TV Review: The Younglings Return to Batuu and Combat Evil Droids in "Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures" Season 3
Today saw the debut of the third and final season of Lucasfilm's animated series Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures on Disney+, with the new season also airing on Disney Jr. Below are my thoughts on this last batch of episodes.
In the interest of full disclosure right here at the beginning of this review, I want to confess that I have not seen all 55 half-hour episodes of Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures. I did watch most of the first season around the show's launch in 2023, then skipped a whole bunch in the middle (except for the episodes set on the planet Batuu from Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge-- I had to catch those) and then today I sat down and took in all seven installments in the final season. Though I consider myself a huge Star Wars fan, at 45 years old I am definitely not the target demographic for this series, which to my understanding is aimed at viewers ages 3 to 8. I don't know if I'll ever go back and watch the episodes that I missed on my own, but I have and still would recommend the series to parents with young children who have shown an interest in the franchise.
In the abbreviated third season of Young Jedi Adventures, the main Jedi Youngling characters of Kai Brightstar (now voiced by Ja'Siah Young from Raising Dion-- the third actor to perform the lead role), Lys Solay (Juliet Donnenfeld), and Nubs (Dee Bradley Baker) are back, along with their pilot friend Nash Durango (Emma Berman), her droid RJ-83 (Jonathan Lipow), and numerous other recurring characters. There's also a new villain named Rek Minuu (Mason Wertheimer from Pixar's Elemental) who gives the season a very droid-centric arc, considering he functions as a devious tinkerer of the mechanical beings who inhabit the Star Wars galaxy.
Rek's emergences comes just as the right time, as the previous villain Taborr, AKA Cyrus Vuundir (Trey Murphy) is beginning to turn a corner as a foil for the young Jedi characters-- let's say there's more than one uneasy alliance formed over the course of these seven episodes. So we get plenty of droid action-- with the narrative threat of the series finale closely resembling the recent Dark Droids arc in Marvel's Star Wars comic books-- but our heroes also return to Batuu for a mission, help out a few different alien musicians here and there, visit Naboo from Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, and reunite with the characters of Raxlo (Haley Joel Osment) and Bulcha the Hutt (Jason Mantzoukas) from previous seasons.
As has been the case since the beginning of the show, what parents will appreciate most about Young Jedi Adventures in its final go-round are its themes of cooperation, helping others, and general acts of kindness as these kids travel the galaxy encountering mild dangers and learning a variety of lessons before they graduate into full-fledged Padawan learners. There's a coda to the finale that gives us a taste of what happens after that-- which was already teased in the trailer for this season, so I don't consider its existence a major spoiler-- and because of the series' viewership I think you can guess that it ends on an extremely positive, optimistic note for the future. Even though there may have been larger, more oppressive things (such as the Jedi Order's war with the Nihil) going on in the galaxy in this period of The High Republic, they are not mentioned here, nor did I really expect them to be.
Season 3 also has its share of the exciting action and age-appropriate humor that have become associated with Young Jedi Adventures, and all told, I still believe that Disney and Lucasfilm's goal with creating this series was to foster a new generation of Star Wars fans through the use of those reliable tools. I truly hope it has successfully done that, but even if kids who have watched the show don't grow up to become die-hard devotees of the franchise themselves, I'd say they've probably walked away with some encouraging messages of redemption, striving to be a good person, and the reinforcement of the idea that no matter where life takes you, you can always count on your friends.
The complete series of Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures is now available to stream via Disney+, with the new episodes from season three also debuting daily on Disney Jr.
