The latest Star Wars story is already here, and it's free on YouTube. It's a series of shorts called Forces of Destiny, and each one delivers action, humor, and a genuinely heartfelt moment of heroism. The best part about the series, authored by Marvel alum Jennifer Muro, is that it fills in backstory on characters that you always wondered about. And yes, it's canon.

Forces of Destiny is a 16-episode series, and the first eight were released this month. Eight more will come in October. The series is episodic, jumping around in time from Episodes 1 through 7 of the films. We see a lot of Rey (Daisy Ridley) and BB-8, though we also stop in to see Ahsoka (Ashley Eckstein) kicking butt, Leia doing spycraft, and Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) being her usual chaotic good rogue. All the actors from the movies and TV series voice their characters, except Leia (RIP Carrie Fisher), who is voiced by Shelby Young.

Though each episode is only two to three minutes long, Muro deftly uses that short time to give us full character beats in the midst of the action. Lucasfilm Animation created the look of the show, which is heavily stylized. Think of it as halfway between Clone Wars and a really good Hanna-Barbera cartoon.

We talked to Muro at Comic-con about creating the series, staying in canon, and what it has been like to work on the first Star Wars YouTube story (see video above). Muro said Disney wanted a YouTube series to reach a younger audience, but she wrote it for exactly the same audiences who watch the films. Though the premise was to have a show that focused on the female characters, I never would have noticed that if Muro hadn't pointed it out. These characters are all important protagonists whose backstories I've been curious about.

Case in point: what the heck was Jyn Erso doing before the events of Rogue One? We know she was getting into trouble, but what made her stand out as a person the Rebels could trust? In an episode called "The Stranger," we find out that she was getting into dustups with Stormtroopers. But she wasn't doing it to save the world; she just wanted to rescue an alien cat that the Troopers took from a poor street girl who had no other companions. I genuinely got choked up during this episode, because it's such a sweet look at everyday acts of rebellion and kindness (also, I love cats).

We also get two episodes about Rey protecting BB-8 from bad guys, which helps explain their bond in The Force Awakens. I asked Muro if there was one episode she was excited to do because it filled in a plot hole. She said it was definitely the episode "Ewok Escape," which explains how Leia got that fancy new dress in the middle of the Ewok village in Return of the Jedi. Hint: it involves fighting Stormtroopers with an Ewok pal.

Each episode begins with a voiceover from Maz Kanata (Lupita Nyong'o), who says:

The choices we make

The actions we take

Moments, both big and small

Shape us into forces of destiny.

It's a surprisingly deep sentiment for a series of YouTube shorts, and the episodes so far manage to convey that message. This is one of those deceptively light series aimed at kids, like Steven Universe or Adventure Time, which pack a lot of nuance into their candy-colored worlds. Come for the fun three-minute diversion, and you'll be thinking all day long about how heroism doesn't always mean following the rules or winning awards. It's about choosing to help people, in big and small ways, even if nobody ever knows what you've done.

Watch Forces of Destiny on YouTube! It's guaranteed to cheer you up.

Listing image by Disney