Disney has released the official schedule for its highly anticipated "Star Wars Rebels" TV series, including premiere dates for both the one-hour pilot and the first regular air date for the weekly show.
The one-hour pilot, which carries the newly-announced title "Spark of Rebellion," will enjoy several premieres across various networks and services. The first to see it will be on-demand viewers. Users of WatchDisneyXD.com, an on-demand service that works with select local cable providers, can watch it from smartphones and tablets starting Monday, September 29, 2014. Disney Channel Video On Demand users will be able to see it then as well.
TV viewers will get their first chance to see it when the one-hour debut premieres on Disney Channel. It will screen on Disney on Friday, October 3 at 9:00 pm EST/PST. Disney XD VOD will get it the next day, and you'll also be able to buy it that day from iTunes, Amazon, and Google Play. Finally, on Monday, October 6, "Spark of Rebellion" makes its Disney XD debut, which is the channel where the series itself will be regularly broadcast.
Wasting no time to capitalize on the Star Wars excitement, "Star Wars Rebels: Spark of Rebellion" will be available to own on DVD on October 14. (There's no word yet on a Blu-ray release.) The DVD will come with a 3D model of the Ghost, the four "Rebels" short films that are premiering online prior to the show's launch, and a behind-the-scenes documentary that goes inside the show and promises some hints about what's to come in the first season.
Meanwhile, on Monday, October 13, "Star Wars Rebels" makes its series premiere on Disney XD, where it will air weekly at 9:pm EST/PST. The series will be broadcast in 34 languages throughout 163 countries worldwide, reaching more than 400 million households.
Excitement for the series is reaching a fever pitch, as "Rebels" represents the first Star Wars material produced after Disney's purchase of Lucasfilm in 2012. A positive reception (aka, high ratings) could bode well for Disney's planned annual big-screen releases. Those films will kick off Christmas 2015 with J.J. Abrams' "Star Wars: Episode VII," which is currently in production in England.
"Star Wars Rebels" is set five years before "A New Hope," when the Empire rules the galaxy with an iron fist. The small crew of the starship Ghost sets out to push back against the Empire's control, igniting a full-on Rebellion in the process. They include "Jedi cowboy" Kanan, pilot Hera, Force-sensitive teen Ezra, alien muscle Zeb, artist/warrior Sabine and a grumpy astromech droid named Chopper. Along the way, they'll encounter a deadly Sith adversary named the Inquisitor, whose mission is to stamp out any spark of rebellion before it becomes a flame.
The show is created by Dave Filoni (who served as showrunner on "Star Wars: The Clone Wars"), big-screen script writer Simon Kinberg ("X-Men: Days of Future Past," "Sherlock Holmes") and the previously credit-less Carrie Beck.
