Many rebels died bringing padawans everywhere and their fathers this message: Star Wars Rebels, the brand-new animation TV series set in that galaxy far, far away will start on Disney XD (DStv 304) on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform in South Africa and the rest of Africa on Saturday 11 October at 09:20 as a double-episode, one hour TV movie.
Star Wars Rebels (the double-episode movie is entitled Star Wars Rebels: Spark of the Rebellion) will repeat on the Disney Channel (DStv 303) on Friday 17 October at 17:00.
After that the first season's episodes will roll out with one episode from Saturday 18 October at 09:20 on Disney XD.
Where South African viewers had to wait over a year every time for seasons of Star Wars: The Clone Wars to finally unspool on Turner Broadcasting's The Cartoon Network (DStv 301), the new Star Wars Rebels will be broadcast in South Africa and Africa nearly instantaneously as part of a global roll-out of the show by Disney and LucasFilm.
Star Wars Rebels is set between the movies of Episode III and Episode IV and will look stylistically very much like the very first, original Star Wars movie.
The new animation show, the precursor to a live action Star Wars TV drama still to come, starts with the teenager Ezra on a remote planet who has to fend for himself.
Ezra quickly meets up with the motley crew of the starship Ghost (imagine Han Solo before Han Solo) like Kanan (who is actually secretly a Jedi at a time when the Jedi have been eradicated by the Empire all across the galaxy), and an assortment of other characters.
They're going to be pursued by a new evil character, the Inquisitor, as they experience adventures across the galaxy and as viewers are filled in on more of the background events, and get an inkling of how the Rebel Alliance was eventually formed.
Star Wars Rebels is created by Dave Filoni who also did Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
