Babu Frik will return in The Mandalorian season 3, and other Star Wars bits

Disney put on its annual Star Wars Celebration event over the weekend, and we’re here to catch you up on some of the big announcements. To wit:

A new Star Wars series called Tales of the Jedi is coming

Star Wars mastermind Dave Filoni showed off footage from a new animated series called Tales of the Jedi, an anthology show that will be out this fall. Each episode will tell a standalone story featuring different characters from the franchise. Ones we already know about include Anakin Skywalker, Mace Windu, Ponda Baba, Count Dooku and Qui-Gon Jinn, who will once again be played by Liam Neeson, the cheeky bugger.

“We had a fun time, but these aren’t just fun, happy stories. It gets rough at times,” Filoni said. “You wouldn’t be happy unless you overcome something possibly tragic along the way. Some of these are dark. Some of these I watched later and was like, ‘Wow, what was I doing?’ And I was in lockdown like everyone else, so that explains that. But this Dooku one, which I don’t know if you know, doesn’t end up so good for him, I was like, ‘This is surprisingly tragic.’”

Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker’s former Jedi padawan, looks to feature in several of the episodes. Speaking of…

Characters from Star Wars Rebels will appear in the live-action Ahsoka show

One of the more anticipated shows in the expanding Star Wars cinematic universe is Ahsoka, where Rosario Dawson will play the title character after debuting in The Mandalorian season 2. Fans at the Star Wars Celebration got to see some footage from the show, but it hasn’t been released to the wider public yet.

But the fans reported what they saw. Characters from the animated show Star Wars Rebels will appear in live-action form in Ahsoka, including Hera Syndulla and Sabine Wren. The teaser also hinted at an appearance from Ezra Bridger, although we didn’t see an actor yet.

Natasha Liu Bordizzo, who voiced Sabine Wren in Rebels, will also play her in live-action. “I feel like I’ve just been adopted into a new family,” she said, per The A.V. Club. “I feel that way about everyone I work with but also the fans. I never experienced anything like this. I know how much Sabine means to many people in this room, and I know how much she means to Dave and I think you guys are going to be really excited about the journey she’s about to have.“

Ahsoka is expected to hit Disney+ next year.

Watch the trailer for The Bad Batch season 2

Yet another show spun off from Filoni’s earlier animated output is The Bad Batch, which debuted a trailer for its second season. Watch below:

The Bad Batch season 2 will start streaming in August on Disney+.

Babu Frik returns in The Mandalorian season 3

Time will tell if all of these new Star Wars shows are actually hits, one we know works is The Mandalorian, which is working on its third season. Fans got to see an advance look, which according to The A.V. Club included a glimpse of Babu Frik, the little alien dude who worked on C-3PO in The Rise of Skywalker.

Babu Frik is small and adorable and welcome, although it does look like The Mandalorian is becoming more and more saddled with stuff from the mainline movies as it goes on, whereas at first it looks like it would stand on its own. Remember when Luke showed up at the end of season 2?

Which brings us to our last point…

Kathleen Kennedy wants to create “a whole new” Star Wars saga

While at the Celebration, GamesRadar talked to Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy about the future of the franchise. Apparently, she thinks they need to break new ground and stop shackling themselves to the well-worn Skywalker saga. “We need to create a whole new saga,” she said. “That takes a lot. There’s a lot of conversation around that.”

Now, given that I just described a bunch of new shows that are trading on old Star Wars stuff (not to mention what’s happening over on Obi-Wan Kenobi), you’ll forgive if I roll my eyes at that comment. Maybe there are “conversations” among Star Wars creatives about telling a wholly new story, but I’ll believe it when I see it. I definitely haven’t seen it yet.

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h/t The A.V. Club