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Disney Investor Day 2020: An exciting line-up of new Star Wars shows and movies including Ahsoka, Lando and Patty Jenkins’ Rogue Squadron

December 12th, 2020 by Marc Comments

So, after the Marvel and Pixar reveals, the one I was most excited for (finally! I’m excited for Star Wars again!) was, well, Star Wars.

We knew there was big reveals coming and we weren’t let down.

As revealed at the beginning of the event, there were plans for ten Star Wars series in the coming years at Disney+ and while we didn’t get all ten, we got eight, even if we already knew about two of them.

But first, some news we reported a while ago but that was really exciting to have confirmed: Hayden Christensen is returning as Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader in the Obi Wan Kenobi series (teaser below)!

The show will take place a decade after Revenge of the Sith: “We couldn’t tell the story of Obi-Wan without Darth Vader” says writer Deborah Chow, “We will definitely see Obi-Wan and Darth Vader get into it again.”

Hopefully not too much as it was pretty much confirmed in A New Hope that Vader and Obi-Wan hadn’t met in what was presumably a long time and seemed to be the night they fought and Vader was born: “When I left you I was but the learner, now I am the master…”

“It was such an incredible journey playing Anakin Skywalker,” said Christensen, “Of course, Anakin and Obi-Wan weren’t on the greatest of terms when we last saw them… It will be interesting to see what an amazing director like Deborah Chow has in store for us all. I’m excited to work with Ewan again. It feels good to be back.”

Ewan McGregor added: “the most beautiful thing of all about Obi-Wan Kenobi is that it’s brought me back together with Hayden Christensen.”

I’m officially off the chart stoked… and that’s just the beginning (continues after video):

Next up, The Mandalorian will be getting two direct spin-offs, both overseen by showrunners Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau (yes!).

The first is Ahsoka, based around fan-favourite character Ahsoka Tano who made her live-action debut a few weeks back on The Mandalorian, played by Rosario Dawson, who nailed it beyond our greatest hopes.

On the Ahsoka show –  a sharp-eye Twitter user noticed something very interesting about the show’s new logo and that of the great game Fallen Jedi Order:

What is it? Who knows… but it could be more than just a coincidence after all, both stories feature a Jedi Order in ruins and padawans who had had enough before the Empire wiped the rest of the Jedi out.

Next up is Rangers of the New Republic. Now, while no details were revealed about this one, it seems to me that this will be a show based around Gina Carano’s Cara Dune in The Mandalorian given what we’ve learned of her in the last few episodes. Carano is utterly amazing in this show, so this is one I’ll be pacing the floor in anticipation of.

Next up is a show we’ve speculated on a few times but we’re still very excited for… Lando!

Based on the adventures of Lando Calrissian, the show comes from Dear White People creator Justin Simien. No word so far on who will appear in the show but my money is on it being Donald Glover’s Lando Calrissian from Solo but let’s hope we can see the great Billy Dee Williams appear too.

And, while the word is it takes place before the events of Solo, I would love to see Alden Ehrenreich’s Han Solo appear and I absolutely want to see the Darth Maul story that revealed itself at the end of Solo at the very least addressed.

The Acolyte is the much rumoured female led mystery-thriller that will ‘take viewers into a galaxy of shadowy secrets and emerging dark-side powers in the final days of the High Republic era’ from Russian Doll creator Leslye Headland.

Next up and again, very exciting is Star Wars: Visions which is an animated series created by world-class Japanese anime creators and, best of all, it’s due in 2021.

Another adventure is Star Wars: A Droid Story which is a Lucasfilm Animation and ILM feature-length movie which is an “epic journey [which] will introduce us to a new hero guided by R2-D2 and C-3PO”.

While I’m sure this will be a fun movie, I see this being very much a kids’ movie and wouldn’t rule out the possibility it’s not an in-universe adventure.

We also got a trailer for the animated Clone Wars sequel The Bad Batch and a featurette on the now filming Andor series (continues after videos).

Andor Featurette: 

The Bad Batch trailer:

Oh, and fans of The Mandalorian may have spotted a familiar face in there in the shape of Fennec Shand, played in The Mandalorian by Ming-Na Wen:

Anyways, there was one more massive, if somewhat unexpected bit of news for the night.

Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins has signed on as the first woman to direct a Star Wars movie as Star Wars: Rogue One was announced (continues after clip):

By the looks of the ship in the clip above (which is well worth a look) and left, it seems that the movie will be set during the original trilogy, meaning it may will feature Wedge Antilles… and, speaking of connections, the movie would possibly feature the survivors of Red Squadron that went up against the Death Star in A New Hope… they’re also named after the rebels killed on Scariff stealing he plans of the first Death Star who called themselves Rogue one.

The new movie is set to arrive on Christmas Day, 2023 meaning Star Wars may try to reclaim the Christmas slot they took over in the last few years.

We also got news that Taika Waititi is currently writing his Star Wars movie but no further word on it.

There were a lot of surprises up there, weren’t there?

Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….