Fans won’t have too much longer to wait for the Star Wars Rebels season 2 premiere, which is scheduled for early summer.
The new season will debut on Saturday, June 20 at 9:00 p.m. with an hour long episode, titled “The Siege of Lothal.” Regular episodes of Star Wars Rebels season 2 will resume airing in the fall.
The premiere was screened earlier this month at Star Wars Celebration Anaheim, and garnered enthusiastic reviews from lucky fans in attendance. A richly detailed trailer for the Star Wars Rebels season 2 premiere also debuted at the convention.
The preview makes it clear that this upcoming season is certain to offer drama, laughter, and familiar faces — of both the good and evil variety.
Front and center among the returning characters is Darth Vader, who will be voiced by the gold-standard James Earl Jones. As if that weren’t ominous enough, Sam Witwer will provide the voice of Emperor Palpatine, the Big Bad of the Star Wars universe.
Related: Sarah Michelle Gellar joins Star Wars Rebels season 2
On the side of light, Ashley Eckstein will continue to reprise her role as Anakin Skywalker’s former padawan and current Rebel leader, Ahsoka Tano. Other familiar faces from the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series — such as the Clone Captain Rex and pirate Hondo Ohnaka — will return as well.
With all of the excitement leading up to Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, it’s all the more thrilling to see the further adventures of plucky Ghost crew. And with season 2 scheduled to include almost twice as many episodes as season 1, there’s no telling just how close the action of Star Wars Rebels might come to what we see in the live-action trilogy.