When LucasFilm first announced their animated seriesStar Wars Rebels, it was revealed that the show would take place in the 30-year period betweenStar Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the SithandStar Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope. The highly-anticipatedStar Wars: The Force Awakenstakes place decades later, 30 years afterStar Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi, but the first spinoff,Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, is set in roughly the same time frame asStar Wars Rebels, although it isn’t known if they will overlap or not.Screen Rantcaught up withStar Wars Rebelsexecutive producerDave Filoni, who admitted that all of the movies and TV shows are affected by one another.
“Everything affects each other as far as their time period is concerned and as far as you think it would echo out - if it makes sense. If someone down the line is creating a story in another medium, it doesn’t have to be a film, and you say ‘Okay, this is a rebellion story and they have a secret agent for theRebelsleaking information,’ the story group is going to say ‘We have that and we call them Fulcrum here - now does it make sense to call them Fulcrum there?’ What’s great is we now have a group of people who are fully aware of all the continuities, so they can reach out to the different creatives and keep them in line.”
It has long been confirmed thatStar Wars Rebels, along with a slew of new novels, comic books and other books that debuted last month, are officially part of theStar Warscanon. With that being said, despite the fact thatStar Wars Rebelsis ananimated seriesand the movies are alllive-action, some fans have wondered whether or not certain characters from the TV show could eventually end up inRogue One: A Star Wars Story, or any of the other spinoff movies.Dave Filoniadmitted that he would be in “constant contact” with the filmmakers, if they were making a movie set very close to his time period, while admitting that the movies and TV shows could “affect” each other.
“If there was a movie that was very close to the time period that I was doing, we would be in constant contact. I’ve met all the directors of all the films and talked with them and it’s fun. A lot of that we just do politely but sometimes we talk creatively - because it’sStar Wars. We’re all fans of it, we all grew up with it. This whole generation of lead creatives grew up withStar Wars, so we all just have it in common. The important thing is the story group binds us together and keeps continuity straight. Could it affect the films? Sure. Could the films affect us? Sure. But it works all directions and even the comic books and video games. The best thing I can say about it is that it’s an effort by people who love Star Wars and attempt to make it all great, all go together. We don’t ever want to put something out that’s just okay. I don’t want to make an animated series and have everyone go: ‘That one was okay.’ You try to make it the best you may - whatever that bar is - so that fans are always equating a high quality toStar Wars.”
Dave Filonidid add that “it would be great” if any of his characters crossed over into the live-action movies, but he didn’t confirm that is actually happening.Star Wars Rebelsreturns forSeason 2on Wednesday, October 14 on Disney XD withThe Lost Commanders. Would you like to see live action versions ofStar Wars Rebelscharacters in any of the upcoming movies? It’s worth noting that the iconic villainDarth Vaderhas been a part of the animated series, so we’ll have to wait and see if any of the animated characters cross over.
