Star Wars Rebels: The Rebellion Begins

When the popular series Star Wars: The Clone Wars was cancelled, recent LucasFilm purchaser Walt Disney Co. ("Disney") promised a new Star Wars animated series that would be set in an era as of yet unexplored by any previous Star Wars movie or TV series. Star Wars Rebels is Disney's attempt at fulfilling that promise.

Today, Disney announced that it had already commenced work on the upcoming new animated series Star Wars Rebels.  The new series will be set in the 20-year period between Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.  This is the time when dread sith lord Darth Sidious ruled the Empire and his efforts were focused on securing the Empire's iron grip on the galaxy by hunting down the remaining Jedi knights.  This also the time when a fledgling rebellion against the Empire was born and began to take shape.

Simon Kinberg (X-Men First Class, Sherlock Homes, Mr. and Mrs. Smith) is writing the first episode and is also consulting on the new live action Star Wars movies.  He is also co-executive producer of Star Wars Rebels, along with Dave Filoni (supervising director Star Wars: The Clone Wars) and Greg Weisman (Gargoyles, Young Justice, The Spectacular Spider-Man).

Star Wars Rebels will be produced by a team from LucasFilm Animation formed by many of the talents that made Star Wars: The Clone Wars.  Among them are former design lead and now art director Killian Plunket; and Joel Aron, CG Supervisor for the Clone Wars series who will also be CG Supervisor for Rebels.

The 1-hour premiere of Star Wars Rebels will be in fall 2004 in the Disney Channel.  It will be followed by a regular half-hour animated series on the Disney XD channel.