When it started life in 2021, Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: The High Republic initiative was focused squarely on the publishing side. However, as the High Republic saga has grown, it’s begun expanding into other media. Now the animated series Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures is marking an important milestone for the franchise. Several major characters from the High Republic books and comics will make the jump to animation in upcoming episodes of Young Jedi Adventures.
IGN spoke with Young Jedi Adventures writer Cavan Scott and Lucasfilm’s Senior Vice President, Franchise Content and Strategy James Waugh to learn more about how the series is tying into the High Republic books and which characters specifically will be making their animated debuts in the months ahead. Read on to learn more and to see exclusive images from two upcoming episodes.
Taking the High Republic From Page to Screen
Again, the High Republic initiative has grown considerably in scope since it kicked off nearly three years ago. What was once chronicled primarily through novels and comic books has expanded to the video game and TV realms. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor features numerous references to the High Republic era and the Jedi’s conflict with the marauding pirates known as the Nihil. The upcoming live-action series Star Wars: The Acolyte will be set in the tail-end of this era, while Young Jedi Adventures takes place during Phase 1 of the High Republic, approximately 200 years before the Skywalker Saga movies.
According to Waugh, this evolution was always part of Lucasfilm’s plan.
“I think we always wanted to start telling the best story we could in publishing,” Waugh tells IGN. “But we always saw the potential of what could happen with Star Wars when you craft a whole new era and allow a new storytelling space to come into existence. And in that era, it's so rife with potential for storytelling. I think we always had a good sense that if we did this right, if the books came out the way we knew they would with this lineup of authors, it would grow. And it's really been a delight to see that actually happen and see the fandom fall in love with it and want to explore other spaces. So it was part of the plan, but it was a hopeful plan that always is dependent on great storytellers doing great work first in the publishing space.”
The High Republic initiative is unique in that, while all the stories combine to form a larger, overarching narrative, Lucasfilm is also targeting a variety of different age groups. There are adult-focused books like Light of the Jedi and Marvel’s various High Republic comics, young adult novels like Out of the Shadows and junior novels like A Test of Courage. Young Jedi Adventures itself is an all-ages series with a much lighter tone than the relatively darker books. How difficult is it to maintain a cohesive line while targeting so many different demographics?
“Star Wars is Star Wars, no matter who you're telling it for,” Scott says. “The central beats of Star Wars, the hope, the adventure, the fun, they're throughout everything. It's the lens you see those stories through that changes. So you obviously have to be careful. The kind of story you tell in an adult novel is very different to the kind of story you tell in a kid's comic, for example, or a TV show. But again, the basis of the stories, the values they're built upon, the kind of character relationships we're trying to establish, they work no matter what age group and as said, no matter what medium.”
“I think the fundamental world-building in Star Wars allows for that broad swath of storytelling across generations” Waugh adds. “The fact that we can, and to Cavan's point, it was purposefully architected that way for multi formats, tell stories about Younglings, to tell stories about Padawans, to tell stories about adults who are facing proportionate challenges for them, that's always been part of the DNA of what George [Lucas] built.”
Kai Brightstar Meets Bell Zettifar
Young Jedi Adventures will feature two crossovers with the High Republic books in the upcoming second half of Season 1. “Charhound Chase” will introduce one of the more significant Jedi Master/Padawan duos from the books, as Master Loden Greatstorm (voiced by Riverdale’s Matthew Yang King) and his pupil Bell Zettifar (Grownish’s Marcus Scribner) make their series debuts. Naturally, Bell will be joined by his faithful charhound pet Ember.
As Scott explains, Bell and Loden were ideal candidates when it came to choosing which High Republic characters to insert into the series. Bell is exactly the sort of well-traveled, heroic Padawan Kai would look up to.
“When I first read about the characters of Young Jedi Adventures - when I first read about Kai - I just saw Kai and Belle together. It just seemed a natural mix,” Scott says. “You've got a young man who is so excited about his future in the Jedi order, who's excited to become a Padawan, who then hears that this legendary master is going to be coming to their planet and bringing in his Padawan. And so there was a real chance to do a story about hero worship and anticipation and excitement about the future.”
As for the plot of “Charhound Chase, Scott says, “We find out that Master Zia and Loden are friends of old, and he's coming to examine the new Jedi outposts. And right from the start, Kai finds out, and he's beside himself with excitement that Master Loden’s coming here. And he's desperate to make a good impression, especially on Bell, because again, he sees himself as a future Bell. That's how he wants to be. He wants to be a Padawan. He wants to go zooming around the galaxy with a master. That's his entire life dream.”
Scott continues, “As one of the original writers, even seeing actors on screen was incredible. These ships that we created for the books and comics. And the interaction immediately with Ember bursting onto the scene and getting just as excited as Kai does. But this is Star Wars, things happen and Ember goes missing, and Kai is worried that he wanted to make this the best day ever for his visitors, and now he's worried, he's blown it because Ember's got missing. So Bell steps up and it's Bell's chance to be a bit of a master and to teach them some lessons to the younger Youngling, and they go off and search for Ember together.”
Waugh adds, “That's actually what we're always looking for with the stories for the show, is really that absolutely relatable human experience that a young kid can watch or a big kid like me can watch and understand that. Who hasn't had mentors or people who they've been inspired by in their life that they’re either nervous around at first or they want to impress? And then the beauty of it is you end up learning that you have things to offer too. And it's not about impressing them, it's about sharing each other. And so I think that's always sort of the lens we're looking at when we're working with writers on this show is what is the honest human experience here that a kid watching this can learn from?”
Traveling to Starlight Beacon
The other upcoming High Republic crossover episode is “Stuck in the Muck.” This chapter of the series introduces another key Jedi Master in the form of Estala Maru (Star Wars: The Bad Batch’s Liam O’Brien). But perhaps even more significantly, this episode is the first to feature Starlight Beacon, a space station that plays a key role in the High Republic storyline.
Starlight Beacon is a mobile space station that serves as a safe haven and navigation beacon for travelers in the Outer Rim during this era. Young Jedi Adventures is specifically set before the dedication of Starlight Beacon, one of the watershed events in the overarching High Republic saga. And in “Stuck in the Muck,” Kai and his friends will travel there for the first time.
“When you translate to other mediums, you start looking at those elements in new ways,” Waugh says. “Even giving things like the Starlight Beacon a theme and a sense of what does that feel like? What do we want to evoke when we see the Starlight Beacon? In publishing, you get that feeling from the beauty of the prose. With the tools of cinema, it's what is that sound that makes you instantly feel the wonder and aspiration of the Starlight Beacon?”
Waugh continues, “Having to ask ourselves those questions and make those choices has been really fun. And that goes for - what's the character theme for Rebel? What's Loden’s theme? What's the musical cue that brings these characters to life? And, really, is there a signature? And it creates the sonic feeling that you want from those characters. So we handled it with care and it's a really beautiful ending to it. And it's really wonderful to see these characters that have been in Cav's comics and been in the books and see them come to life in other settings and other contexts that are definitely more of a different part of the day-to-day life that's happening in the galaxy.”
Master Maru is a character who’s played a key role in Scott’s High Republic comics. As he reveals, this animated appearance offers a chance to explore other sides of the character that he never really had adequate room for in the comics.
“When we originally invented him for the Marvel comic, he was always supposed to be a teacher. He was always supposed to be someone who had a special relationship with Padawans and Youngling, but just because of the type of story we would tell, we never really had space to show that element of it, to show that side of him,” Scott says. “And so to see these characters moving into other areas, like the Young Jedi Adventures, it gives us the chance to see how they cope in different situations. These characters have been through a lot in the books and the comics. And so it gives us a chance to see how they react and it tells us something more about them that we haven't had the chance to explore. We, as the creators knew those characteristics were there, but we never had the opportunity to show them in the day-to-day life on Starlight or something like that. And it's so fulfilling and so exciting to see it explored in ways like this.”
Eagle-eyed High Republic readers may also spot some additional Easter eggs in these two episodes.
“The rewards are there, that's always my idea of what an Easter egg should be,” Scott says. “It should be just something in there that's there, it doesn't trip the story up. But if you know and you've read... it's just like all of Star Wars. There's those moments that we watch, and if you happen to see in that episode of another show, or you know that old comic from the ‘70s or whatever, it's just that moment of like, ‘Oh, there it is.’ And I think that's the thing we can do with Star Wars. It's so unique now because it has so much history that things just in the background sometimes mean a lot to people. And if you don't know it, it doesn't matter. You still got a great story and you've got something to discover in the future.”
For more on what's coming up in the world of Star Wars, see how the Ahsoka finale sets up Dave Filoni's movie and brush up on every Star Wars movie and series in development.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
