Earlier this month at Star Wars Celebration 2017, Disney premiered a trailer for season 4 of Star Wars Rebels and at the same time, announced that this fourth season would also be its last. You can watch that trailer here.
While many details about this final season are unknown, we do know a few things. Some great, some…not so great. Let’s get the not-so-great news out of the way first. Multiple outlets are reporting that season four will feature a reduced number of episodes, only 15, compared to previous two seasons’ 22 episodes. The silver lining to this news is that this likely means the storytelling will be a lot more focused in these final 15 episodes. Dave Filoni has said that this season will feature a lot more serialized storytelling than has been seen before, so I am very hopeful that the reduction in episodes will mean a reduction in filler as well.
Now on to the great news: Ahsoka will (almost certainly) be back! At the Star Wars Celebration, Dave Filoni was seen wearing a t-shirt reading: ‘Ahsoka Lives?’ but after the trailer premiered, he reappeared with a new t-shirt reading: ‘Ahsoka Lives!’
When asked about the shirts, he pretended to have no idea what they were talking about, but the shirt choice was obviously deliberate. Though this is not an official announcement, it seems pretty clear to me that this was a message intended for those who would notice it.
We also learned that the next season of Rebels would be canonizing a popular fan theory, and retconning Captain Rex into Return of the Jedi! A while back, fans noticed that an unnamed background character in Episode IV looked a lot like the aging clone trooper. Well, some concept art shown at Celebration 2017 revealed that background character will now officially be Captain Rex! Retconning can be hit or miss sometimes, but I think this one is a hit!
We know a couple other small details about the final season season as well, including the return of both Mon Mothma and Saw Gerrera. The show will likely be exploring the transition from the Saw we saw in season three to the Saw we saw in Rogue One. We will also be getting an expanded storyline for Sabine that heavily features the planet Mandalore.
Even though Rebels is coming to an end, it’s important to remember that it does not necessarily mean the end of Star Wars on television. Multiple people involved with the franchise have hinted that there is a future for Star Wars on television, beyond the end of Rebels. As of yet, nothing official has been announced. If something is going to be announced before the premiere of season four, it is a good bet that such an announcement will happen at Comic Con, which is in July. They could also wait until Rebels has come to an end, but I’m an optimist, so I’ll be watching the news out of Comic Con with baited breath.
What are your thoughts on this news? Are you sad to see Rebels come to an end? What would you want to see in a potential new Star Wars series?
Edited by: Kelly Conley
