(Image taken from: www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2021/09/lucasfilm-11-new-star-wars-disney-plus-shows.html)
Volunteer Writer: Brendan Flaherty
Email: bflaherty1@umassd.edu
With all the new STAR WARS content being added to Disney+, There are a lot of reactions to go through.
Within the past few months, we the viewers have been promised and have received multiple new forms of STAR WARS content to take in.
For starters, we got the release of the Obi-Wan Kenobi Show, which premiered on May 27th, 2022. Followed up shortly with the release of Andor on August 31st, and Tales of the Jedi on October 26th. We are now expected to get the second season of the show, The Bad Batch, sometime in early 2023.
With all this being said, it’s time to dive into the reactions to the shows and the overall response from the star wars community.
(WARNING: Spoils ahead)
(www.tvinsider.com/show/obi-wan-kenobi/)
Starting out the year was the release of the highly anticipated Obi-Wan Kenobi show, with a total run time of 3+ hours.
The show gave Star Wars fans a great chance to revisit a favorite character.
The show takes place after the third movie, Revenge of the Sith, and before the fourth, A New Hope. Obi-Wan Kenobi takes the viewer on an adventure with our favorite Jedi knight after having lost everything in the previous movie.
The show gained an overall rating of 7.1 stars out of 10 from IMDb and received an 82% fresh Rotten Tomatoes score.
There are all sorts of opinions about the show, some saying it is a massacre of the characters with horrible dialogue, and some saying the show is a masterpiece.
On IMDB, the highest-rated episode was the season finale, with a score of 8.4 stars out of 10.
Fans rejoiced over the return of Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen to play their characters one last time, along with a large cast of other very talented actors including Moses Ingram, Sung Kang, Rupert Friend, and many more.
Overall, it is a seemingly great addition to the Star Wars collection of shows, and one that fans may come around to liking sometime in the future, as they did with the prequels.
(www.tvinsider.com/show/andor/)
The next release of the year is the Andor show, an interesting show that was an odd, but welcome addition to the Star Wars world.
No fan was really anticipating the Andor show because his fate was sealed in Rogue One.
The Andor show is currently ongoing, as this is being written, the 9th episode has come out and the series is set to run for 12 episodes in total.
The show has us follow the main character, Cassian Andor, as he tries to find his way through an evolving and changing world. Andor must find a way to live in a world that is changing, and changing for the worse.
This show takes place before the events of Rogue One, it represents the progression of the rebellion in its earliest stages.
The show has been operating in sort of 3 episode arcs, telling the same story overall, but focusing on different events during the arcs. Although, the last episode didn’t really follow the 3 episode pattern, with its resolution seemingly coming in the 4th episode.
The show is overall, another great breath of fresh and new Star Wars content for fans to take in. Featuring returning actors such as Diego Luna, Duncan Pow, Forest Whitaker, and many other new actors. The overall rating for the show is an 8.2 out of 10 on IMDb and 92% on Rotten Tomatoes. The highest-rated episode is the 6th episode in the series.
Another great addition to the story and one that fans will come to love and cherish as the series continues.
(www.starwars.com/series/tales-of-the-jedi)
Tales of the Jedi is another strange release for the Star Wars series of shows but a welcome one no doubt.
This show is a series of short animated tales from different perspectives, taking place all over the Star Wars timeline. Ranging from as early as the Old Republic, to the end of the Republic.
The entirety of the show was released in one fell swoop, which is odd for Disney+.
Normally, Disney+ likes to release a show with one episode per week, to ensure that subscribers would keep their subscriptions for as long as possible. It could be assumed that because this show is a series of short films, it would not be worth spreading out the release of the episodes.
This show also has returning voice actors playing their roles again such as Corey Burton, Ashley Eckstein, Dee Bradley Baker, Ian McDiarmid, and Matt Lanter.
The overall rating of the show is an 8.5 out of 10 on IMDb and an astounding 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.
The reception of the show is very positive and it leaves viewers asking for a second season to further explore the characters that they have come to know and love. The highest-rated episode of the season is the 4th episode.
(www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-the-bad-batch-season-2)
The final addition to the show lineup of this year is the show, Star Wars: The Bad Batch.
After finishing the first season, the fate of the main characters was left unknown. Now, after much wait, the second season was announced and a trailer accompanied it.
Although this show has not been released yet, there is still much to talk about before its release.
The first season got a bit of a mixed reaction and reception.
The show takes place right after the events of Revenge of the Sith and it follows the adventures of a rogue clone squad called Clone force 99, or otherwise known as, The Bad Batch.
They have to find their way through a world that is changing, very similar to what Cassian is going through in the Andor show. A group of defective clones trying to find their purpose after finishing the war they were bred to be a part of. They struggle to find their own identities after losing their only purpose of fighting in the war.
The finale set up the group for more adventures and left viewers craving more.
The two highest-rated episodes were the first and the second to last episodes, both holding a score of 8.9 out of 10 according to IMDB. The overall ratings of the show’s first season are 8.5 out of 10 on IMDb and 86% on Rotten Tomatoes.
The show was yet another great addition to the list of Star Wars content, and it’s bound to have fans waiting in anticipation for the next season coming out in early 2023.