Star Wars Celebration Europe: Star Wars Rebels Panel Recap

New character designs, new planets, and some legendary announcements were made at the Star Wars Rebels season 3 panel at Star Wars Celebration Europe.

The Star Wars Rebels season 3 panel at Star Wars Celebration Europe was full of exciting new reveals. Some of them you might even call… legendary.

Below is a list of what we learned from the panel, hosted by Warwick Davis and featuring series director Dave Filoni and voice actors Tiya Sircar (Sabine Wren) and Sam Witwer (Darth Maul).

via YouTube

• All the members of the main cast of Star Wars Rebels characters got design alterations for season three. Ezra, Sabine, and Kanan look the most dramatically different. Ezra, as was shown on The Star Wars Show earlier this week, is taller, has shorter hair, wears a slightly different jumpsuit, and carries a green-bladed lightsaber. Sabine has repainted her armor in places and recolored her hair to be white and purple. Kanan wears a mask that covers the upper half of his face, and is sporting a beard. His clothes are also slightly different in coloring than their original design, with more brown on the shirt, and he appears to be missing his signature shoulder pauldron. Meanwhile, Hera is wearing military identification, probably for Phoenix Squadron, and Zeb’s look was adjusted to be reminiscent of what some of the aliens in A New Hope wear. According to Filoni, some of the new looks are meant to bridge the gap visually between Star Wars Rebels and A New Hope.

• A clip of Sabine and Ezra was then shown. Sabine has a jet pack, and she uses it during an encounter with Mandalorians. Check it out.

• Tiya Sircar, the voice of Sabine and one of the panelists, implied Sabine will meet up with family members in season three.
• Filoni confirmed Darth Maul will return in season three. Sam Witwer, the voice of Maul and the third panelist, said Maul still wants to make Ezra his apprentice. He wants to continue his legacy and the legacy of the dark side in his own pupil, as Palpatine did with him. A clip showing him up to his old treacherous ways, however, may indicate he’s going about seducing Ezra to his side in the wrong way. Watch it below.

• Next, Filoni introduced a trailer for the third season. It contained perhaps the most exciting revelation of the panel. Watch it below.

• That’s right: Grand Admiral Thrawn is canon, and he’s coming to Star Wars Rebels! He is voiced by Lars Mikkelsen, who is the brother of Mads Mikkelsen, AKA Galen Erso in Rogue One. And yes, those are ysalimiri-like creatures like the ones Timothy Zahn created in the Heir to the Empire book trilogy, in which Thrawn first appeared in Star Wars lore, but they won’t be anything more than wall decorations. Dave Filoni once spoke with George Lucas about the ysalimiri, and they agreed the concept of the creatures projected a bubble which deflected the Force was counter intuitive to how the Force works in all living things.
• But Thrawn isn’t stopping with Rebels: He’s also appearing in his own standalone novel written by none other than Timothy Zahn himself. Thrawn is coming from Del Rey in April 2017.

via YouTube

• A new character from season three was also revealed, and he promises to become a legend in his own right: Bendu, voiced by the Fourth Doctor from Doctor Who, Tom Baker. Bendu is a new type of being in Force mythos, and from the trailer it looks like Kanan will be going to him for counsel.

via YouTube

• In the Q&A portion of the panel, a few interesting things were revealed. One fan asked if when Ahsoka died she would become a Force ghost, and Filoni answered she probably doesn’t know how to do that. Someone else asked if we will see Mara Jade eventually, and Filoni said definitively, “No” (sorry, Mara fans, but at least we got Thrawn!). Another fan asked if Maz Kanata could possibly show up in Rebels, and Filoni seemed to regard that as an intriguing idea. So perhaps we’ll be visiting Takodana at some point in the future of Star Wars Rebels.

Next: Star Wars Celebration Europe: Rogue One Panel Recap

What a whirlwind panel! Star Wars Rebels season three is promising to be the best yet, not just for “old” throwback characters but the original cast as well. What do you think of all the announcements? Are you excited for Thrawn? Talk to us in the comments below, and keep checking Dork Side for analyses of the trailer and clips.