Forest Whitaker’s ‘Star Wars: Rogue One’ Character Already Appeared In ‘The Clone Wars’ Animated Series

Controversially, when Disney bought Lucasfilm and decided to relaunch the “Star Wars” movies, they scrapped what’s known as the ‘Expanded Universe’ — the sometimes torturous continuity of novels, video games, comics and more that had developed over the previous three-and-a-bit decades. Well, they scrapped almost all of it: “The Clone Wars,” an animated series that ran from 2008 until 2014 and that bridged the gap between ‘Attack Of The Clones and ‘Revenge Of The Sith,’ was basically the only non-movie property that predates the acquisition that was still considered canon.

And we just saw how that pays off, because as part of their run of big exclusives for this year’s “Star Wars” movie “Rogue One,” Entertainment Weekly have revealed that a ‘Clone Wars‘ character will be popping up in the new live-action film. It’s one that only a super-fan would likely recognize, though: Forest Whitaker, whose character was glimpsed in the trailer, is playing Saw Gerrera.

READ MORE: Darth Vader Confirmed To Return To ‘Star Wars’ Universe In ‘Rogue One’

For those who don’t know their lore by heart, he first appears in the second episode of the fifth season of “The Clone Wars,” aired in 2012, and was the leader of a rebel cell on the planet Onderon. The recent ‘Force Awakens‘ prequel novel “Bloodline” apparently contained a reference to his group, saying that some believed them to have been terrorists. Here, apparently, he’ll represent the more radical, ruthless side of the Rebel Alliance, which is an intriguing prospect.

It’s not going to impact most audience members, but it’s a nice little Easter Egg for the super-fans, and shows just how closely we can expect the continuity of these spin-offs to be intertwined with each other over times. Otherwise, EW have also revealed the rest of the character names of the film to join Felicity Jones’ Jyn Erso: Diego Luna plays Captain Cassian Andor, Donnie Yen is blind warrior monk Chirrut Imwe, Jiang Wen is Baze Malbus, Riz Ahmed is pilot Bodhi Rook, Alan Tudyk is security droid K-2SO, Mads Mikkelsen is Jyn’s father Galen Erso, and Ben Mendelsohn is Director Orson Krennic. You can read more about them over at EW, and see them in action when “Rogue One” opens on December 16th.