Star Wars Roll Out

Back in 2017, Hideo Itoyanagi, a Japanese animator, produced a recap animation of the film Star Wars: The Force Awakens. This was created for the local Japanese audience. The animation featured stylized versions of the movie's characters that were designed to resemble BB-8 in terms of their shape and the way they moved. Kathleen Kennedy, the President of Lucasfilm, became a huge admirer of both the animation and its creator. When she visited Japan in December of 2017 to promote Star Wars: The Last Jedi, she arranged a meeting with Itoyanagi. During this meeting, she requested that he develop original short animations in the same distinctive style as his initial recap.

Itoyanagi aimed to introduce a fresh and innovative element to the animated Star Wars universe. His vision was to create a world that resembled layered, simplistic, caricatured paper cutouts. He also drew parallels between the camera movements and those commonly found in older video games. Expanding upon his original recap shorts, the new animations would leverage the characters' round shapes, tilting motions, spinning actions, and rolling movements to convey the narrative and generate humor.

• Star Wars Roll Out on Disney.co.jp (backup link)
• Star Wars Roll Out, An Adorable New Series of Animated Shorts, Bounces to the Screen – Exclusive on StarWars.com (backup link)
• The Star Wars Show: Secrets of the Jedi and the Star Wars Unknown on the official Star Wars YouTube channel (backup link)
• Star Wars Roll Out Teaser on the official Star Wars Kids YouTube channel (backup link)
• " The Rise of Star Wars Kids " — Star Wars Insider 195
• Adventurous Moments Part 1 | Star Wars Roll Out on the official Star Wars Kids YouTube channel (backup link)

• Star Wars Roll Out on StarWarsKids.com (backup link)