Did you know that this Sunday was Star Wars Day?! The annual occasion where we’re all citizens of that galaxy far, far away allows many to celebrate the creative empire first conjured up by George Lucas back in 1977.
One of the brighter spots on Disney+’s roster of new Star Wars movies and TV series delivered over the past five years, and one we highly recommend, is Star Wars: Visions. This animated anthology was designed to be a sparkling showcase for anime directors to have free-rein in the Star Wars sandbox by telling their own dynamic stories of the Force, Jedi Knights, and Sith Lords.
This article was in celebration of Star Wars Day. For more tech stories about a galaxy far far away, check out all of our Star Wars coverage for all the latest, including where to stream the iconic movies and TV shows. May the force be with you all!
As announced at Star Wars Celebration Japan 2025 last month, Star Wars: Visions will expand its format scope in 2026 with Star Wars: Visions Presents –The Ninth Jedi. This will be in addition to the forthcoming Star Wars: Visions volume 3 landing on October 29, 2025, and will be a limited series. It continues the story of Kara and Juro and their band of masterless Jedi seeking out her kidnapped father and exiled Jedi first seen in Star Wars: Visions Volume 1’s The Ninth Jedi.
Lucasfilm Senior Vice President and Star Wars: Visions executive producer James Waugh was on hand at Star Wars Celebration Japan with The Ninth Jedi’s original writer/director Kenji Kamiyama where some exciting news was revealed about this expansive new project.
“We all really fell in love with the anthological format of Visions and the ability to showcase and introduce the world to so many interesting studios and directors and artists, that if you’re not in the anime scene or not an animation fan, a lot of Star Wars fans hadn’t seen before, masters of the craft,” Waugh tells TechRadar. “What we kept feeling as we were making these was that there was so much more storytelling.”
In that original tale, a young Force-sensitive girl named Kara and her sabersmith father, Zhima, harvest Kyber Crystals to forge new lightsabers for Margrave Juron, the ruler of the outer rim planet Hy Izlan. He’s gathering Jedi to help reform the Jedi Order, but sinister Sith forces are lurking within his gathered candidates. The short introduced the idea of lightsabers changing colors to reflect their users’ true connection to the Force, a notion that will be explored further.
Every time we finished one of the anthologies, the first conversation would be, ‘God, I’d love to expand that story’
James Waugh, Lucasfilm Senior Vice President and Star Wars: Visions executive producer
“Every time we finished one of the anthologies, the first conversation would be, ‘God, I’d love to expand that story,” he adds. “We love the shorts but Kathy [Kennedy] heard that and there was a moment to say, ‘Let’s see what could happen if we expanded this.’ That’s really where Visions Presents comes from. If we could give a bigger canvas to paint on, what would we get? We’ve been so impressed with what Kamiyama and his Production IG team has delivered so far.”
A direct sequel to Kamiyama’s episode, titled The Ninth Jedi: Child of Hope, in one of the best Disney+ shows will be helmed by Naoyoshi Shiotani and premieres on October 29, 2025 as part of Star Wars: Visions volume 3. This will be followed by the ambitious limited series, Star Wars: Visions Presents – The Ninth Jedi next year, for which Kamiyama will act as the show’s supervising director and delve more into the origins of those cool color-shifting lightsabers.
“When it comes to the lightsabers, what was interesting about that is there’s such simplicity in that idea,” Waugh explains. “The lightsaber is the iconic symbol of all things Star Wars and changing the values of the lightsaber is something we weigh heavily, even in a non-canonical setting like Visions. But the easily understandable feeling of that change and it being super rooted in the light and dark of Star Wars felt undeniable.
“Kamiyama in particular really wanted to build that out, and I think we’ll ultimately see it go into the mythos of that a bit more and why that’s the case, where did that come from. It ultimately came down to the simplicity of it. And that was part of George’s [Lucas] brilliance. These were deep complex myths but also easily understood, fairytale-like recognizable concepts. And that’s part of the secret magic of Star Wars.”
Star Wars: Visions volume 3 will premiere on Disney+ on October 29, 2025. WhileThe Ninth Jedi will be released sometime in 2026.
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