Disney announces a bunch of Star Wars shows, including a Mandalorian spin-off about Ahsoka
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Disney just teased that it has 10 Star Wars shows in the works for Disney+, and now we know what a lot more of them are. The first two are spin-offs of The Mandalorian called Ahsoka and Rangers Of The New Republic. The company just announced those during its big investor’s call, and while we don’t know much about either of them, we do know that both are set during the same timeline as The Mandalorian. That’s what Disney said on Twitter, specifically referring to the show about little Grogu as opposed to the more generic “post-Return Of The Jedi” era, which means these are most likely happening alongside the events of The Mandalorian.
The protagonist of Ahsoka will obviously be Ahsoka Tano, with Rosario Dawson reprising the role from her recent Mandalorian appearance, but we know nothing concrete about Rangers Of The New Republic. It could be related to Cara Dune, who was famously a soldier for the Rebel Alliance and the New Republic before retiring and befriending Din Djarin and his green baby, but we don’t know and Disney might not even be ready to say (given Gina Carano’s… whole online presence).
But wait, there’s more! Outside of the Mandalorian timeline, we also have Justin Simien (Dear White People) developing a show about Lando Calrissian. We don’t know if Donald Glover is coming back, but Disney+ hasn’t had a problem luring movie actors to TV for any of its other shows so far (and he was on a TV show about a community college for a while anyway). There’s also Star Wars: Visions, which sounds like a series of Star Wars anime shorts.
There continues to be more! Disney also showed a preview for Andor, the prequel to Rogue One, announced a new animated adventure called A Droid Story about R2-D2 and C-3PO introducing “a new hero,” and also announced a “mystery-thriller” from Leslye Headland (Russian Doll) called The Acolyte set in the new “High Republic Era”—the timeline long before the prequels. We heard about that one before, but now it has a name.
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It could be related to Cara Dune, who was famously a soldier for the Rebel Alliance and the New Republic before retiring and befriending Din Djarin and his green baby, but we don’t know and Disney might not even be ready to say (given Gina Carano’s… whole online presence).I’m going to go out on a limb and say Disney is just quietly not renew their contract with Carano and write Cara Dune out of the rest of the franchise. I’m not watching the Mandolorian until I know for a fact she’s not coming back for Season Three.
They won’t get rid of her. After the James Gunn stuff, they are reluctant to cave to the twitter mob again. She may be a shit person, but as long as she does her job and the cast and crew get along with her, they are not gonna rock the boat.
IIRC, Pedro Pascal tried to explain why she was wrong at one point on Twitter right before she went full blown transphobe. I wouldn’t be shocked if some of the cast would privately be uncomfortable working with her after coming out as a bigot.
Somehow Jenna Elfman still has a job on Fear the Walking Dead despite it seeming like the rest of the cast loathes her
where does that come from? I can’t see anything online indicative of her unpopularity….
Wasn’t the James Gunn stuff like a couple years-old tweets? Carano is out there NOW pulling all this shit. Pretty big difference.
Some over a decade old, actually.
Gunn’s situation was he made a bunch of edgy jokes (which some people deliberately misinterpreted), then later apologized for, then several years later conservatives got huffy and the whole boondoggle happened. Gina Carano is actively being publicly transphobic like right now.
the main difference is Gunn was willing to do the apology dance, while it seems Carano is doubling down, JK Rowling style
Gunn didn’t even really have to do all that much, did he? It was basically “Oh, i tweeted something dumb a while ago. Sorry.” Then he gets fired, people realize “are we firing people for mildly offensive, unfunny tweets from a decade ago?” Then WB/DC swoops him up, Marvel’s like whhaaaat, waaait… And he’s back. He basically said sorry, made no excuses, and let it settle out.
(Also I don’t think there should be a statute of limitations on offensive tweets. If you were a racist asshole ten years ago, I don’t think it’s wrong to continue to hold that person accountable, especially if there’s no contrition. But context and intent matters, and I think Gunn was just making dumb jokes. But Gina Carano can go pound sand.)
Is she really a ‘shit person’ just because – like more than half the country – she wasn’t a fan of the BLM looting?
Gotta factor in the risk of her going full Roseanne that they have to end up replacing her down the line, fucking up the show. Prob just safer to let her character go than invest in a possible pr nightmare and flood of negative headlines.
While I’m inclined to agree with you, I think there is a big knowable difference between the James Gunn stuff and the Carano stuff. They aren’t making any hasty decision but that fact that Carano wasn’t confirmed for this show (when the show leaked with her name attatched two weeks ago) says a lot.
She will die in the way to her home planet 🌏
Alas, since her home planet in the show was Alderaan, I rather doubt that. I’m hoping she just gets eaten by a bantha instead.
Baby Yoda will use the Force to dislocate his jaw enough to devour Cara Dune.
Yeah I think the fact that Rosario Dawson was confirmed for Ashoka and Carano wasn’t confirmed for New Republic says a lot.
That’s alot of weight to put on something that just doesn’t matter in the real world…if we stopped listening to music, reading books, or watching shows or movies made by or starring or directed by jerks we’d not have alot of things to do. Do you not tap your toe when Beat It comes on? Do you reject anything connected to Harvey Weinstein? Ever watch a professional sporting event? Will you remove Lord of the Flies from literature?People suck. MOST people suck to some degree or another. I think it’s ok to separate the art from the artist. It’d be different if you actually KNEW them in the real world of course – and I’m ok with directors and publishers and producers choosing not to work with someone because of a personal failing, but damn there isn’t much good stuff to bother with these days…I don’t think you are a bad person for choosing to reject anything for any reason. Just my 2 cents.
I wonder if Rangers Of The New Republic was supposed to be Cara Dune-centric, but they decided to change that (or at least not promote it that way right now) because of the Carano stuff?Anyway, I’m excited for the Headland show, and not much of the rest. The Bad Batch backdoor pilot on TCW did nothing for me. I’d completely forgotten the Cassian Andor show was happening. Rogue One was so long ago.
Yeah, Star Wars whatever… What I’m really excited about is all this Kathy Najimy content. Sequels to Hocus Pocus and Sister Act. Too bad we couldn’t get a King of the Hill reboot.
I’m psyched that they’re dipping their toes into the High Republic era, and Headland’s got a hell of an imagination…so: coooooooool. (Speaking of Headland, God, I love Sleeping with Other People.)
Sleeping With Other People is pretty good, I’ll second that
New Republic I know has been covered in games and other media for a while now, but any thoughts on how much of that is considered canon? I’m a busy man and don’t have alot of time to read comics, play video games, or watch cartoons…and the little Star Wars I’ve read pales to the sci-fi I like to read. I think a whole new era, disconnected completely from Skywalkers and R2D2 would be great.
That’s a tricky question. Basically, the EU was jettisoned a while ago, and Disney’s slowly been filling in the gaps and approving “canon” entries here and there. Basically: The 3-D cartoons are canon, the new games are canon, the post-2015 novels are canon, and the live-action shows are canon. If it’s been made post-2015, it’s canon. Before that, it’s fuzzy. The High Republic is, I believe, fully canon. We just haven’t seen it yet. No idea about The Old Republic stuff. But I continue to hope.This is a good rundown: https://www.scmp.com/yp/discover/lifestyle/features/article/3069921/what-star-wars-canon-after-disney-bought-lucasfilm
Which of the umpteen Star Wars shows will star Rahul Kohli & Brie Larson?
I’m pretty surprised that this Cassian Andor show is still chugging along. Seems like a thing whose time would have passed, but it’s been firmly on the slate since the plus shows were announced in the first place. It’s just always kind of funny to me, because, I mean, does anybody… actually want this? I didn’t dislike Cassian Andor or anything, but I’ve not been dwelling for years on all of the potential Cassian Andor stories that we have been denied. Is there a very quiet contingent of rabidly passionate yet passionately discrete Cassian Andor fans out there who have just been banging drums hard behind the scenes this whole time or something?
People got pissed that Ahsoka didn’t mention Yaddle, so probably.
I’m intrigued honestly. The idea that our heroes sometime have to bend or break the rules can make interesting story telling (especially in this universe where it’s so good vs evil) .
Look, I saw Diego Luna on a plane flight about two years ago, so……I have nothing to add here.
“Well, our time’s almost up here so I’d just like to say…I know Woody Allen” – Dick Cavett
I saw him once lead a Mexican drug cartel.
I went Diego Luna’s cantina in Mexico City about a decade ago. The drinks were good and the plate of taquitos was tasty enough, my wife asked our waiter “Does Gael Garcia Bernal ever stop by?
I think it’s more that Disney needs a return on all Star Wars properties after the billions they shelled out for it.
This is definitely the show I care least about that’s been announced. Plus, Diego Luna isn’t looking any younger, so I don’t know how it will work.
Did anyone want something like the first Star Wars film before they saw it? Speaking of Cassian Andor, was anyone clamoring for Rogue Squadron before that film premiered? No, and it is easily one of the best installments in the franchise.
was anyone clamoring for Rogue Squadron before that film premieredWhoa, you can time travel?? (Kidding aside, I assume you meant Rogue One 😉 )
I agree – had someone taken notes of my speaking before Rogue One came out I’d probably have said “Meh” since it’s such a short window of time, and we know both the pre- and postscripts of the story but…Damn that was a pretty good movie. I like the idea of standalone’s and side-trip movies and series…it’s a big, bad universe that Star Wars created, and there is nothing but room for stories. Disney seems intent on keeping the stories interconnected and continuous so they make sense as a larger whole, and The Mandalorian dispelled any worries of “Disneyfication”. And it’s ENTERTAINMENT, and escapist at that, not an art film, biopic, or statement piece. It’s supposed to be fun, and generally it is. The duds (first two prequels, and Rise Of Skywalker for me) still are Star Wars. (I am not a fan of animation of any sort except South Park (rip away, I know I’m wrong, but it’s personal taste), so I’ve not seen the animated shows)
My guess is that Andor is happening for two reasons:1) Rogue One was fairly popular and well-liked, so they wanted to expand that section of the IP.
2) Cassian Andor is the character they chose because someone inside Disney/Lucasfilm came up with what the execs thought was a really compelling storyline/character flesh-out. Yeah, Cassian isn’t really a very interesting character in Rogue One but there’s no reason someone couldn’t change that for a show.Alternate explanation: Diego Luna has blackmail photos of Kathleen Kennedy.
Wait, what? Cassian is one of the most interesting characters of Rogue One. He’s shaded and merciless in ways that EVERY other rogue hero in the Star Wars universe – Han Solo, the Mandalorian, etc. – is not. He’s not really a “heart of gold” type, but a fairly hardcore rebel believer. I’m not super fascinated by him exactly, but I think one might admit that his moral compass seems considerably different than, say, Mandalorian, who turned into a big softie as soon as he met Baby Yoda.
Being the most interesting character in Rogue One is a low bar to clear. Luna’s performance (which may not really be his fault; direction and dialogue have a lot to do with that) wasn’t very exciting or interesting to watch. When they announced they were doing a show around him, I (and a lot of people) were like… [Michael Bluth voice] him?
We may have had different reactions to Rogue One. I wasn’t absolutely blown away by it, but I liked it. I assume a show with him will have a good amount of exchange between him and the droid voiced by Alan Tudyk, and that seems like it’d be a decent enough pair to base a show around to me, if one is motivated to make a pre-ANH series, at least.
I liked Rogue One, too, mainly the last third: even though I hadn’t really felt like I connected with the characters, I honestly couldn’t believe they all got killed and I was kind of stunned afterward. (It’s possibly important to note that as an experiment, I underwent a total news blackout about Rogue One for the entire year before release. I didn’t watch the trailers, I avoided any news stories about it, I had very little in the way of preconceptions about it. All I knew was the core cast and the basic premise, and I’d seen one or two early production stills.) I’ve seen it a couple more times since then. In retrospect it’s easy to identify a host of problems with the movie, but I never had any problem with the premise or the fact that it’s fairly grim.I don’t have any predictions about whether Andor will be any good (I mainly just hope it’s better at narrative than The Mandalorian), but when they originally announced it, I was like, I don’t think it ever occurred to me that I wanted to know more about this guy.
Right, I think that’s fair. I should note that I’m far from a huge Star Wars nerd. I watch Mandalorian and a friend of mine tells me a lot of intricacies about the universe he’s gathered from games and cartoon series that I’ve had no exposure to. I’m not that thrilled when certain references are made because I don’t recognize them. I think the prequels essentially squeezed any real enthusiasm for the universe I had out of me, and so I seek out only some things from it, like the films, and Mandalorian. But, Rogue One was really exciting to me because it was more like a “war” movie in that universe more than most of the other movies seemed. The moment early on when Andor shoots that informant because he’s going to get caught set a cool tone, too. So, I’m assuming we’d be getting some more of that type of stuff – some genuinely vicious antihero spy stuff.If they make it more like Mando, where he’s basically Luke in armor, then I’m not sure that it’s a good idea for a series, because that wouldn’t be interesting. I like the Mandalorian a good bit, but I agree the narrative is fairly weak thus far, and also a bit bummed that his character isn’t quite as morally flexible as I expected. I mean, even Boba Fett in that series is quite… heroic and honorable.
I actually had to stop and remember who he was, other than “generic guy from that crew of generic dead Rogue One crew.”
I don’t think the particular character is a draw as much as it’s a major actor (Diego Luna) in a timeline (early days of the rebellion) that’s ripe for some good storytelling. Spy/espionage stories about the fledgling Rebel Alliance fighting back against the Empire? Sounds like a good time to me. Plus, this may be a way they tie in some characters/events from Rebels if that’s something they are planning. Hell, maybe they have some interaction with the criminal organization Maul is running in Solo if they want to bring him back into the game.
If I recall Visions was either the name of the one off comic series set in Star Wars done by a whole bunch of different creative people. Or it was the sorta “What If?” For Star WarsPersonally I want one of these ten shows to be Rogue Squadron already!
*Ahem*https://film.avclub.com/patty-jenkins-to-become-the-first-woman-to-direct-a-sta-1845855918
Missed that one, they announced a shit done of stuff yesterday
but then…why have the movie? Or did you not hear about that yet? Rogue Squadron the movie, directed by Patty Jenkins.
Star Wars: Visionaries was an art-driven anthology comic series in 2005, where different artists – not typical comic artists, but concept artists and the like -got their chance to interpret Star Wars in stand-alone short stories. It has absolutely gorgeous artwork.
Star Wars: Visions definitely feels like a spiritual successor to that idea, with each episode handled by a different anime director and art team.
Good catch!
Infinities was the “What If?” Star Wars series.
All those shows an none of them are about Dr. Aphra? Get your shit together Disney!
Wait, is Rangers of the New Republic gonna be about Paul Sun‑Hyung Lee’s character?OK, see you when that premiers!
Sure make so much Star Wars (and Marvel) content that you can fill Disney+ with it and people will just binge and forget about it.
And watch the interest decline steeply because the franchises lose all sense of being special and the shows are just some among many.
I don’t know, I feel like even if the general public stops caring about star wars in general, and the shows get less hype, they still have enough of a fan base to make money and stay in production. I wish they’d stop making 8 million star wars and marvel shows and spin offs, but it feels unlikely to happen for at least a few more years.
There are a lot of shows, but… I don’t know. This could work. If they have the right people producing limited and quality work, it could manage to hold up. For me Arrowverse collapsed because there was just way too much (not just too many shows, but each producing way too many episodes) That 20-some episodes of each 40-something minute show a year of multiple shows is unsustainable. But Mando is only 8 episodes that are, what?, about 30-40 minutes on average. That leaves *a lot* of bare months. So, yeah, if they were doing Netflix style13-ep seasons or, worse, network style 22-episodes, I’d pass on this slate for sure. But if they follow that Mandolorian model of tight 8-episode seasons with no breaks, followed by 10 months off, it’s not really that much content. It was a long time to go between seasons with just one show. They need more.
Still enough shows to have SW on most years long. Which is probably the plan. I mean you Can watch all that, sure, but there wont be much hype around and people well just watch it like any other show.
You said it right there – LIMITED. Shorter seasons, shorter, more intense stories, focus on quality and not feeling the need to fill a 26-episode season, these things WORK for television. It’s one of the best trends of ‘modern’ television (I’m 50, so I grew up with the 26 episode season), quality and limited runs. Breaking Bad is the perfect example – tell a story well, and don’t extend the damn thing like a warm piece of taffy on a hot summer day. (couldn’t help myself there sorry).
This is what killed DC shows for me. I could handle the Marvel Daredevil etc. run, just, with 13 odd episodes but after 3 seasons of Arrow and then Flash and Legends starting with tie in episodes it just looked too exhausting. I didn’t want to restrict myself to only watching DC shows and nothing else. Shield was the same too. A finite number of seasons from launch would be nice too. Don’t keep these going until nobody cares anymore. The Mandalorian already has a one season storyline that is obviously carrying over into season 3.
Soon, everything we love will be ground into a fine powder and sold back to us with a nice little winking Mickey on the tin.
Remember like 2 years ago when they were trying to make a movie a year, and Solo bombed, and then Rise of the Sky Walker came out and made 300M less than Last Jedi and Disney was all “maybe we should pull back on this, fans are growing tired”.Now it’s “Hey, let’s make a billion shows about the most trivial things in Star Wars! Nothing can go wrong with this!”
Agree, now they’re making spin-offs of spin-offs (spin-off squared, if you will) and will continue taking it to whatever exponent hoping something will stick. I mean it could work, and we shouldn’t knock it just yet, but…ten? Really?
I don’t have issue with knocking it before the shows come out. It’s 10! 10 shows about one “universe”, with the majority announced existing on the peripheral, stories about side characters side characters, all to make sure nothing happens that could jeopardize potential future stories for movies.
Yep, they decided that maybe they were pushing too much content. Then with a little Mando love they are suddenly overgoing it again.I’ve, um, got a bad feeling about this?
Unfortunately since ROTS came out, there was a little…something that happened that made people reluctant to visit theaters and they need to make money SOMEHOW.Prsonally I think it’s all in the execution. As long as they learned the right lesson from Mando and are taking the opportunity to explore different parts of this universe rather than shameless pandering to the past, it could produce something interesting.
That doesn’t address the comment though – they said they would slow down and not oversaturate the market with Star Wars due to a few failures (one real, Solo, one not as real, ROTS made money!). But then one hit, a TV show, and suddenly “crank the knob to 11, lets’ make all the Star Wars again!!!!!”.
https://images.app.goo.gl/tFVGDpMreHG448Xi9
https://newssportsupdate.medium.com/americas-cup-world-series-auckland-and-the-parada-christmas-race-team-head-to-head-f6c05390b444
Really excited for the Obi-Wan show where he hides in the desert living like a hermit for 20 years. Or did he somehow have wacky adventures instead?I’d like them to make an Obi-Wan/Vader comedy where a whole lot of bad stuff happens to Vader and it is secretly old Ben trolling him from the shadows. Sort of like the Spectre/Blofeld reveal where everything that happens to Vader is connected to Obi-Wan.
now, i don’t have a dog in this race, but sentences like
(given Gina Carano’s… whole online presence)
simply cannot exist in parallel to statements like “cancel culture doesn’t exist”. The repeated return to “Gina Carano’s…. whole online presence” directly means “we think Carano should be sidelined, and we think you should think that, too.” The fact that there are “dog whistles” points to it being pervasive, therefore a “culture”.
All this is fine! IF you’re honest. Don’t say “there is no cancel culture”. Say, rather, “we think we need to scrub certain ideas from public discourse”.
We don’t know if Donald Glover is coming back, but Disney+ hasn’t had a problem luring movie actors to TV for any of its other shows so far (and he was on a TV show about a community college for a while anyway).Seriously? That’s the last time you remember Donald Glover starring in a TV show? Nothing after that comes to mind?