It’s interesting how the “Star Wars” universe converses with itself. The Disney XD animated series “Star Wars: Rebels” was set in the years between “Revenge Of The Sith” and “Star Wars: A New Hope,” essentially when the Galactic Empire was extending its dominion across the galaxy and hunting Jedis down. But when it first started, “Star Wars Rebels” was still one of those shows far, far off spin offs that lived within the universe, but centered on side adventures of previously unknown insurgents against the Imperial forces. But in recent years, the show has been encroaching closer and closer to the saga you know and love.
But there’s been an interesting exchange at Lucasfilm between the animated series and their feature films. For example (nerd alert), the character Saw Gerrera, played by Forest Whitaker in “Rogue One,” began as a character on ‘Rebels’ and looked completely different. When Gerrera’s character was leveraged for the Gareth Edwards-directed “Star Wars” film— the idea of true radicals in this fight too—the show responded and basically retconned the character to look like Whitaker and the actor even took over the voice duties as well (Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Maul appeared on the show last season too).
Fascinatingly, ‘Rebels’ keeps borrowing from “Star Wars” canon, or at least old canon. When “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” was announced, Lucasfilm basically put their house in order, breaking down what “Star Wars” stories, novels, comic books, video games and more would be part of the real “Star Wars” continuity. Myriad pieces of various narrative were cut from the canon and basically discarded. Sort of. Timothy Zahn’s famous novels set after “Return Of The Jedi” were kicked to the curb, but ‘Rebels’ is now employing Imperial military commander Grand Admiral Thrawn, a character who first appeared in Zahn’s no-longer-considered-canon novel “Heir To The Empire.”
Meanwhile, as “Star Wars Rebels” heads into its final season—presumably as a tragedy since, like ‘Rogue One,’ we never see these characters in the subsequent battles against Imperial tyranny—the narrative moves closer and closer to “Rogue One” and a ‘New Hope.’ Gerrera features prominently in the trailer, as does Rebel leader Mon Mothma and there’s also references to Director Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn’s character) and the impending weapon, The Death Star, though described as “Star Dust” which “Rogue One” fans will pick up easily. The Star Wars Rebels ship The Ghost and one of its droids were briefly seen in ‘Rogue One,’ so the team was clearly part of the battle above the planet Scarif. Will their involvement in the skirmish be seen in the final season? One would hope.
READ MORE: ‘Star Wars Rebels’: Destinies Are Revealed In The Final Season [Watch Season 4 Trailer]
And of course, there’s major division here that ties to ‘Rogue One,’ as Gerrera essentially breaks ties with the Rebellion because his views and methods are too extremist. “You can run Mon Mothma’s errands or do something that might actually matter,” he says, intimating rebels need to get their hands dirty in order to win the war.
Either way, before you assume “Star Wars Rebels” shows concludes at the same time as ‘Rogue One’ does, in the aforementioned battle, creative ‘Rebels’ team leader and spox Dave Filoni, has basically already discounted that theory.
How does it end? As the characters in the trailer say, “all the paths are coming together,” but it’s unclear how much the show will tie into the events you know so intimately from the big screen. You’ll find out the direction soon enough. “Star Wars Rebels” debuts on Monday, October 16.