All-new ‘Star Wars’ TV show launches this month. It was created by a Kansan

Growing up in Greensburg, Kan., Amy Beth Christenson spent her free time drawing.

“Anything nerdy” was fair game for her, she said — “Transformers,” “Street Fighter,” but especially “Star Wars.”

She never thought it would be possible to turn those doodles into a career.

Now, as an art director for Lucasfilm, she’s gone from Greensburg to a galaxy far, far away.

Most recently, Christenson played an integral role in creating “Star Wars: Resistance,” a new TV show set to debut on the Disney Channel on Oct. 7.

“I don’t feel like I’ve ever grown up myself,” Christenson said. “This show, for me, is everything I would have been super-excited about as a kid.”

From Kansas to Lucasfilm

As a girl, she said she never thought it’d be possible to turn her passion for drawing science-fiction into a career.

That was before she read a profile of Ralph McQuarrie in an old copy of Starlog Magazine.

McQuarrie was the concept designer responsible for much of the original “Star Wars” trilogy.

Christenson set out to be an illustrator and a designer — enrolling in the Kansas City Art Institute after graduating from high school in Greensburg.

She would graduate from the Ringling College of Art and Design in Florida.

Shortly after she graduated from college, a job opened up at LucasArts, the video-game development wing of Lucasfilm.

“At the time, being ingrained in ‘Star Wars’ and being a huge fan helped a lot” with her application, Christenson said.

She got the job and immediately started working as a designer for the PlayStation 2 video game, “Star Wars: Starfighter.”

Christenson helped develop the art for six “Star Wars” video games between 2000 and 2011, all of which were praised for their artwork and graphics in reviews.

After that, she was brought over to Lucasfilm proper, in its animation department.

She has helped create three different animated “Star Wars” television shows, including “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” “Star Wars: Rebels,” and, most recently, “Star Wars: Resistance.”

So what exactly does it mean to be an art director?

Basically, she envisions how the story will look, sketching characters and sets — essentially creating a whole “Star Wars” world.

“It’s kind of front-loaded at the beginning in the pre-production stage,” she said. “It’s a lot of months of lots of drawings and lots of technical stuff — figuring out how it’s going to look, how it’s going to light, how it’s going to move, what the color palette’s going to be.”

She’s directly in charge of the show’s design department, overseeing “what the characters look like, what the sets look like, what the ships look like.”

She’s done everything from creating new alien species to designing intricate spaceships for the show.

The new show

“Star Wars: Resistance” is a 3-D animated TV show geared primarily to a younger audience — hence its home on the Disney Channel.

Set before the events of “The Force Awakens,” it follows the story of Kazuda Xiono, who is recruited by pilot Poe Dameron to become a spy for the Resistance.

The first episode is a lighthearted affair, featuring witty repartee between the characters and little in the way of explosions or other violence.

Christenson said that’s not out-of-sync with the “Star Wars” films.

“My favorite parts of the original trilogy are the humor and the sarcasm between the characters. ... It was definitely there with Luke, Leia and Han, especially,” she said. “This show captures that quite a bit.”

It’s been in the works since about late 2015, she said.

One group that’s definitely excited to see the new show: Christenson’s family in Greensburg.

She has “a lot of family throughout Kansas,” including in her 14,000-person hometown, where her parents still live — and her brother serves on the City Council.

The first episode of “Star Wars: Resistance” premieres at 9 p.m. Oct. 7 on the Disney Channel.

This story was originally published September 30, 2018 at 4:53 PM.