Star Wars Rebels: A Look Ahead at the Final Season

Okay, if you’re a Star Wars fan and you’ve been living in a small hut on Tatooine all this time, Celebration Orlando has given us our first look at the fourth and final season of Star Wars Rebels. In case you’ve been too busy sniping womp rats or podracing to see the trailer, this article will highlight some of the trailer’s most notable reveals and will offer some speculation on what’s to come this fall.

WARNING: SPOILERS FROM THROUGHOUT STAR WARS LEGENDS AS WELL AS THE CURRENT STAR WARS CANON MAY FOLLOW. READ ON AT YOUR OWN RISK.

THE FATE OF THE GHOST CREW

The first half of the trailer showed us scenes from previous episodes. A narration is done by Hera Syndulla (voiced by Vanessa Marshal) describing the crew and how she led them into battle against the Empire, but she never expected it to “end this way.” These words, and her tone of voice seem to indicate that the rest of the main characters of the series are dead. While this likely not the case, as the show is a children’s cartoon, Star Wars executives have shown that they are willing to kill off a whole lot of characters to make a good story. (Thanks, Rogue One!) However, unless there is an episode depicting the Battle of Scariff in Rogue One from the Ghost Crew’s point of view, both Hera and her droid, Chopper, will survive.

MANDALORIANS

As shown in the trailer, we will be seeing a lot more Mandalorians, including Bo-Katan from The Clone Wars. This doesn’t really come as a complete shock, as season three of Rebels had a story arc that ended with the Mandalorian main character Sabine Wren (voiced by Tiya Sircar) leaving the team to help rebuild Mandalore as well as help her clan and family fight against the Empire. We also got a tease of some concept art of a whole bunch of Mandalorian helmets scattered on a deserted wasteland. If that image holds up, it might spell doom for Sabine and her clan.

A NEW CHARACTER

What did come as a surprise was the reveal of another character from the Expanded Universe (EU) now entering the series: the Noghri assassin Rukh (voiced by Warwick Davis). In the EU, he was fiercely loyal to the Empire and served as an assassin for Admiral Thrawn, who was introduced to the series last season. Rukh also was the one to kill Thrawn in the EU after he learned the Empire messed up his planet pretty badly. Given Rukh’s introduction this last season, the show might keep true to the EU and kill Thrawn off thanks to Rukh. But only time and the series finale will tell.

ROGUE ONE CROSSOVER?

There has been some major speculation that there will be a Rogue One crossover in this season, since we did see Hera, Chopper, and their ship, the Ghost, in the movie. While it was confirmed that Clone Wars and Rogue One character Saw Guerra will be returning this season, this theory has yet to be confirmed. However, if they do show an episode of the Ghost crew at Scarif, it will more than likely be either the season premier or the season/series finale, probably the latter, as it would be a good way of saying goodbye and good death to the characters (since all the main characters of Rogue One also died on Scarif as well).

A NEW HOPE APPROACHES

It is evident that we are getting closer and closer to Episode IV, as classic concepts from the movies begin to appear. The most notable of these is, of course, the introduction to the X-wing Starfighter. In the trailer, we see a squadron of X-wings exit hyperspace as well as Hera wearing an X-wing flight suit, meaning one of the most iconic ships in Star Wars is finally coming into play. Also, we will see the Rebels moving their base to Yavin IV as well as the return of Rebel Alliance leader Mon Mothma, and probably General Dodonna as well.

THE RETURN OF THRAWN

Grand Admiral Thrawn is expected to return as the season’s main antagonist. After the climatic battle at the end of season three, the blue-skinned Chiss is probably pretty ticked that the Rebels were able to escape, and will probably stop at nothing to hunt them down.

CHARACTER RELATIONSHIPS

The show has come a long way in fleshing out its characters, and we’ll be able to see a lot more of that before the series raps up. Some things to focus on will be character relationships with each other, mainly the relationships between Ezra Bridger (voiced by Taylor Gray) and Sabine, Hera and Kannan Jarrus (voiced by Freddie Prinze, Jr.), and Garazeb “Zeb” Orrelios (voiced by Steven Blum) and the Imperial-turned-Rebel Agent Kallus. These relationships have been on-off throughout the entire series, and this final season will test these relationships to the limit, and perhaps to the death as well.

AHSOKA LIVES!

One final thing to mention about season four and the fate of a fan-favorite character. It was also revealed right after the trailer for the season was shown at Celebration by Star Wars Rebels creator Dave Filoni that Ahsoka Tano—the padawan of Anikan Skywalker presumed dead by the Ghost crew after the season two finale’s epic duel with her fallen master—is alive. However, there has yet to be any confirmation on whether or not she’ll show up in the final season. Rumors have swirled over the internet that Ahsoka will return as a powerful force wielder much like the Bendu from season three of Rebels. Whether or not these rumors are true or not will have to wait until the season starts airing.

Star Wars Rebels will return for its final season this fall on Disney XD, and will star, as before, the voice talents of Freddy Prinze, Jr, Vanessa Marshall, Taylor Gray, Tiya Sircar, and Steven Blum.