When Star Wars' Maz Kanata Will Finally Show Up On Forces Of Destiny

star wars the force awakens maz kanata

Star Wars has come to the small screen in a brand new way thanks to the Forces of Destiny project. Designed to showcase the many heroines of the Star Wars universe, Forces of Destiny is a series of animated shorts that give viewers bite-sized adventures from legendary characters. Maz Kanata was announced as one of the characters who would appear in Forces of Destiny, but viewers haven't seen her just yet. Fortunately, Star Wars: Forces of Destiny writer Jennifer Muro spoke with CinemaBlend about the project, and she revealed this about when we'll get to see Maz:

She will be in the half hour [episodes]. There are going to be individual pieces dropping onto Disney YouTube, but she will be in the half hour specials that are coming up and kind of weaving these tales and putting them together. So she'll be super important in that. Really great stuff. It was fun.

Maz Kanata -- who made her official Star Wars debut in The Force Awakens -- can be heard as the narrator of the Forces of Destiny shorts that have already been released, and it's only a matter of time before we get to see her on screen. The animated shorts that are being released this summer will lead to a pair of half hour specials on the Disney Channel this fall, and it will be in these specials that Maz Kanata will make her appearance.

All things considered, Maz Kanata sounds like the perfect character to weave the Forces of Destiny stories together, and not just because she is one of the unforgettable female characters of the Star Wars universe. When we first saw her in The Force Awakens, she was already a thousand years old, and she was clearly sensitive to the Force. In fact, if a certain scene hadn't been deleted from the film before it was released, we would have gotten to see Maz unleash her Force abilities on some unfriendly troopers on Takodana. With her abilities and the wisdom she's gained over hundreds of years, she should be able to tie the many stories of the different eras of Forces of Destiny together perfectly.

Unfortunately, we don't yet know exactly when the Forces of Destiny specials will air on Disney Channel, although they should debut at some point in the fall. There are still shorts left to air this summer, however. Two shorts will premiere every Sunday on Disney Channel through July 30. Even if we don't get to see Maz in all her animated glory anytime too soon, we'll still get to hear her via voiceover in the individual shorts.

The shorts that have aired so have have managed to fill in blanks of the Star Wars Universe that fans have been pondering for years. We've had a Force Awakens storyline resolved, a super-specific question about Return of the Jedi answered, and a loose end tied off from the Clone Wars era. We even got a character from the original trilogy interacting with an original character from Star Wars Rebels. Take a look!

The Forces of Destiny project has brought the best of the movies and the TV shows of Star Wars together, and we still have more to look forward to in the coming weeks. Stay tuned to CinemaBlend for the latest in Star Wars TV and movie news, and check out our summer TV guide to see what you can watch while we wait for fall TV season to come.

Laura Hurley
Senior Content Producer

Laura turned a lifelong love of television into a valid reason to write and think about TV on a daily basis. She's not a doctor, lawyer, or detective, but watches a lot of them in primetime. CinemaBlend's resident expert and interviewer for One Chicago, the galaxy far, far away, and a variety of other primetime television. Will not time travel and can cite multiple TV shows to explain why. She does, however, want to believe that she can sneak references to The X-Files into daily conversation (and author bios).