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Star Wars Resistance director teases Season 2: 'You'll see all kinds of new characters'
A few members of the Star Wars animation team united at Keystone Comic Con in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to talk about how the cartoon versions of the galaxy far, far away help fill in the gaps and unanswered questions left by the live-action films. Among the panelists was Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, voice of Governor Pryce on Star Wars Rebels and a voice director for Star Wars Resistance, where she also plays the droid known as 4D-M1N. The latter series is set to end with its second season, which premieres on Disney XD Sunday, Oct. 6.
“We have a new Hutt on the show that does actually speak English," McGlynn said at a Star Wars-themed panel (which SYFY WIRE attended Friday), teasing Season 2. "You’ll see all kinds of new characters."
She was joined by Steve Blum (Zeb Orrelios) and Fred Tatasciore (Boss Yushyn), who helped break down some of Lucasfilm's anti-spoiler methods. For instance, when McGlynn and Blum auditioned for Rebels, they were never told the name of the project, which was cryptically referred to as "Wolf." Even the scripts were shrouded in mystery with lightsabers and the Force re-named "light sword" and "the Knowledge." When Blum actually saw the word "Stormtrooper" during an audition in England, however, he squealed with geeky joy.
"That excitement never stopped … I still felt the same hairs on the back of my neck stand up," he said, talking about the first time he saw A New Hope in theaters back in 1977 and how the franchise will probably live forever. “I saw this movie and it gave me something to care about … To get to work on a piece of Star Wars canon [that fills in the story], is just an incredible humbling honor to be a part of that ... Star Wars is just one of those things. There’s a reverence and responsibility to the franchise to give everything that I have."
“There’s nothing like being part of something that’s a bridge between two times," added McGlynn. "To be a part of a culturally-connective tissue … To be just a tiny part of that, you’ve got to treat it with respect."
And as uptight as Lucasfilm/Disney can be about spoilers, they're pretty easy-going when you're speaking an alien language in the recording booth. Unless certain words have been established before, you can be as crazy, wild, and imaginative as you want.
“They’re pretty open," explained Tatasciore, who has voiced everyone from Roos Tarpals, to Darth Vader, to Qui-Gon Jinn. In particular, he was discussing how he was once given a blank check to improvise dialogue in Shyriiwook, the ululating native language of the Wookiees.
Rebels' sister series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, will return for a seventh season of 12 additional episodes on Disney+.
