Last year’s bi-annual D23 convention showcased a mind-blowing amount of content. From new and upcoming films from both Disney themselves to Pixar ranging from the likes of Zootopia to the fourth Toy Story film, animated and live-action series that fill their networks and much more that would be an article alone.
As I noted back in an article back in August there was one very specific new series that had caught my eye, Disney’s Star Darlings. At the time I had wrote the article I had only known small bits about the series, the characters and what it was striving to do. And because of that I was filled with mostly speculation as anyone is when something new appears and there is only a few short summaries to run off.
Yet even though what we knew was very little, it was promising and barred a lot of potential.
Now about what, six months later Star Darlings has captivated fans of all ages and given them the power to wish big and follow said wishes. With a app live and out in the iTunes app store and Google Play’s, gorgeous and highly detailed dolls from JAKKS Pacific filling the shelves of major retailers, clothing inspired by the series, a series of webisodes and now five books in the series as well as a guide Star Darlings is glowing bright.
Then take into consideration that a new remix version of the series’ theme song, Wish Now, has been performed by Skylar Stecker and a special is slated to air on Disney Channel on Friday, January 29th.
Star Darlings follows twelve star-charmed teenage starlings from Starling Academy, a prestigious school that trains their students to one day travel to Wishworld in aspirations of granting good wishes to help keep Starland thriving. To the other students of Starling Academy these twelve girls are remedial and have to attend a special class at the end of each day’s lesion for supplemental help. But that is only what they are all lead to believe. The truth is that the twelve are in-fact they rather miraculous as they are chosen to fulfill a prophecy and travel to Wishworld before graduation to grant twelve special wished that could save Starland from a still un-known evil force.
Despite being both the same basic tale and the starlings being the same girls they are the two forms of media (books and webisodes) tend to differentiate from one another.
The webisodes generally take a more lighter and slice-of-life feel to them as they hone in on our main five- Sage, Libby, Vega, Leona, and Scarlet- as deal with more universal issues that are affiliated with high school and keeping with the matter at hand of being Star Darlings.
The books are indefinitely the main canon of the series with things much more strongly defined both in terms of Starland and their culture, but also the characters. Each of the books focuses on one of the specific Star Darlings as she goes on her mission to Wishworld to grant their wisher’s wish in addition to dealing with on-going sub-plots back at Starling Academy. Along the course of the mission the Star Darlings must go through some levels of change and even self-growth as they go on to discover things and even change some themselves. The story, despite shifting prospective from book to book, is surprisingly tightly woven together in a way it all feels seamless. We get a lot of development and back-story on each of the girls as their time comes that really allows us to understand them and get what is driving them. I would love to say more, but if I do we would be running into spoilers.
Star Darlings has clearly come far since this past summer’s first debut and with quite a nice share of content already released, and seven more books slated for release in the coming months that continues to tell the story of the twelve star-charmed starlings fans have a lot to look forward to. But with the new special airing on Friday night fans have something to hold them over until the next book, centering Cassie, is released in early February.
As for what pray tell the special will be plot wise, well I have no clue. Very little information on what the core of the special will be on is out there. It can very well all the webisodes we have seen released already aired together, content taken from the book series or even brand-new narrative. I have no idea, only time will tell. The one thing I am sure about, however, this is probably on they start of what is to come for Star Darlings.
Be sure to tune into Disney Channel on Friday, January 29th.
Join the conversation: Have you been following Star Darlings? What is your preference; the books or the webisodes?
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