An all new series of animated shorts is coming to the Star Wars Kids YouTube channel on August 9th. “Star Wars Roll Out” re-imagines Star Wars characters as BB units. Hence the name, “Roll Out”. The show is based on an original idea by Hideo Itoyanagi who created an animated retelling of The Force Awakens for Japan. His approach, however, was different: in his short each and every character was a BB unit, even the humans. Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy loved the idea so much that she hired Itoyanagi and tasked him with creating the new show for the Star Wars Kids YouTube channel. Featured characters will be, according to the trailer at least, Rey, Finn, Maz Kanata, Phasma, BB-8, Chewie and the Porgs. But other characters will certainly also make an appearance. Now the question is if the Galaxy of Adventure shorts will also continue, it would be odd if no new shorts would be produced when an all new toyline will soon be launched. It seems “Star Wars Roll Out” is aimed at even younger kids, so maybe Lucasfilm wants to try out new things and will pursue various ideas and projects on the YouTube channel. The following quote elaborates on that idea.
Lucasfilm vice president franchise content and strategy, James Waugh, says this about the show: “One of the wonderful things about our Star Wars Kids channel is that we can experiment to see how far we can stretch the franchise to a new expression, while still being totally rooted, recognizable, and authentic.”
Read the full story with more background on Starwars.com, you can watch the very short trailer on Youtube! Thanks to Matt Z. for the alert!
Star Wars Roll Out
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