Disney clearly knows what it’s doing when it comes to making announcements: Waiting until the hype builds for Star Wars Day — not to mention the forthcoming Solo: A Star Wars Story — and reveals a new animated series set in the Star Wars universe. Smart move, Disney.
Star Wars: Resistance will premiere on the Disney Channel this fall, then air regularly on Disney XD — presumably to fill the void left by the recently concluded Star Wars Rebels, which aired on Disney XD for four seasons. According to Disney, the “anime-inspired” show will be set before the events of 2015’s Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, focusing on a young Resistance pilot/spy named Kazuda Xiono, who is tasked to keep tabs on the progress of the villainous First Order.
The series’ voice cast features a lengthy list of recognizable names, including Bobby Moynihan (Saturday Night Live), Donald Faison (Scrubs), Jim Rash (Community), and more. Disney promises cameo appearances from main-series characters like Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) and Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie), and it looks like popular droid BB-8 will factor in as a major character.
The series was created by Lucasfilm Animation’s Dave Filoni (Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars: Rebels), who ideated the plot with inspiration from the story of his own grandfather, who was a World War II fighter pilot and a plane mechanic. “That [was] a big influence on me,” he told Disney. “There’s a long history of high-speed racing in Star Wars, and I think we’ve captured that sense of excitement in an anime-inspired style, which is something the entire team has been wanting to do for a long time.” Every executive producer on the series (save one) and the art director worked on both Clone Wars and Rebels, so if you enjoyed those series, chances are good that Resistance will be right up your alley.
Resistance isn’t the only Star Wars series on the way, either. In March, Disney and Lucasfilm revealed a live-action show in the works from Jon Favreau (The Jungle Book), who provided voice work for Clone Wars and directed the first two Iron Man films. That series will be headed directly for Disney’s streaming video platform, which is expected to launch in 2019.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.