The Big Picture

The High Republic is being expanded to the screen with the animated series Young Jedi Adventures, catering to a younger audience. The writers aim to showcase the goodness of the Jedi Order and the potential growth of young Jedi, providing an excellent opportunity for young viewers. Bringing Star Wars and The High Republic to a new demographic has been a fun experience, with the challenge of balancing adventure and social-emotional learning.

For nearly three years, Star Wars fans have been engrossed in The High Republic, a publishing initiative spanning books and comics, and even making an appearance in the video game Jedi: Survivor. Set centuries before The Phantom Menace, The High Republic follows the Jedi Order at their peak, and in a time of great upheaval. Given how popular the series is, it was only a matter of time before it expanded to the screen as well. While the upcoming live-action series The Acolyte is geared to an older audience, younger viewers (and the young at heart) have been enjoying the animated Young Jedi Adventures, which follows a group of younglings training on the planet of Tenoo.

In this new interview with Collider’s Arezou Amin, writers Katie Kaniewski and Cavan Scott talk about their episodes “Stuck in the Muck” and “Charhound Chase” that introduce The High Republic characters Estala Maru, Loden Greatstorm, and Bell Zettifar to the world of Young Jedi Adventures. They also talk about their inspirations for their episodes, and Scott gives an ominous tease for his next issue of the High Republic Marvel comic.

COLLIDER: Katie, you have written quite a few episodes now of Young Jedi Adventures. What has this experience been like for you, bringing Star Wars and The High Republic to a whole new demographic and audience?

KATIE KANIEWSKI: Yeah. I mean It’s nice because The High Republic is new to everyone, I guess, so everybody gets to jump in and have fun at the same time. But bringing it to a new generatio has been fun, especially because it’s kind of the DNA of this show, it’s an entry point for young audiences. And so, especially with this being a time of expansion and exploration and peak Jedi, it feels so appropriate for a younger audience. This is what we want the Jedi to be, this is we want the order to mean, and be for others and And so I think it’s an excellent opportunity to just showcase, for lack of a better description, the goodness of the Jedi Order, and just what it could be, and what these young people could grow up to be one day and to be able to share those things with the young audience has been really, really special and lovely.

Image via Disney+

Star Wars is obviously very adventure-based, a lot of the shows are very plot-heavy, lore-heavy. But younger audience programming also has that social-emotional lesson component to it. So as a writer, how do you bridge the two? Do you find it lends itself naturally to that?

KANIEWSKI: In my experience, preschool or just younger things in general, aren’t as lore heavy. They just aren’t a serialized as other things. So that’s been a unique challenge for us to kind of pepper things in, but not be like “this is lore now!” kind of stuff all the time. But when we’re looking for themes and stuff, I’m a big proponent of just digging up my own experiences, and things that I struggled with, and noticed when I was a kid, very early on in the development process for the show.

As a writer’s room, we talked about the things that we remembered as a kid and learnings that we remembered as a kid. So I’ve definitely on many an occasion examined the things that stand out to me as a kid when I was the Younglings age, as far as things that were hard for me, things that were easier for me, things I remember about my friends back then, and the different connections that I had. So that’s where I dig up a lot of my stuff.

Going to your newest episode, “Stuck in the Muck.” It’s got Master Maru, and it’s got the Starlight Beacon, so I want to know how this book-to-series crossover event came about.

KANIEWSKI: When we do get to do serialized stuff, not a whole lot, but when we’re thinking of the season, and where we want to go, and what we want to see in the season as a whole, we knew we wanted to go to Starlight and I was given the honor and the privilege of introducing Starlight to the Younglings. We broke this episode with Starlight being this kind of golden egg at the end of it, like “we got to get there because it’s the coolest place ever, coolest space station ever. And so Kai’s excitement for that was what we wanted to thread through the entire thing. Obviously, he’s very excited to go and gets an over his head because he is so excited to go.

But when we finally got them there physically, when they arrived see it, I remember writing the scene going “oh God, this is the place. This is it. They’re here, it has to be this big majestic beautiful moment for them.” So when I wrote “Interior – Starlight Beacon – Day,” I was like, “wow, they’re here.” They got to walk into this big atrium and sit in the majesty and grandeur that I got from the books when I was reading about Starlight, so I got to sit in that for a second, which was really nice.

And then with Maru. It was so cool. It was like, who are they gonna see when they show up? They’re bringing this gift for presumably the museum-type installations that are at Starlight. So who would receive this little tree from Tenoo? It was so cool to be like “It’s Maru, he’s standing at the top of the stairs. He knew they were coming. He’s got this place on lock. He knows everything.” And the fact that Liam O’Brien gets to voice him, me as a Critical Role fan was like, “this is exactly what I wanted out of this entire situation.” And he got to be so warm, and just present with the Younglings, even though we know he’s got a million things on his plate at any given time and just has to have everything on lock so efficiently, so that was really fun to create that space for him.

He knew they were running late. He knew they were going to come later.

KANIEWSKI: He got it somehow, he knew.

Image via Disney+

I know the timeline of TV is a bit longer, you obviously started working on this before we even knew it was coming. But were you a High Republic fan prior to joining Young Jedi Adventures, or was it like “I am joining the series I’m gonna play catch-up now”?

KANIEWSKI: A little bit of both. To your point of the timing of everything, it felt simultaneous to me. I’ve read a smattering of the publishing books over the years, things that probably aren’t even canon anymore. But I really got to dig into the High Republic books more, which was a true joy. I had Light of the Jedi open while I was writing that scene being like, “what did they say? Okay cool.” Going back and forth and trying to remember that majesty that I felt when I was reading those introductory chapters to Starlight, and then trying to transcribe that onto the page.

Just anecdotally, the fan reaction I saw when we realized we’d be seeing Starlight on screen, from people who are decades older than the Young Jedi Adventures audience, but who, like me are watching it, had you anticipated that level of reaction?

KANIEWSKI: I don’t know if anticipate is the right word. But desired, yes absolutely. To me, the show is engineered to be for a younger audience, but I get true joy out of watching my parents watch the show and being like “oh my God it’s Star Wars” like “yes guys, it’s Star Wars all the time. It doesn’t matter how old or young it is.” And the fact that the kids get to experience Starlight, and seeing the adults act like kids in their reactions. That was definitely the desired effect because I have such wonder and joy about Star Wars in all things no matter how old I am. I’m just as excited as I was the first time, so that’s really beautiful.

What would you say for you is the biggest challenge in taking these established concepts and bringing them to life in this series?

KANIEWSKI: It’s definitely “with great power comes great responsibility” of it. Pardon the quote from those other people. [Laughs]. But yeah, it’s so much. Every once in a while, I’ll be writing an episode, I will just go like “holy moly, this is Star Wars. This has gotta be right. This has got to be at the level.” So the greatest challenge sometimes is myself, just like getting over myself and getting over the inner child in myself, but also the professional in myself going “you have to be at the top of your game, and you have to do this right.” Which could probably be a theme of one of our episodes, maybe, probably, at some point.

So I find that the biggest esoteric challenge, but thankfully, our writing team and our executive team at Lucasfilm makes it… I don’t want to say easy, but easier to sit in the responsibility of that, but also make things make sense in the larger storytelling too, so as far as doing it justice, but also making sure the characters sound right. Like for Maru, he is everywhere, he is doing all these things, but he is present with the kids, and we wanted to play that a certain way, so they help refine those voices. And so whatever challenges and responsibility you have, you have support, which I infinitely appreciate and makes it all easy and fun.

Image via Lucasfilm

We kind of touched on this sort of all over but what is it you think that makes Young Jedi Adventures such a special entry into the Star Wars galaxy.

KANIEWSKI: How much time do you have?

I got all afternoon.

KANIEWSKI: To what I said before, it is this time period that is new for everyone. So that definitely makes it nice, because knowing all the lore that we know only enhances the experience. But you don’t necessarily need to know everything else before to get the impact of everything. For example, we know Yoda to be Yoda, obviously. In the pilot, when Kai gets the saber from him we as adults are like “whoa, that is the greatest honor and you who this guy is?” and Kai’ like “I do because I’m a nerd and I know Jedi Masters and stuff.” But even if you don’t know who Yoda or Grogu is, as a kid, you get that this person is this force of wisdom

and experience.

We work really hard to be able to have entry points for people who might not know. I love when Nash is like “what does that mean?” or “Is that what the force does?” It’s great to be able to voice those things for a new audience. I’ve always been in love with action-adventure everything, so to be able to have a show that sits in that action, and fun that “feels like Star Wars,” that really specific swashbuckle adventure feel, to have that in a preschool series, in a young series that they let us have lightsabers, they get to go on big adventures just feels so special. So I think that’s one of the big things for me too, is to not shy away from the thing that makes it feel like Star Wars cinematically and tone-wise I find really special. Our kids are just so great. Our younglings are just so special and important to me. So they’re up there as far as the most special things, as people and as characters. I just love them so much.

You talk about things feeling like Star Wars, so I’m just curious. Were there elements of the story, like other books, shows, movies, whatever that you felt you were drawing inspiration from, both within Star Wars and outside of it?

KANIEWSKI: What’s really weird for me, and this goes back when I sit down to write something like “with great power…” is that for me as a creator, a writer in this moment, Lucasfilm is so deep in my psyche. I saw Star Wars and Indiana Jones very early in life and those two things are like all I’ve ever wanted to make. I write action-adventure. I’ve always written action-adventure and when I look at stuff that is mine, even apart from Star Wars I draw inspiration from those franchises. And so to sit in this, and to then feed that back into the thing that I was inspired by, it’s this weird cyclical loop for me. I am drawing inspiration from the thing that gave to me as a kid and I’m giving back to that same thing. So the inspiration is obviously the thing itself, Star Wars. But yeah, it’s a really wordy way to say I’m just a big old nerd. It’s a feedback loop for sure, for things that are deep within my childhood psyche.

To wrap this up as purely for fun hypothetical question: If you could pull another character or setting from The High Republic and bring it over to Young Jedi Adventures. What would you do?

KANIEWSKI: Geode. Done. The rock guy. And you think of Nubs versus Geode, can you imagine what that would be? Comedy gold. I just think that would be really silly. I understand that it would be hard for us. I don’t know if that would be a thing that we could do, but giant rock guy versus Nubs. I don’t know.

I think yeah, Nubs is there, and the cameras looking this way and it pans back and Geode is just there.

KANIEWSKI: This is what I’m saying!

Cavan, jumping right into your episode of Young Jedi Adventures that just came out. These characters have lived on the page for so long. What is it like for you, seeing them come to life in a new medium like this?

CAVAN SCOTT: It’s incredible. I mean, we had no idea when we started this, that there was even going to be anything on screen in The High Republic. And then when Young Jedi Adventures was announced and we found out about it slightly beforehand, we thought, “well, that’s gonna be its own thing, but it’s gonna be cool. We’re gonna see Jedi in the white robes, we’re gonna see vectors.” But we never even imagined that our own characters will be making the leap from the page, and they’ll be going to Starlight Beacon and all that kind of stuff. It was incredible.

Image credit: Disney/Lucasfilm

Your episode, “Charhound Chase,” has Bell and Loden in it, and I know the whole High Republic process is fairly symbiotic, everybody’s working together, but I’m curious how their appearance in the show came about. Did the Luminous team approach the Young Jedi team? Did they approach you? How did that come about?

SCOTT: So, Lucasfilm knew that I’d been working in animation recently alongside my work on The High Republic. James Waugh, one of the producers, put me in touch with the team and we got to talking, and they asked me to pitch a number of ideas for the show. I immediately went back and said, “well, can some of those ideas include the character from the books?” And they apparently were expecting me to ask this, and wanted me to ask that. So they said yes.

They asked me for about, I think 10 ideas. Half of them to be including The High Republic characters, and half to be original. I think I put about three in with Bell and Loden to try and stack the deck. And, yeah, they went for that one. So I was really pleased.

You’ve worked in comics, and novels, and audio dramas, and animation as you just said. But working with these same characters across these two mediums, what for you was the biggest challenge in making that jump?

SCOTT: It wasn’t so much a challenge, but there was a joy in letting them be happy. This was a chance where these characters could be seen as Jedi with no Nihil around the corner, with no Republic Fair fair looming. This was a chance to just show them. Especially Bell. That was what I really wanted to do. As soon as I heard about Kai, and saw the first descriptions of the character, I knew that if they could, the two should meet because I knew there would be something special there. And I wanted to give Bell the chance to stand on his own two feet, and show what kind of Jedi he will become in the future, and the Jedi that he is now. So it was a chancefor the Padawan to become the teacher for a while, and to show some of those lessons that he’s received from his own master, from Loden. I think that was the most important thing of all of it, was just having them have chance to relax and be Jedi in peaceful surroundings.

Image credit: Disney/Lucasfilm

So it’s kind of refreshing to get to do this slice of life story instead of imminent chaos.

SCOTT: Yeah, exactly.

I spoke to the show runners when the show launched, talking about what it’s like knowing that this show is basically some people’s introduction to Star Wars as a whole. So now with you have been on the publishing initiative side for so long, what is it like knowing this might be somebody’s introduction to The High Republic?

SCOTT: Oh, it’s incredible. I think from a publishing point of view, I’ve always counted it very special to be working on this because I was introduced to Star Wars by the comic originally. Long before I saw the film, when I was a kid back in the ‘70s, I read the Marvel comic. So that was my introduction, my first step into a larger world if you will. I always think it’s vitally important to have to make sure that every moment that Star Wars is important, because it’s always gonna be someone’s first step into Star Wars, into the galaxy far, far away. But for an entire generation of kids, their introduction will be The High Republic, which is so humbling.

I know from my own children, I have two daughters now, 17 and 15, so they’re a bit older, but they got into Star Wars with the first season of Rebels, and they were just at the right age. I tried for years to get them into Star Wars and failed completely. And then they discovered Rebels on their own, and they called me into the lounge and said, “dad, is that this that Star Wars thing?” And I said “this is the most Star Wars thing I’ve seen in years.” They were just to the right age to get totally entranced by Rebels and we watched it every week as a family. Then Rey came along, the sequels came along, and that was their Star Wars. My eldest is 17 and still has Daisy Ridley on her wall. To her, that’s her Luke.

And so it blows me away that we have this franchise where there are so many entry points. For me growing up, it was Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie. For another generation, it was Anakin, Obi-Wan. Now we have all these generations coming out to have their own entry points. And again, as I said earlier on, that’s the importance, that’s why you have to put so much time and effort into them, because there’s always gonna be someone taking that first step, and yeah for them to come into The High Republic first of all, that’s amazing.

Image via Disney+

I have to ask a very selfish High Republic question, as a big reader. Your comic run for Phase III has just started, the first issue just came out. For the second issue coming, can you tease it in three words?

SCOTT: In three words…I’ve got to think back, because that was a long time ago for me. I’m now on issue eight, I’m working on issue eight. So issue two…Issue two is: Revelations. Betrayal, Survival.

Excellent, terrifying, ominous, but that’s what we love to hear in The High Republic. So, as we wrap up, as a hypothetical wish fulfillment thing, if you could pitch another episode, bringing a different character from The High Republic into Young Jedi Adventures, who would that character be, and what would they be doing?

SCOTT: I can’t tell you what they’ll be doing because I might want to pitch this one day, but Sskeer. Every day. Sskeer. Sskeer. Sskeer. Sskeer. With two arms. Yeah, he’d be in there because again, I’d love to see how he reacts, reacts to the kids. When we had the episode with Maru, and when they went to Starlight Beacon — at that point, my head was exploding when I heard the words on the screen for the first time — but Maru, the whole idea of him was that he would be very gruff and very sarcastic but would be great with kids. And we had all these plans that unfortunately we just didn’t have the space for, that we would see him with Younglings, and now we’ve seen him with Younglings, and now every Jedi Master I’ve invented, I want to see with Younglings, because I think that’s when you see them at their most Jedi.

Young Jedi Adventures is streaming now on Disney+

Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures Release Date May 4, 2023 Cast Dee Bradley Baker, Juliet Donenfeld, Emma Berman, Jonathan Lipow Main Genre Animation Genres Animation, Action, Adventure Rating TV-Y Seasons 1
Watch on Disney+