By George & Josh Bate
Adventures from a galaxy far, far away were among those discussed during the star-studded, groundbreaking Disney Entertainment Showcase at this year’s D23: The Ultimate Fan Event. We at Star Wars Holocron and The HoloFiles were live at the event, which featured plenty of new footage from a range of exciting Star Wars stories coming soon. Check out our comprehensive breakdown of all the Star Wars footage and news project-by-project below….
Skeleton Crew
Kicking off the Star Wars portion of the presentation was Jude Law, who was there to promote his upcoming series Skeleton Crew.
Law described the show as a “timeless adventure story in the spirit of the Amblin movies of the ’80s like The Goonies and E.T.” Law expressed that what he loves most about the show is that it is a story told from the perspective of children, something not yet to be seen in such a way in live-action Star Wars stories.
The first trailer for Skeleton Crew premiered at D23 and was released online simultaneously. Check out the trailer below….
Poster art for Skeleton Crew was also revealed and can be seen below….
Andor
Next up was the second and final season of the critically acclaimed Andor. To present info about the show was none other than Cassian Andor himself – Diego Luna.
The ever-charging Luna spoke affectionately to the D23 crowd (in both English and in his native Spanish). Luna reflected on his journey with Cassian to date. “Rogue One changed my life,” he said. “I’ve lived with Cassian Andor for almost 10 years.”
Luna confirmed that Andor Season 2 will take place over four years and will lead right up to the events of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
A trailer for Andor Season 2 was shown to the crowd, mixed in with behind-the-scenes looks and commentary from showrunner Tony Gilroy, Luna, and the rest of the cast. Description of the footage from Andor Season 2 shown at D23 is below….
The footage shown from Andor Season 2 retains the same grounded, gritty feeling that Season 1 evoked. The environments look real. Species other than human are seldom seen. And the tone is appropriately ominous.
Much of the footage appears to take place on Coruscant and features what appears to be an act of rebellion on the planet. Protests from civilians seem to clash with stormtroopers, who fight back with venom. Various shots of Diego Luna in the trailer reveal different looks that his character Cassian Andor will have this season. One particularly memorable shot shows Andor with slicked-back hair, a possible disguise in line with Luthen Rael’s hair-based disguise in Season 1.
Featuring in several sequences of the footage is Wilmon Paak (seen below). The character appears to play a larger role in Season 2, after throwing an explosive at the funeral march for Maarva Andor in the Season 1 finale.
Also returning is, of course, Genevieve O’Reilly as Mon Mothma. Another memorable moment from the trailer depicted a close-up shot of Mothma struggling to hold back tears as if she had just experienced something heartbreaking.
Another returning star is Forest Whitaker, who reprises his role as Saw Gerrera in Season 2.
One of the highlights of the footage was the appearance of Ben Mendelsohn as Orson Krennic, the villain from Rogue One. Krennic looks exactly like he did in Rogue One, which makes sense given the proximity of Andor Season 2 to that film.
The final note of the footage confirmed Alan Tudyk’s return as K-2SO. Some behind-the-scenes clips showed Luna and Tudyk reuniting on the set of Andor, while footage from Season 2 showed Cassian and K-2SO flying a ship together and participating in a dangerous mission side-by-side.
The footage concluded by confirming that Andor Season 2 will hit Disney+ in 2025.
The Mandalorian and Grogu
Rounding out the Star Wars portion of the Disney Entertainment Showcase were Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, who were present to discuss the upcoming movie The Mandalorian and Grogu.
Filoni triumphantly proclaimed to the crowd at D23, “We’re bringing Star Wars back on the big screen.” Indeed, this is the case as The Mandalorian and Grogu will be the first new Star Wars film to hit theaters since The Rise of Skywalker in 2019.
Jon Favreau confirmed that The Mandalorian and Grogu started filming just a few weeks ago, but that he couldn’t present at D23 without showing the crowd some footage. Description of the footage shown from The Mandalorian and Grogu is below….
The footage begins with a highlight reel of various key events from The Mandalorian‘s first three seasons. Din Djarin is seen meeting Grogu for the first time. The two fight off Moff Gideon’s forces together and collaborate in the liberation of Mandalore.
The new footage begins with a look at Mando and Grogu crossing a sandy plain, much like those found on Tatooine. The shot itself evokes very similar imagery from the first ever episode of The Mandalorian, depicting the distanced silhouette of Mando as we walked across a desert. Pedro Pascal’s voice can be heard delivering new lines of dialogue while various shots of Grogu and Din Djarin are presented.
Pascal’s character calls Grogu his “apprentice” and notes that, due to his care of the child, he must be more selective with picking less dangerous bounty hunting jobs. In a comical transition, Mando is then seen taking down a number of bad guys in a high-intensity firefight (not exactly the sort of danger-free mission Mando had in mind for Grogu).
One part of the footage shows Grogu crawling through a tight tunnel.
Also in the trailer is Zeb, the beloved Lasat character introduced in Rebels, who made his live-action debut in The Mandalorian Season 3. Zeb appears to be piloting a ship with Din Djarin in the cockpit. Given Season 3 ended with Din Djarin agreeing to take on work for the New Republic, it makes sense that he and Zeb (who serves the New Republic) are collaborating on a mission. The footage continues with shots of Snow Troopers, who look like they just walked off the set of The Empire Strikes Back. That wasn’t the only Empire Strikes Back reference in this trailer as Din and Grogu find themselves on a snowy planet, which looks suspiciously like Hoth. The two are seen riding a walker down a steep snowy hill before running into massive AT-ATs coming there way.
The final shot of the footage shows Grogu in a cockpit with two Anzellans (the same species as Babu Frik). Grogu had some adorable interactions with these little creatures in Season 3 of The Mandalorian, and it appears these little guys will feature together on the big screen soon.
The footage concluded by confirming that the film will hit theaters in May 2026. May is a busy month for Pascal as he not only plays one of the titular characters in The Mandalorian and Grogu, but he will also appear in Avengers: Doomsday releasing that same month,
The scale of the footage shown was remarkable and definitely dispels concerns about The Mandalorian soon making the transition from small screen to movie theaters. Out of everything we saw at D23, The Mandalorian and Grogu footage was our highlight.