Via Ew.com:

After Vader, there was Thrawn.

That’s why the presence of this blue-skinned Imperial officer has longtime Star Wars fans beside themselves with the arrival of season 3 of Star Wars: Rebels this week.

Above, we feature a clip from episode three of the new season, in which the pilot Hera Syndulla falls under the ruby-red gaze of the commander while on a covert mission. (More on this scene below.)

When the Disney XD animated series returns on Saturday, Sept. 24 (8:30 p.m. ET/PT), it heralds the return of the villain who first picked up the pieces of the shattered galactic Empire and served as antagonist in the ongoing stories of Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, and Han Solo.

Thrawn was the central foe in author Timothy Zahn’s trilogy of Star Wars novels in the early 1990s, which became a new hope of sorts for fans who suddenly found the story didn’t end with Return of the Jedi.

“It was a huge deal. You couldn’t believe it,” says Rebels executive producer Dave Filoni, who was just a kid when the first book in the Thrawn trilogy came out in 1991. “I would go the bookstore and you’d see all the Star Trek books, tons of Star Trek books, and nothing Star Wars. Then all of a sudden this standee appeared! We waited for that book and we devoured it because we were so hungry for the continuation of the saga.”

Those books were shelved when Lucasfilm erased the so-called Expanded Universe of storytelling from the official canon to clear way for The Force Awakens and the new series of films to tell the continuing story of Luke, Leia, and Han in their own way.

Filoni has been recanonizing parts of these stories by working them into his show, and Thrawn marks the biggest, most beloved effort yet to pull a major character out of the “Legends” realm and back into the official storyline.

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