Report: Lucasfilm Goes All-In on The Ninth Jedi, a Bigger Swing Than Star Wars: Visions
Star Wars goes full anime at last, with its first full-on series lightspeeding toward release soon.
One of the best Star Wars: Visions shorts is graduating to its own show. The Ninth Jedi is getting turned into a limited series at Disney Plus, with Lucasfilm moving from cheerleader to full-on dance partner on this one.
What is The Ninth Jedi again?
The original short dropped in 2021 and takes place way, way out there on the timeline — roughly a thousand years after The Rise of Skywalker. The Jedi are basically a rumor at this point. A master sabersmith named Lah Zhima builds six lightsabers to help bring the Order back, but the Sith grab him before he can finish what he started. His daughter, Kara, snatches the sabers and heads out to find any Jedi she can to help rescue her dad. It felt like a pilot even then — a big universe, a clear mission, and a cliffhanger that begged for more.
How we got from short to series
Per Polygon, Lucasfilm loved what Production I.G and director Kenji Kamiyama did with The Ninth Jedi and its follow-up short, The Ninth Jedi: Child of Hope (more on that in a second). Josh Rimes — Visions executive producer and Lucasfilm vice president for animation development and production — says the studio is much more hands-on this time, helping shape the series from early pitches through design and production. He also called it their first full-on anime series set in the Star Wars universe.
"The first full on anime Star Wars series."
Rimes also said the initial short felt huge in scope, and that conversations with Kamiyama and Production I.G naturally evolved into this series. They were especially into Kara’s dual goals — find her father and try to restore the Jedi — and how those two missions could overlap or collide. That angle is a great hook.
Where the sequel short fits
Child of Hope picks up less than a year later and is bundled into Visions Volume 3, which released on October 29. In it, Kara gets hit with an attack she did not see coming and ends up literally pulled into space. Subtle, it is not.
The basics, at a glance
- What: The Ninth Jedi limited series
- Where: Disney Plus
- When: 2026
- Who: Director Kenji Kamiyama and studio Production I.G, with Lucasfilm taking a bigger production role than it had on the shorts
- Premise: Set 1,000 years after The Rise of Skywalker; sabersmith Lah Zhima builds six lightsabers to revive the Jedi before the Sith capture him; his daughter Kara embarks on a quest to rescue him and rebuild the Order
- Catch-up: The sequel short, The Ninth Jedi: Child of Hope, is in Visions Volume 3 (released October 29) and takes place less than a year after the first short
Production is underway now, and based on how confident everyone sounds, Lucasfilm clearly sees this as more than a one-off experiment. Honestly, that tracks. The Ninth Jedi was the breakout of Visions for a reason.