was a feared, amoral bounty hunter and ruthless criminal? Why cast Danny Trejo in a fun role and do absolutely nothing more with him?

The Book of Boba Fett does remain watchable thanks to some sharp action set-pieces (particularly a fun train heist), but these questions keep mounting, leaving the viewer scratching their head on why anything is happening. Then the show takes a hard left-turn into real non-sequitur randomness.

With its fifth and sixth episodes, The Book of Boba Fett abruptly turns into Season 2.5 of The Mandalorian. We rejoin the adventures of Din Djarin as he learns to master the Darksabre and tries to pay a visit to Grogu (aka Baby Yoda). The problems with the rest of the series abruptly disappear as the show gains focus and clarity...at the expense of its lead character. Boba Fett disappears for most of these two episodes and instead we get a concentrated thermonuclear blast of fan-service. R2-D2! Luke Skywalker! Ahsoka Tano! Cad Bane! Timothy Olyphant's lawman guy! That X-wing guy! It's all fun and well-handled, but also feels incredibly off-target.

Eventually the producers seem to remember this is the Boba Fett show and re-team the Mandalorian and Boba Fett for the finale, which does almost lives up to its billing. We get a reasonably impressive and long battle sequence, featuring rancors climbing buildings, gigantic versions of the destroyer droids from The Phantom Menace and more. It's visually impressive, if mildly incoherent: a droid fails to gun down Fett's assorted allies when they are standing five feet away and its powerful turbolasers, which took out an armoured personnel carrier in five seconds, is now unable to make much of an impression on a relatively thin stone wall.

Of course, applying cast-iron logic to Star Wars is not a winning strategy, so overlooking such pedantry there is some fun to be had from these battle scenes, particularly the two Mandalorian-armoured warriors working out a rhythm as they learn how to fight as a team (albeit a team that has apparently never heard of the term "cover"). Fett's assembled allies get a bit more time in the sun and story ends in a reasonably interesting place. But it all feels a bit underwhelming.

Some of the problems can be ascribed to the fact that The Mandalorian has just featured two seasons of a taciturn, badass warrior wearing Mandalorian armour and sorting out business, so having a third, and considerably more weakly-plotted, season of exactly the same thing feels redundant. Other issues can be perhaps ascribed to the problems of having a lead actor in his sixties being supposedly an accomplished warrior. Don't get me wrong, Temuera Morrison could certainly break most twenty-year olds in half, but Boba definitely does not live up to his lethal billing as a fighter here. The show also doesn't really address the age problem: Boba should only be around 41 years old at this point, so it's unclear why he looks and acts like a guy twenty years older, aside from the fanservice of using the "right" actor. They'd have been better using Daniel Logan who played the younger Fett in Attack of the Clones who is now in his mid-thirties and would be a better fit for the character's age, or setting the show twenty years later and focusing on a story about an older Boba facing retirement and obsolescence, although of course that would have reduced the chances for tying into the Mandalorian's storyline.

As the first season of The Book of Boba Fett (***), the show just about remains watchable through some effective action sequences, a few nice comic asides and Ming-Na Wen stealing every scene she's in. As an interlude of The Mandalorian (****), the show is altogether more successful, catching us up on what Din and Grogu are up to and setting up Season 3 of The Mandalorian in style. As a show overall, it feels lopsided, and, disappointingly, is at its weakest whenever Boba Fett and his confused motivations are on screen. The season is available now on Disney+ worldwide.

Sabine Wren cast for STAR WARS: AHSOKA

Lucasfilm and Disney have confirmed the casting of the live-action version of the character Sabine Wren for their upcoming TV series, Ahsoka. The character previously appeared in animation in Star Wars: Rebels.

The role will be played by Australian actress Natasha Liu Bordizzo, who previously appeared in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny, Hotel Mumbai and The Society. The character was previously voiced on Rebels by Tiya Sircar (The Good Place).

The character of Sabine Wren is a Mandalorian warrior who joins forces with the crew of the Ghost has they struggle to liberate the occupied planet of Lothal. During this conflict she joins the Rebel Alliance, continuing to work with the Ghost crew. As the conflict escalates, she also finds herself involved in the struggle for Mandalore's independence from the Empire. At the end of Rebels, she joins former Jedi apprentice Ahsoka Tano in tracking down their missing friend and ally, Ezra Bridger, who had disappeared into deep space along with Grand Admiral Thrawn.

The second season of The Mandalorian introduced the live-action versions of both Ahsoka (played by Rosario Dawson) and Mandalorian loyalist Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff, who also voiced the character in The Clone Wars and Rebels), or may or may not also recur in the new series. Ahsoka will apparently focus on Ahsoka's search for the missing Grand Admiral Thrawn, possibly as a way of tracking down Ezra. It makes sense that Sabine would join the mission. Ahsoka has also been confirmed to see the return of Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker, presumably in flashbacks.

Ahsoka is currently in pre-production and expected to start shooting in March for an early 2023 debut on Disney+.

First trailer for STAR WARS: THE BOOK OF BOBA FETT released

Lucasfilm and Disney have unveiled the first trailer for their upcoming Star Wars TV series, The Book of Boba Fett.

A spin-off of The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett picks up after the end of Season 2 of that show. Famed bounty hunter Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) and associate Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) have taken over the criminal empire of the late Jabba the Hutt on Tatooine, but understandably face resistance from Jabba's other allies and enemies, who want a piece of his estate for themselves.

Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni are producing the show alongside the currently-shooting third season of The Mandalorian and a second, in-pre-production live action series called Ahsoka. Some of the heavy lifting on The Book of Boba Fett is being handled by veteran writer-director Robert Rodriguez (El Mariachi, Spy Kids, Alita: Battle Angel), who previously directed some episodes of The Mandalorian.

The Book of Boba Fett is scheduled to premiere on 29 December this year. It is unclear how many episodes will be in the series, but it is not likely to be more than the eight per season of The Mandalorian. It will be followed by the six-episode Obi-Wan Kenobi mini-series (which recently wrapped shooting) in early 2022.

Dave Filoni promoted at Lucasfilm, exciting STAR WARS fans

Lucasfilm writer/producer Dave Filoni's profile on the company website was updated this week, confirming him in the title of "Executive Creative Director." This spurred a lot of excitement as fans and even some of Filoni's collaborators rushed to congratulate him.

Dave Filoni (centre) with Star Wars creator George Lucas (left) and fellow producer-writer Jon Favreau (right), on the set of The Mandalorian

The move actually isn't new, having taken place in the summer of 2020. Disney had simply not gotten round to updating its profiles until this week.

Still, the promotion does reflect that Filoni is now seen internally and externally as one of the company's most important assets when it comes to the Star Wars universe. President Kathleen Kennedy was closely involved in the development of the sequel trilogy (The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker) and the first two spin-off movies (Rogue One and Solo) but has since taken a more oversight role as Lucasfilm's role has expanded to incorporate other properties; she is now also overseeing work on the Willow TV series and a fifth Indiana Jones movie as well as the battery of Star Wars projects currently being developed. The mixed reception to the Star Wars movies has been pinned on a lack of creative planning and oversight, with the different writers and directors (including those fired by the studio) allowed to pursue their own ideas rather than developing a cohesive through-line for all three films.

In contrast, Filoni (who was chosen and mentored by George Lucas to work on the franchise) is known for developing storylines and setting up plot points that might not come to fruition until years down the line. These skills made his two animated projects, The Clone Wars and Rebels, highly popular and acclaimed among fans whilst other Star Wars projects were attracting a more mixed reception. Filoni has since collaborated closely with Jon Favreau on a number of projects, including the live-action television series The Mandalorian (set to start shooting its third season shortly) and The Book of Boba Fett (in production now), as well as upcoming spin-off Ahsoka. Reportedly Filoni and Favreau have set up a big "event" story spanning all three shows which will culminate later on. This story will presumably revolve around perennially popular Star Wars villain Grand Admiral Thrawn, whose future return has been hinted in The Mandalorian.

Filoni's promotion, though it might not be quite as seismic as some have reported - he is not being put in sole charge of the Star Wars franchise and isn't quite "the Kevin Feige of Star Wars," at least not yet - will add confidence that Lucasfilm is righting the ship about the disappointment of The Rise of Skywalker by promoting people with a proven track record in knowing what they are doing.

The Book of Boba Fett is expected to air before the end of 2021, with Season 3 of The Mandalorian to follow in 2022. The next Star Wars theatrical release, Patty Jenkins' Rogue Squadron, is set for release on 22 December 2023.

Star Wars: The Mandalorian - Season 2

The Mandalorian has reluctantly embraced his new role as the guardian of "the Child," a youngster belonging to the same species as Jedi Master Yoda. Deciding he needs to track down the Jedi to return the Child to them, he embarks on a journey across the galaxy, encountering allies new and old and enemies familiar and unfamiliar. His epic quest will lead him to a fateful meeting with former Jedi padawan Ahsoka Tano, agents of the New Republic and soldiers of the Imperial Remnant. However, his movements are being tracked by Moff Gideon, who seeks the Child for his own ends.

The first season of The Mandalorian was a winner, an epic space Western playing out on different planets which tapped into the soul and spirit of Star Wars in a manner not seen in live action for many years. Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, veterans of the Star Wars animated series The Clone Wars and Rebels, successfully delivered a series of episodes full of action, adventure, warmth, wit, character and, in the form of "Baby Yoda," even charm.

Following up on that breakout season was always going to be tough and the second season of The Mandalorian at times struggles with the format. With Season 1 ramping up from an episodic format at the start of the season to a more serialised feeling at the end, Season 2 reverting to a more monster/planet/villain-of-the-week format for its first few episodes feels a tad jarring. Fortunately these episodes are pretty good: Mando and Cobb Vanth (Deadwood and Justified's Timothy Olyphant) teaming up to take down a krayt dragon and Mando teaming up with Bo-Katan Kryze of Mandalore (Battlestar Galactica's Katee Sackhoff) to take out an Imperial enemy. An intermediary episode, where the Mandalorian and a random alien frog get stuck on an ice planet full of ice spiders, is weird but somewhat amusing (and gives us some solid X-wing action).

The back half of the season is really strong though. Things kick off with the long-expected debut of Rosario Dawson in the fan-favourite animated role of Ahsoka Tano in a gripping, strongly Kurosawa-influenced tale of confrontation and conflict (with some stunning individual images). Things continue with the Mandalorian forming an unholy alliance with Boba Fett (a returning Temuera Morrison from the prequel movies) and reteaming with Season 1's Migs (Bill Burr) to infiltrate an Imperial base, before an all-action finale awash with cool moments and character cameos.

The Mandalorian's strength so far has been tapping into George Lucas's original idea of Star Wars as a series of matinee pulp adventures and delivering that to the hilt. Performances are solid (especially Pedro Pascal as the taciturn hero), the visual effects among the finest ever created for television and the sense of pacing is strong. Quite a few episodes of The Mandalorian come in at well below the traditional 60 minutes (some scraping in at around 35 minutes), and although more would be nice, it's hard to deny the relentless, fierce sense of purpose this gives the show.

The finale also gives a nice moment of closure to the story that began in the debut episode of the series. Clearly, the adventures of the Mandalorian will continue (a third season has been confirmed, and three direct spin-off shows focusing on the New Republic, Ahsoka and Boba Fett are in the planning stages) but this first storyline is now given a reasonably satisfying sense of closure.

The second season of The Mandalorian (****½) continues in much the same vein as the first, delivering an adrenalin shot of pure Star Wars action right to the heart. It is available to watch worldwide now on Disney+.

Season 2 of THE MANDALORIAN gets an airdate

Disney and Lucasfilm have confirmed that Season 2 of The Mandalorian will land on Disney+ on 30 October.

The first season of The Mandalorian was a hit when it arrived on Disney+ at the end of last year, generating critical acclaim as well as a meme for the ages with "Baby Yoda". The second season will pick up shortly after the first and will feature an ongoing conflict between the titular Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) and Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito). The season will feature some new guest casts including Michael Biehn as a bounter hunter, Timothy Olyphant as Cobb Vanth (from the Star Wars: Aftermath series of novels), Katee Sackhoff as Bot-Katan Kryze (from The Clone Wars and Rebels), Temuera Morrison as a former clone trooper (and allegedly Boba Fett), and Rosario Dawson reportedly playing the role of fan-favourite former Jedi apprentice Ahsoka Tano.

Principal shooting of Season 2 began before Season 1 even aired and concluded just a few weeks before the global pandemic shut down global film production in March. Post-production has been mostly done remotely, although the show's heavy use of virtual sets and greenscreens meant that socially-distanced filming is much more practical for this show than most. Pre-production and planning for a third season is already underway.

Star Wars: The Mandalorian - Season 1

Seven years after the death of the Emperor and Darth Vader, the galaxy is in a precarious state. The New Republic is trying to unite the galaxy again under a democratic banner, opposed by areas where remnants of the Empire still hold sway, but many worlds have become lawless. A Mandalorian warrior finds himself serving as a bounty hunter, taking on commissions to survive...until his latest contract changes everything.

The Mandalorian represents a historic moment for the Star Wars franchise. After forty-three years, it is the first live-action, ongoing TV series in the franchise's history, something people have dreamed of seeing since 1977. For having such weight on its shoulders, it is surprisingly low-key.

The show has a tight focus on the central character, played by Pedro Pascal (Game of Thrones, Narcos), who (almost) never takes his helmet off and is a taciturn warrior. With only a blank helmet to emote through and relatively rare bursts of dialogue, Pascal does a sterling job of giving his character an identifiable motivation, gravitas, charisma and dry humour. The supporting cast, from Carl Weathers (Predator) as the Mando's erstwhile boss, director Werner Herzog as a villain and Gina Carano (Deadpool) as a former Rebel shock trooper turned reluctant ally to the Mandalorian, are also excellent.

The show has a really interesting filming style, with a strong use of both location filming and virtual sets which have been taken to the next level, using techniques developed on showrunner Jon Favreau's recent Disney live-action movies. For the most part these are brilliantly realised, giving the show a sense of realism and scale that almost no science fiction TV series has ever achieved before. What is interesting is also how restrained the show is: this is  a space Western, mostly set on dusty frontier worlds and in seedy cantinas, with shady backroom deals going on which threaten to explode in violence at any moment. The visual effects and battle sequences are also, obviously, exceptional, and the end credits for each episodes are works of art on their own merits.

The structure of the series is also refreshing. In the last year or so it's felt like there's been a slight backlash to constant serialisation as several high-profile shows have retreated from stretching single stories over dozens of episodes to instead mix self-contained narratives with continuing subplots. After this worked well in The Witcher and before it did in Tales from the Loop, The Mandalorian does the same here. Continuing threads run through the season as the Mandalorian tries to survive and protect a mysterious alien child he finds on one of his missions, whilst also dealing with a series of crises-of-the-week. These include defending a village on a planet from attack by mercenaries and helping rescue a prisoner from a prison transport. Eventually there is a reckoning, hinting at a more serialised second season, but the story unfolds much more organically this way. The producers are also happy to have some of the episodes be quite short and focused, wrapping up in 40 minutes rather than dragging out to more than 60 without enough story to fill that time.

Weaknesses are few: the fifth episode is a bit forgettable, I guess, and there's perhaps an overreliance on some staple Star Wars tropes (an audible grown can be heard as they tap the Tatooine well once again), but the execution is otherwise superb, with great writing, direction and effects.

Season 1 of The Mandalorian (****½) finally gives us the live-action Star Wars TV show fans have wanted for forty years, and does an exceptionally good job of it. It is available to watch worldwide now on Disney+. Season 2 of The Mandalorian concluded shooting before the coronavirus pandemic began so will hopefully hit its October 2020 release date.

GAME OF THRONES and NARCOS star cast in STAR WARS TV series THE MANDALORIAN

Pedro Pascal has been cast in the lead role of the first-ever Star Wars live-action TV series, The Mandalorian.

Pascal is a Chilean-American actor who first debuted on American TV in 1999 (most notably playing a vampire in a fourth season episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer). He hit the big time in 2014 when he was cast as Oberyn Martell, the Red Viper of Dorne, in HBO's Game of Thrones. Off the back of that role he was cast as police detective Javier Pena in Netflix's Narcos. He played the role in the first three seasons of the series, attracting critical acclaim.

Pascal is set to play a Mandalorian warrior in the new TV series, which is set seven years after the events of Return of the Jedi and twenty-three years before the events of The Force Awakens. Not much else is known about the series, although early set photographs suggest that the action will partially take place on a desert planet with architecture highly reminiscent of Tatooine.

Reportedly Pascal has not yet started shooting, although publicity images have already been released showing a Mandalorian warrior on set. Presumably this was done with a stand-in either for early shooting or expressly for publicity purposes.

Iron Man director Jon Favreau is writing and producing the first season with The Clone Wars and Rebels writer-producer Dave Filoni lending a hand (and directing the first episode).

The Mandalorian will debut on the new streaming service Disney+, probably in the latter part of 2019. Lucasfilm are also planning a prequel mini-series to the film Rogue One, with Diego Luna set to reprise his role of Cassian Andor from that film.

Star Wars: Rebels - Season 4

The nascent Rebel Alliance has failed in its operation to liberate Lothal and has been forced to retreat to its new base on Yavin IV. General Syndulla's rebel cell remains committed to liberating both Sabine Wren and Ezra Bridger's homeworlds, but manpower and resources remain in short supply. Despite the apparently overwhelming might of the Empire, Ezra is determined to save his planet no matter the cost.

After four seasons and 75 episodes, Star Wars: Rebels has come to an end. The second Star Wars animated series produced under the auspices of Dave Filoni (after the well-received Clone Wars), Rebels holds the distinction of being the first piece of visual media released for the new Star Wars canon (preceding the release of The Force Awakens by a year) and also, arguably, the most consistently critically well-received part of it.

Season 4 opens with our heroes at a low ebb, having failed to retake Lothal but now motivated more strongly to help Sabine free her home planet of Mandalore. The first arc of the series focuses on Mandalore before the action moves back to Lothal, now a planet under brutal occupation with the Empire more blatantly engaged in strip-mining the world of its resources. Everything seems lost, but over the last few years Ezra has built up a large number of allies, people who owe him a favour and some unusual tricks with the Force, and now calls on every one of them to help free his world.

It's a stirring, classic Star Wars narrative, full of against-the-odds heroism, sacrifice, pulp adventure and pathos. Possibly alone out of the new-canon writers (barring maybe Lawrence Kasdan), Dave Filoni has found an excellent way of sticking to what makes Star Wars great, honouring its past and constantly coming up with new and fresh ideas to take the franchise into the future without burning down everything that went before it. The result is a genuinely interesting mix of familiar tropes and newer ideas, including the most comprehensive look at the Force and its questionable moral essentialism since the mighty Knights of the Old Republic II and Matt Stover's novels.

Being still primarily a kids' show (albeit one that adult Star Wars fans will get a lot of enjoyment from), the show doesn't get distracted too much by this stuff, but it's still good to see the universe getting fleshed out in greater depth. All of the characters get their moment to shine, especially Ezra as the mopey kid of the first season is now long gone, replaced by a mature and increasingly canny warrior who seems reluctant to fully embrace the ways of the Jedi but keen not to fall to the Dark Side either.

Continuity is also strongly pursued this season, as Filoni rounds off story arcs and character storylines stretching back to The Clone Wars. He doesn't get too self-indulgent in this, remembering that Rebels is primarily about its own cast of characters, but it's good to see long-standing storylines left dangling for many years finally wrapped up, sometimes tragically. But the focus is on our main cast of characters and the fact that they have to pass through the darkest moments possible before finding the light.

Complaints about this season are few. The awkward continuity of the show - which at one point has no less than three Light Side Force-users (technically not Jedi, but the distinction is thin) running around doing stuff for the Rebel Alliance less than a year before the events of A New Hope, but somehow no-one ever mentioned it to Luke - is still a bit unconvincing and the show's depiction of Grand Admiral Thrawn remains only a pale shadow of the Machiavellian, much more complex character of Timothy Zahn's novels. The "honourable rogue smuggler" archetype is also a bit worn out at this point, and having two such characters (Hondo and Vizago) playing major roles in the final season makes this a bit too obvious. Oh, and the loth-wolves becoming very major players in the final season comes a bit out of nowhere.

But beyond those minor issues, the fourth and final season of Star Wars: Rebels (****½) gives our band of heroes a worthy send-off and the hint that, some day, their adventures may continue (which sounds far-fetched until you realise a new Clone Wars series is indeed on the way). The season is available now in the UK (DVD, Blu-Ray) and USA (DVD, Blu-Ray).

Disney and Lucasfilm resurrect THE CLONE WARS for a new mini-series

In a surprise but welcome move, Lucasfilm and Disney are resurrecting The Clone Wars for one last huzzah, a mini-series that will tie in the incomplete series with the start of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

The Clone Wars was an animated series which ran for five seasons from 2008 to 2013. Set between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, it took a broad view of the war, switching between planets, groups of characters and timeframes with relentless energy. After a rocky start, the series garnered critical acclaim for its voice acting, the constantly-improving quality of the animation and for its increasingly accomplished storytelling.

The Clone Wars was abruptly cancelled whilst production on Season 6 was underway, leaving that series to air separately as a 13-part series on Netflix. Producer Dave Filoni was allowed to release animatics and materials detailing plans for the rest of the season, including a story arc that would reunite wrongfully-disgraced, ex-Jedi Ahsoka Tano with her former master Anakin Skywalker as they launched a military campaign to liberate Mandalore from ex-Sith apprentice Maul. This would lead directly into the events of Episode III.

Lucasfilm clearly hated leaving unfinished business behind, so this story is now being completed with a new Clone Wars mini-series that will air in 2019, with the original voice actors returning. More interestingly, it looks like this mini-series will be one of the launch shows for Disney's new adult-oriented streaming service in late 2019. Jon Favreau's live-action Star Wars TV series and a new Marvel Cinematic Universe show will join it on the service, along with a formidable amount of Disney content (and, when the deal goes through, 20th Century Fox's utterly vast backlog of shows and movies that aren't licensed elsewhere).

This will fill a hole in the storyline that spanned not just the six seasons of The Clone Wars but the four seasons of recently-concluded sequel series Star Wars: Rebels, and leave the decks clear for the next animated series, Star Wars: Resistance, which will take place in the era of the new films and focus on Poe Dameron and his X-wing squadron.

New STAR WARS TV series RESISTANCE announced

Disney and Lucasfilm have confirmed that the next Star Wars animated series, the follow-up to Clone Wars and Rebels, will be called Star Wars: Resistance.

The new show will take place a few years prior to The Force Awakens and sees the discovery of the threat posed by the First Order, with the Resistance being founded to stand against them. The series will focus on the character of Kazuda Xiono, an ace pilot recruited by General Leia Organa and trained by Poe Dameron, along with several other pilots. It sounds like the show's recurring villain will be an earlier-in-her-career Captain Phasma, whilst BB-8 will also show up.

Resistance will be produced by Dave Filoni and many of the same crew who created both Clone Wars and Rebels. However, the new show will employ a different art style, which will mix the 3D animation of the older shows with a cel-shaded anime influence. It sounds like production has been underway on the new show for some months, with it already slated to debut on the Disney Channel this autumn.

Cast-wise, the most exciting news is that both Oscar Isaac and Gwendoline Christie will be reprising their roles from the new Star Wars movies.

This project is in addition to the new live-action Star Wars TV series being produced for Jon Favreau and expected to debut in late 2019.

Star Wars: Rebels - Season 3

The crew of the Ghost, now full members of the Rebel Alliance, continue to wreak havoc on the Galactic Empire's forces in the Lothal sector. With the situation critical, the cunning master-strategist Grand Admiral Thrawn arrives to take charge of the situation and soon proves himself to be a formidable opponent to the rebels.

The third season of Star Wars: Rebels continues to darken and deepen the story. The first season featured the rebels getting into knockabout adventures against the Empire; Season 2 was a considerably more complex story about war, betrayal and sacrifice, ending in a bruising confrontation between Darth Vader and his former apprentice Ahsoka Tano. Season 3 goes further down this road, focusing on Ezra as he struggles between his loyalty to Kanan and the Light Side of the Force and the promise of answers to his questions provided by an ancient Sith holocron. Unfortunately, the vengeful Maul is also searching for the holocron, believing it will lead him to the hiding place of his nemesis, Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Season 3 is divided between several storylines: Kanan and Ezra's further explorations of the Force (complicated by their meeting with a follower of the neutral path between light and dark); Maul's search for Obi-Wan; the defence of the rebel base; and Grand Admiral Thrawn's relentless search for the rebels as well as the ongoing occupation of Lothal. There is also a further exploration of the theme of family: Sabine spends part of the season working to win her family's support for a Mandalorian uprising against the Empire and Hera likewise plots to free her homeworld of Ryloth, aided by her father and his supporters. The family of the Ghost is also put through the wringer, split up several times before regrouping.

There's a lot of fanservice this season. Wedge Antilles and Mon Mothma are introduced as recurring character and Saw Gerrera (from The Clone Wars and Rogue One) also returns. But the fan-pleasing cameos are in service to the story and secondary to our main characters. It's good to see that the "Ezra is tempted by the Dark Side" plot is both briefer and less angst-ridden than it could have been, with less musing on whether Ezra could really fall to the Dark Side (as the show's main character, we know he won't) and more on Ezra's character and how he approaches the Force, particularly when contrasted to Maul.

It is good to see the Maul storyline come to an end in a manner that is very appropriate. George Lucas's decision to resurrect Darth Maul on The Clone Wars was questionable in its plausibility but there's no denying that the stories it generated (on both shows) have been pretty interesting, helped by Sam Witwer's inspired vocal performance. Maul's storyline climaxes with the return of an Alec Guinness-era Obi-Wan Kenobi one of the most elegant (and smartest) lightsabre clashes seen in the franchise.

The real talking point of the season, however, is the arrival of Grand Admiral Thrawn in the new Star Wars canon. Thrawn was previously the starring antagonist of the Thrawn Trilogy (Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising and The Last Command) which kicked off the entire old Expanded Universe. Well-written by Timothy Zahn, Thrawn's intelligence and lack of insane raving (he was more deeply amoral and ruthless than outright evil) made him a fascinating enemy. Many fans cite him as their favourite Star Wars villain, or indeed character overall. His Rebels incarnation is not quite as Machiavellian as the book version, but he is well-voiced by Lars Mikkelsen (whose brother Mads also appeared in Rogue One) and proves a formidable opponent for our heroes to fight.

Overall, the season tackles multiple storylines on different planets and delving both deep into Star Wars lore and canon as well as developing its own, original creations, all to great effect.

The third season of Star Wars: Rebels (****½) unfolds well and ends with an appropriate epic confrontation between the Empire and the rebels which dovetails into the fourth and final season. The season is available now in the UK (DVD, Blu-Ray) and USA (DVD, Blu-Ray).