After the conclusion of The Clone Wars, and the general restructuring of Lucasfilm under Disney, the future of Star Wars animation was in question. Until now! Star Wars.com has just revealed that a new series called Rebels will air beginning in 2014. Focusing on the years between Episode III and Episode IV, Rebels will (shockingly) deal with how the rebels got their groove on as the Empire was rising. Below is a video from Star Wars.com featuring some of the creators talking about the project.
Thank You Lucas Arts if this show is as good as clone wars than my life has just been completed
I’ve got to say that their discussion of Ralph McQuarrie art is at least a strong attempt to try to signal hardcore fans that they have a clue what they are doing. Makes me much more optimistic than I would have been from just the basic description…
I like this concept even better than Clone Wars. There was always a moral ambiguity to Clone Wars that kept me from enjoying it fully, knowing that Anakin was eventually going to go to the dark side, and the Clone Troopers were going to become the oppressors of the masses.
I’ve only seen the first season of Clone Wars, which I was not crazy about (mostly due to Ahsoka, as well as the knowledge that they ressurrect Darth Maul, which always seemed dumb to me), although I’ve heard it gets a lot better so I do plan on checking it out eventually. And agreed with #4 about the dissonance in watching a show that touts Anakin as the big hero, while knowing what is going to happen next (although in a way that also makes it interesting, or at least has the potential to).
That said, even on the first season, Dave Filoni pretty much won me over when he mentioned in a commentary they made sure Anakin and Greivous never met because of a throwaway line in Revenge of the Sith that implies it is their first meeting.
So, this does sound pretty cool :)
Also, one of the things that niggled me was that there didn’t seem to be enough TIME between Episodes II and III to contain the Clone Wars series, the Clone Wars miniseries and the various EU. But the time frame between Episodes III and IV is actually still relatively untouched by the EU. Not that any of that matters anymore ;) But in general, there’s a lot more space to play here.