Well, this has come a little out of left-field. A series of new animated Star Wars shorts are launching online tomorrow!

Titled Star Wars Galaxy of Adventures, this series will air this Friday on the new portal at lol.disney.com and on a special YouTube channel for Star Wars Kids.

There’s no details on the creative team behind these shorts at this point, but an official Lucasfilm statement has the material pegged as “fun and educational add-ons designed to help older fans, parents, and other mentors to welcome the kids in their lives to explore the galaxy far, far away.” 

Basically, it appears that these shorts are designed as entry points for younger viewers, a way to highlight the key parts of the previous movies in bite-size chunks.

On this news, Lucasfilm’s James Waugh enthused, “With Galaxy of Adventures, we wanted to craft something that allowed parents to help their kids take their first step into a much larger world whether they were ready to show their kids the films or wanted to find new ways to explore the content.”

Be sure to check the hugely fun new trailer for this project:

Star Wars Galaxy of Adventures will act as the beginning of a year-long Lucasfilm plan to celebrate all things Star Wars – culminating, of course, with Star Wars: Episode IX hitting cinemas in December 2019.