I'm pretty sure Kanan didn't have much frontline experience if any since IMO A New Dawn strongly implies he was newly elevated to Padawan when Order 66 hit. Zeb has military experience but does he have experience training new recruits or in coordinating missions on a large scale? Hera I seriously doubt has any combat experience other then her time fighting the Empire.

If Ahsoka actually gets added to the Ghost crew on a permanent basis yeah that could easily become a bad thing. If she sticks to a mostly off screen command and training role I don't see what's so horrible about it. And the offscreen role is what she has been in so far except for when an emergency called for everything her resistance network could scramble to be deployed.

Complaining about what she's done so far is like claiming that the appearance of Mon Mothma or Admiral Ackbar in Return of the Jedi stole the focus of the story away from Luke, Leia, Lando, Han, Chewie, and the droids.

If she stays in the background, mostly off-screen, sure, then it's possible she won't steal too much thunder, but her dying at Vader's hands, saving the crew of the Ghost and the fledgling rebel alliance is a good way to go I think. It shows the evil of Vader, the hopelessness of the galaxy and generally how dire straits they're in.

I don't think anyone is complaining of her role so far, but are voicing a concern for the future. I mostly trust Filoni & Co to do the right thing (whatever that turns out to be), which I think is her dramatic, heroic and meaningful death at Vader's hands.

I would have preferred if she died in The Clone Wars because I think it would have helped set Anakin up for Episode III better.

I don't mind her dying in Rebels but not right away. I hate it when stories bring characters from prior stories in the setting back just to kill them off. A later confrontation with Vader say the end of Season 2 or sometime in 3 or 4 would be fine. I get the feeling that things are going to be dire enough in early season 2 even if she doesn't die.. .

I would have preferred if she died in The Clone Wars because I think it would have helped set Anakin up for Episode III better.

Well, if she is killed by Vader it could be setting up his actions for Episode VI better. It seeded thoughts of how horrible he had become that he could kill someone who was like a child to him. Those thoughts could have been foremost in his mind when he was facing his real child. "I can't do this again!"

I'm pretty sure Kanan didn't have much frontline experience if any since IMO A New Dawn strongly implies he was newly elevated to Padawan when Order 66 hit. Zeb has military experience but does he have experience training new recruits or in coordinating missions on a large scale? Hera I seriously doubt has any combat experience other then her time fighting the Empire.

The new Kanan comic disproves that theory of Kanan not having any frontline experience. He's seen fighting right alongside his master and her Clone Trooper contingent. with very little indication that he's fresh out of the Temple.

I feel like she probably won't be killed until the series is coming to an end, if ever.

What she is likely to do? Pull Vader's attention away from the crew. Because he'll go after her then, not them. Which is sort of... a good thing. Because I don't see how the crew could ever stand a chance to Vader, and was a bit stunned they droped the V-Bomb at the end of the first season. So by her drawing Vader away, we get the new Inquisitors teased in the teaser, and keep Vader from being the unstoppable juggernaught he is. Not to mention explain why he isn't sticking with it.

Hondo Ohnaka I don't mind at this point as his appearance is pointing to being very much like Lando's; a one-off appearance for what will likely be a light-hearted episode. That and Hondo was just so bizarre and unusual for a Star Wars character that he was pretty entertaining, being a fairly open opportunist and making no bones about it. He was one of those "shades of grey" characters like Han and Lando that helped make the original films interesting and the lack of such a "loveable rogue" type generally hurt the cast dynamic of the prequels.

Missed this post somehow but yeah other then his final appearance in The Clone Wars as part of an arc I hated Hondo was great. I hope he still has his old ship since it was my favorite model to be introduced in The Clone Wars. I also hope he becomes one of the seedier allies of the rebellion. Hopefully he becomes one of the first Alliance Privateers ifthe series reaches that point in the setting.

I'd like to see more of [Zeb's] backstory so as to not have him simply be the two-dimensional "belligerent thug/comic relief guy" that he was for Season 1. We've seen shades that there's more to the guy than that, and I doubt his story is a simple as "species nearly got wiped out, so now he's hanging out with a rag-tag group of resistance fighters on a galactic backwater."

This was a serious problem with Season One that I am glad one of my (how to put this politely?) "opponents" is finally coming to grips with...

While many may complain that I laud "Clone Wars" and unfairly trash "Rebels," "Clone Wars" was dealing with known quantities in Anakin, Obi-Wan, Padme, Yoda, Artoo, Threepio, etc. So while that series accomplished a great deal with characterization (making the prequels, themselves, actually appear watchable), it had an advantage right off the bat.

That said, "Rebels" should have spent more time developing a story in Season One as to WHY these 'heroes' have banded together to form this Rebel cell. Why should we, the audience, care? Where did the Ghost come from? Was that shuttle/fighter part of the stock package or did one of the crew put that together? What is the state of Mandalore and why is Sabine with them? For that matter, how old is Sabine? So Hera and Kanan seem close? How close? How did they meet? Is Zeb in it for Kanan? Hera? The money? Where did the crew dig up Chopper? And why in the name of Hades are they continuing to just mess around on Lothal? As opposed to exploring the galaxy or seeking job opportunities such as smuggling between systems?

Honestly, it's really hard to maintain that the cast of "Rebels" was not made up - entirely - of two-dimensional characters. At least in this first season.

From what we've seen in preview videos? It seems Filoni and company have realized they have to step up their game, as they've addressed the "getting off Lothal" issue as well as dealing with the characters' back-stories.

Good luck to 'em. I'll be crossing my fingers.

This is a great idea. Let's explain everything down to the last detail and leave nothing at all to the imagination. Just like the EU did.

Rebels, like many other things in the Star Wars mythos, is a cross platform media project. Some things will be divulged on the show, others will be shown in other media. Such as the story of Kanan and Hera in the novel A New Dawn or Kanan's early life as a padawan in the comic book series or some stories about Ezra in children's books. And I have to ask, why would they divulge all their stories in one season? The first season did what it was supposed to do. Introduced us to the characters, had some mystery in Fulcrum and Ezra's parents/background, some conflict with the Empire and the Inquisitor, and some character growth. Some of these will carry over and we'll get some new stuff in character's background new mysteries and conflicts. Is it perfect? No, but nothing is.

I can't decide which way I'm leaning with Ahsoka. On the one hand, I don't want her to take focus away from the new guys. On the other hand, I'd like to get some closure on the end of the Clone Wars. It ended so abruptly, I'd like to find out more about her life after leaving.

I think that she could serve the story, if used carefully - Kanan's already been having doubts with training his young charge - having someone who might as well been a knight to help would grow his character. The two get close (not romantically, just a "Huzzah! Theres another Jedi out there!" sort of way), they become comrades in arms - and then Vader kills her.

So yeah, used sparingly and with an end goal in mind (beyond "Hey! Lets fanwank!") I think she could be good for the series.

I am hoping that Ahsoka's appearances in Rebels will be more toward how the Ghost's Crew fits into the formation of the Alliance, but also a little bit of her helping Kanan and Ezra. Not really her completing their Jedi Training, but helping their development in the Force.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/03/05/star-wars-rebels-co-creator-on-season-1s-big-death-and-big-return-and-where-season-2-will-go


This interview will probably help put some of the Ahsoka concerns to rest. The creators are well aware they don't want her to steal the focus. "She'll hardly be bunking on the Ghost"

There's also some fun stuff from Filoni like his bit about Vader rolling more dice than the crew.

Nice to see that at least they have a gameplan for this:

Will it come to pass? Who knows - but at least they have an angle on how it will go down.

Honestly, after reading that I'm not longer positive they even will kill Ahsoka.

The big reason being how Nathan spoke of hoping to potentially see her show up in a Live Action movie... Then again, that doesn't preclude it, but does make it seem more likely she'll live.

Of course, we need to remember she is DEFINITELY not a Jedi anymore. Something else, independant. But she would resist being called one.

Wow one comment clicks from this. Felicity Jones as the lead in Rogue One. She will probably be playing Ashoka.

Salcor

Vader references memories of Ahsoka in the new book Lord of the Sith. Even referencing Anakin calling her snips.

Her story with Vader seems to be one that Disney wants told.

So listened to the most recent Order 66 podcast, in particular the post show discussion that Phil (who was at Celebration and the SW Rebels panel) and Chris had about the showing of first couple episodes of season 2. They do mention spoilers before going into what was revealed.

It's pretty clear that by the end of the second episode, Ahsoka has a pretty good idea of who's behind Vader's mask. And that Vader getting involved means the hammer has fallen, big time. If folks thought Tarkin getting involved was bad news for the heroes, Vader's involvement makes things a whole lot worse. In Phil's own words, Vader was pretty much trolling the Rebels the entire time, playing them for chumps while demonstrating just how many orders of magnitude more capable he is than any of them.

Alright, I take back all the mean nay-saying I did about Rebels. I took advantage of this series being free on Starwars.com until tomorrow and watched the whole first season and I liked it. Sure, there's some hokey contrivances here and there to let the good guys trick the enemy on occasion or avoid getting harmed most of the time, but the previews for the pilot I saw exaggerated this. I found the proper episodes were good at maintaining a non-condescending level of suspense and conflict, certainly good for a show for pre-teens. I was worried it was going to be more like the Ewoks cartoon.

In fact, I say I liked season 1 of Rebels more than seasons 1 & 2 of Clone Wars (I'm only a few eps into season 3). The Separatist's droids are rarely more than an inconvenience, and the only villain I have found threatening so far was Cad Bane. Tarkin is just phenomenal in Rebels. And that's not getting into how much more range this show's characters have in comparison (Clone Wars has been OK for what it's got to work with, but they're overall rather narrow). I liked how Rebels quickly progressed through its story arc and called back onto a number of previous events and character developments.

I'm a bitter old stick-in-the-mud about anything Star Wars made after 1996 but I'll give my approval to Rebels. Now I just need to figure out how I'm supposed to watch Season 2, given that TV is a dead medium...

Utsanomiko,

As far as watching the second season, you can grab a season pass through iTunes, which is how I watch the series. It's far less than the price of cable, and has zero commercials, and the episodes were loaded within a couple hours of their TV debut.

Like Donovan I watched it online. I did it through Amazon. They had a Season Pass for Season 1. I am expecting to see that again For Season 2.

I'm going to throw some actual spoiler tags here since it's about Lords of the Sith and not actually Rebels:

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And a couple of promo videos surface:

Also, dear lord - June 20th? As in tomorrow? How did this sneak up on me!