Category Archives: Star Wars Rebels

Behind The Scenes Star Wars Rebels

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Via Ew.com:

Obi-Wan Kenobi is a provocative topic at the moment among Star Wars fans.

Last week, we learned Lucasfilm is developing a possible stand-alone movie around the veteran Jedi.

But we already caught a glimpse of Old Ben in action during his long, desert watch of young Luke Skywalker in season 3 of the animated series Star Wars: Rebels, which comes out on Blu-ray Aug. 29.

In this making-of video from the season 3 set, we see that the show used elements of the performances of both McGregor and Guinness to create this new fight sequence – with voice provided by Star Wars stalwart Stephen Stanton, who also voices Grand Moff Tarkin on the series and supplied Churchillian gruffness to Admiral Raddus in Rogue One.

There’s even a little of Kenobi’s old trainer, Liam Neeson’s Qui-Gon Jinn, thrown into his fighting style.

The episode featured something Star Wars fans have been waiting to see for many years: At long last, the gray-bearded Kenobi was tracked down by his long-ago nemesis – the snarling, black-and-red tattooed Darth Maul.

Those who only follow the movies might be mistaken in thinking that Maul ended when he was sliced in half by Ewan McGregor’s young Kenobi at the end of The Phantom Menace, but the animated shows from executive producer Dave Filoni tell us that Maul actually survived to fight again – for many years, actually.

First, in The Clone Wars show, he was a kind of crazed halfling with mechanical arachnid legs replacing his lower half, then he was given more humanoid prosthetics, and went on a decades-long mission of revenge against both the remaining Jedi and the Sith who had abandoned him.

It all culminated in the episode “Twin Suns,” with a campfire showdown on Tatooine when Luke was still an unaware farmboy in his early teens. By then, Ben Kenobi had taken on the Alec Guinness look we know from the original trilogy.

Maybe we’ll see him again someday.

Starkiller Almost Appeared In Star Wars Rebels

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Via Comicbook.com:

Star Wars has no shortage of iconic characters from its library of video games over the years, but few of them have showed up in the movies or on TV shows. But one popular Force user almost appeared in Star Wars Rebels, according to the voice actor.



Sam Witwer, who portrayed Darth Maul in The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels, said during his Twitch stream that Starkiller from Star Wars: The Force Unleashed nearly appeared in an episode of the latest animated series.

Witwer was playing the game alongside fellow voice actor David Collins when he revealed the inclusion was considered by Rebels executive producer Dave Filoni.

“Dave did share with me, by the way, he considered making Starkiller an Inquisitor in Star Wars Rebels,” Witwer said. “It didn’t quite fit the story that they were telling, but he did think about it because he thought that would be interesting.”

Starkiller, born Galen Marek, was Darth Vader’s secret apprentice in The Force Unleashed and its sequel. The player controls the character in both games. The first title consists of Starkiller hunting the remaining Jedi in between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, honing his skills and training to eventually take on the Emperor himself so that he and Vader could rule the galaxy together.

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DAVE FILONI DISCUSSES DETAILS OF AHSOKA AND KANAN’S RELATIONSHIP

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Via Syfy.com:

Dave Filoni, executive producer of Star Wars Rebels and head of Lucasfilm animation, has been filling the summer of late with little insights into Rebels and the moments we haven’t seen on screen. Of course the show can’t depict every second of these characters’ lives, but Filoni and the Star Wars Story Group know more than we’ve seen on screen.

After revealing a bombshell of a conversation between Ahsoka Tano and Bendu, the mysterious Force creature on the series a couple of weeks ago, this week Filoni explored a more straightforward relationship and chat, between Ahsoka and Kanan Jarrus.

First, Filoni revealed that “YES, Kanan and Ahsoka knew each other, had met while they were younglings at the Jedi Temple.” The pair of young Jedi-to-be “did not know each other well,” he cautioned, but said they very specifically had done one part of training together: saber training. A neat touch, since Kanan then has to teach lightsaber use to both Ezra and Sabine, and Ahsoka is one of the best lightsaber fighters in Star Wars.

When next they met, years later in the events of Rebels, Filoni said they had a conversation wherein Ahsoka tried to assess whether Kanan was truly ready for what’s to come. Here is Filoni’s script for that scene, a truly touching exchange between the pair.

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STAR WARS: REBELS PRODUCER REVEALS HUGE AHSKOA SCENE WE NEVER GOT TO SEE

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Via Syfy.com:

She hasn’t actually shown up in a movie, but it hasn’t stopped Ahsoka Tano from becoming one of the most beloved Star Wars characters in the canon. Well, let’s add another layer of mystery to her mythos.

After evolving into a major player in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, an older Ahsoka popped up in the new animated series Star Wars: Rebels for an epic face off with Darth Vader in the recent season finale. It didn’t look to go all that well for Ahsoka, but producer Dave Filoni has been hinting pretty hard for a while that we haven’t seen the last of Ahsoka. Heck, even the Pope is getting roped into the fan-desire for an Ahsoka movie.

Turns out, we should’ve already seen a little more of her, too. Filoni revealed a cut scene that would’ve had Ahsoka come face to face with the Force-agnostic Bendu, a giant create who has been expanding Kanan’s understanding of the Force as something beyond Light and Dark (a theme that is set to potentially continue being explored in The Last Jedi). Filoni revealed a concept sketch of the scene, as well as the dialogue it would’ve featured, even a tease toward Ahsoka’s possible “death” if she faces off with Vader. But does he mean a literal death?

Star Wars Rebels: Complete Season 3 On BLU-Ray And DVD August 29th

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Via Starwars.com:

Star Wars Rebels: Complete Season Three will arrive on Blu-ray and DVD on August 29, The Star Wars Show announced today. The critically-acclaimed season brought the story of Star Wars Rebels closer to Rogue One and the original Star Wars trilogy, while also bringing in more elements of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and raising the stakes for the Ghost crew. Get a complete look at the box art, bonus features, and disc specs below!

Bonus Features:

Blu-ray:

Return To Mandalore
Explore where Mandalore fits within the Empire’s regime – and whether Sabine can unite her people against the Imperial forces.

Thrawn: A Legend Reborn
Learn Thrawn’s significance in Star Wars lore, and what the future may hold for this memorable villain.

Apprentices to Outcasts: Kenobi And Maul
Track two adversaries who’ve clashed throughout Star Wars history, and find out why the time was right to conclude their story.

The Original Rebel: Saw Gerrera Returns – Extended
Meet the Original Rebel. This exclusive extended version features Forest Whitaker discussing the character he brings to life in both Rebels and Rogue One.

Five Audio Commentaries
Featuring Dave Filoni (Executive Producer), Justin Ridge (Supervising Director), Kilian Plunkett (Art Director), Keith Kellogg (Animation Supervisor) and Joel Aron (CG Supervisor: Lighting & FX)

All DVD Bonus (see below)
DVD:

A Rebel Alliance
Discover how the formation of the Rebel Alliance in Rebels ties into the Rogue One timeline – and the exciting story possibilities that lie ahead for season 4.

Rebels Recon
Go behind the scenes with the cast and crew in 19 entertaining and information-packed episode recaps!

Disc Specifications:
Release Date: August 29, 2017
Format: Blu-ray (3-Disc) & DVD (4-Disc)
Rating: TVY7 FV; CE: PG; CF: G (Bonus Material Not Rated)
Run Time: Approximately 485 minutes (not including bonus)
Closed Captioned: Yes
Aspect Ratio: 1:78 (Widescreen)
Audio: 5.1 Dolby Digital
Languages/Subtitles: English, French, German & Spanish

For more on the third season of Star Wars Rebels, check out Star Wars.com’s interviews with Sam Witwer (Darth Maul), Vanessa Marshall (Hera Syndulla), and Tiya Sircar (Sabine Wren)!

How Rogue One Will Influence the Final Season of Star Wars Rebels

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Via Io9.com:

Star Wars: Rebels

Dave Filoni spoke to IGN about how season four ties into Rogue One, discussing how the show’s brighter color palette when it comes to its Rebels soldiers will peter out and give way to the drabber colors of the original trilogy:

Now that Rogue One is out, it opens up a lot of possibilities for us to tell these stories. We can go to Yavin now. We can start to deal with the way things worked out in the film and include ideas that are happening prior to that. The look of the background rebels really shifts to being more of the kind of drab military colors that you see in Rogue One. The Phoenix group of Rebel soldiers are kind of petering out.

So they’re redistributed into Mon Mothma’s group on Yavin and Dodonna’s group. You see a restructuring of certain cells, and certain cells get destroyed. And that’s true of the ships as well. So there’s lots of little, neat, detail level things that happen when our characters are heading into season 4 and are absorbed into the kind of pre-Rogue One era, which I thought they did beautifully in the film.

11 THINGS WE LEARNED FROM DAVE FILONI AND PABLO HIDALGO’S “ANIMATED ORIGINS AND UNEXPECTED FATES” PANEL

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Via Starwars.com:

SEE NEVER-BEFORE-REVEALED ART AND LEARN BEHIND-THE-SCENES SECRETS FROM STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS AND STAR WARS REBELS.

Dave Filoni, executive producer of Star Wars Rebels and Pablo Hidalgo of the Lucasfilm Story Group came together on the first day of Star Wars Celebration Orlando to give a behind-the-scenes look at some of the most beloved animated characters, ships, and storylines from Star Wars: The Clone Wars and beyond. Here are 11 of the most revealing insights and surprises from the panel, as well as sketches and concept art shown throughout.

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DAVE FILONI DISCUSSES SEASON 3’S BIG STORYLINES

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Via Ign.com:

 
Warning: Full spoilers for Star Wars Rebels: Season 3 follow.

Star Wars Rebels just wrapped up its third season, with several notable events occurring along the way. With the third season now complete, I spoke to the show’s co-creator and executive producer Dave Filoni for an in-depth post-mort on many of Season 3’s biggest moments and events (including a key death), the decisions behind them and much more.

IGN: Let me start out asking about the finale and Kallus, because this character has been one of my favorites to chart. It reminds me of Asajj Ventress in Clone Wars, who was a villain at first but then had these other layers revealed. Did you debate if he actually would make it out of there or not and how did you decide what his path would be?

Dave Filoni: I think it was always a plan from the very beginning that Kallus would probably turn. We had a little debate back and forth. It was a bit challenging at first because in a way he almost comes across in the first season as the bad inspector that you would see in so many programs. But I think the turning point was when we did the Enemy Mine homage with Kallus and Zeb on the ice planet. Because you have to look at Kallus and say, well, I’m thinking like the Rebels that he’s just a villain.. But what is he as a person? What is his life like? He’s old enough to have been around prior to the Empire crossing over into the Clone Wars. What experience does he have? We tried to tell the story that perhaps even Zeb is misunderstanding who Kallus is. They’re accusing each other of doing terrible things but they’ve both done terrible things and good things. So that was an interesting episode to try to bring Kallus out into the open and say he doesn’t have what the Rebels have. He doesn’t have anyone supporting him. He’s sort of a loner for the empire.

Once you say we’re going to turn him and he’s going to act as a Fulcrum, there is a debate about, “Do we kill him or should he make it out.. Should we kill him off?” But it didn’t feel right. It would be pretty sad that this guy that was a bad guy actually turning into perhaps a good guy… Why should he pay a price for that good thought? That didn’t seem like it would be communicating the right story point. You have to be careful now because a lot of people think in storytelling, “We’re going to do what’s not typical and we’re going to go against the grain!” But if the purpose of doing that is because we’ve never seen it before or to be sensational, why are you telling that story? What’s the benefit to killing him off? It would communicate the message that he tried to change and he died and nothing came of it. You’d have to have a purpose for his death. It’s kind of a long answer but it felt like his character could serve more in the future, in a positive way, especially for the viewers watching.

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