How Star Wars Resistance Changes With Season 2

WARNING: The following contains spoilers for the first season of Star Wars Resistance.

Star Wars Resistance has explored a new corner of the galaxy far, far away, as it tells the story of Kaz, a New Republic pilot recruited by the Resistance to spy on the First Order. Set primarily on the mobile aircraft refueling station Colossus, on the ocean planet Castilon, the animated series adds another facet to the events of the current film trilogy.

But with the second, and final, season, premiering Sunday, Oct. 6, on Disney Channel, the scope of Resistance broadens in the lead-up to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. During an interview with CBR and other media outlets, Star Wars Resistance executive producers Athena Portillo, Justin Ridge and Brandon Auman revealed the biggest changes from the first season to the second.

The characters in Star Wars Resistance stand together in a hangar

"In [the first season], we're in [one location], you only have your issues with the First Order," he said. "But now they're in space, they're on the run, they don't know where they're going or who they're going to run into." Auman added the entire second season is "bigger, more epic, more action, more adventure. We really focused on character development in the first season... and now the stakes are just through the roof."

This season is also Resistance's last, which the executive producers say was the plan all along. "We developed the roadmap from the very beginning," Portillo said. "It takes about a year to put the writer's conference together and into production. Rise of Skywalker is finishing up the saga. So we always meet with the Star Wars story group to make sure we're still within continuity or making sure we're not messing with [J.J. Abrams] or [Dave Filoni's] vision."

"It just made sense for us, timeline-wise," Ridge noted," to end along with Rise of Skywalker."

But just because the series is ending doesn't mean the creators haven't considered how'd they want to return to this corner of the universe. "We were just talking about that in terms of everyone having a backstory which we would love to explore," Portillo said.

"We have so many characters with so many stories, we could do so much," Ridge added.

Season 2 brings Tam into the First Order, which Ridge views as one of the more important character beats. "We had to feel like Tam would make that decision," he said. "If she made it superficially or if the audience didn't buy it, it wouldn't work. But with her background of the Empire back in the day, she's like 'these re just police officers'. They're just keeping enforcing the shady types out there, and she can get behind it. And then Tierny being manipulative and her personality, it was very important to us to feel like Tam could buy into this."

Auman expanded on how for Tam, becoming a part of the First Order helped her become a more relatable piece of her development for the season. "If you think about the world today, people will justify a lot of evil or something that has evil behind it, with a thumbs up," he said. "So it's not like that difficult to see how people can be swayed into a mindset."

"She was lied to, she was hurt, ever since Kaz arrived it's just been all lies," Auman said. "And she's devastated by that. If you've been manipulated all this time and being held down, then she has Tierny saying she'll get to become a pilot."

Returning to Disney Channel on Sunday, Oct. 6, at 10 p.m. ET/PT, Star Wars Resistance stars Christopher Sean as Kazuda Xiono, Suzie McGrath as Tam Ryvora, Scott Lawrence as Jarek Yeager; Myrna Velasco as Torra Doza, Josh Brener as Neeku Vozo, Donald Faison as Hype Fazon, Elijah Wood as Rucklin, Jim Rash and Bobby Moynihan as Flix and Orka, Liam McIntyre as Commander Pyre, Jason Hightower as Captain Doza, Gwendoline Christie as Captain Phasma and Sumalee Montano as Agent Tierny. Also joining the cast are for Season 2 are Joe Manganiello as Ax Tagrin, Daveed Diggs as Norath Kev, Matthew Wood as Kylo Ren and Lucy Lawless as the Aeosian Queen.

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