Star Wars Rebels just wrapped up its third season, with several notable events occurring along the way. With the third season now complete, I spoke to the show’s co-creator and executive producer Dave Filoni for an in-depth post-mort on many of Season 3’s biggest moments and events (including a key death), the decisions behind them and much more.

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(L-R) Pryce, Thrawn and Kallus in Star Wars Rebels.

I think it was always a plan from the very beginning that Kallus would probably turn. We had a little debate back and forth. It was a bit challenging at first because in a way he almost comes across in the first season as the bad inspector that you would see in so many programs. But I think the turning point was when we did the Enemy Mine homage with Kallus and Zeb on the ice planet. Because you have to look at Kallus and say, well, I’m thinking like the Rebels that he’s just a villain.. But what is he as a person? What is his life like? He’s old enough to have been around prior to the Empire crossing over into the Clone Wars. What experience does he have? We tried to tell the story that perhaps even Zeb is misunderstanding who Kallus is. They’re accusing each other of doing terrible things but they’ve both done terrible things and good things. So that was an interesting episode to try to bring Kallus out into the open and say he doesn’t have what the Rebels have. He doesn’t have anyone supporting him. He’s sort of a loner for the empire.Once you say we’re going to turn him and he’s going to act as a Fulcrum, there is a debate about, “Do we kill him or should he make it out.. Should we kill him off?” But it didn’t feel right. It would be pretty sad that this guy that was a bad guy actually turning into perhaps a good guy… Why should he pay a price for that good thought? That didn’t seem like it would be communicating the right story point. You have to be careful now because a lot of people think in storytelling, “We’re going to do what’s not typical and we’re going to go against the grain!” But if the purpose of doing that is because we’ve never seen it before or to be sensational, why are you telling that story? What’s the benefit to killing him off? It would communicate the message that he tried to change and he died and nothing came of it. You’d have to have a purpose for his death. It’s kind of a long answer but it felt like his character could serve more in the future, in a positive way, especially for the viewers watching.Yeah, and we’re lucky to have the time to do it. What you find out is that a lot of the Imperials are greedy opportunists who are self-serving and will use their position to become wealthy and powerful. Piett is fine that Ozzel gets taken out because it’s good for Piett. When you look at Kallus, Kallus is a person that in a lot of ways believes they’re doing the right thing. He believes in the security of the Republic that now is an Empire. He has a story that tells you that Saw Gerrera and his extremists were brutal, which we now know is true - that these good guys that Ezra sees, there are different layers to them. It brings into focus what it means when you’re fighting for the right cause and trying to be good and in the end, the only path you can do that with is a selfless path, one that’s not serving your own interests which is where the Jedi go. But Kallus has his own kind of awakening especially in the loneliness of his existence. He realizes he’s part of the machine and you wonder… I think there are Imperials who know they’re part of the machine and accept it and know that’s their role. Even with Thrawn, you get a look at an Imperial officer who is completely devoted to the vision of existence that the Emperor wants. Thrawn isn’t just different from other commanders because he’s tactically smart or because he’s an alien, but he’s different in his commitment and belief in what the Emperor is trying to achieve in the galaxy.Yeah, that is the most difficult thing. You want the most legendary bad guys to come in but you can’t have them exist solely on reputation. You have to consider the people that have never read the books or have no idea who Thrawn is. We have to prove to them when they watch the show that Thrawn is a great threat and a great commander. We did that well with Vader, but we did that by incredibly limiting him in his appearances. Now, it paid off, I think, in the end with how we used Vader. With Thrawn, there’s at the beginning, a greater conceit that he’s going to be the primary villain this season. And we kind of pushed Maul more into that shadowy guy that we don’t want to interact with as much because then we have to reveal more about him. What works with Thrawn is that Thrawn is willing to be patient. He’s willing to observe and I think it actually still fits his character. It’s not strange to say that Thrawn would use a situation where he’s caught Hera Syndulla to learn more about her so he can catch more than just her in the future. So we were able to use it to our advantage even though I think fans are always aching for a victory from him. If I had the scale and scope to do it, it’d be great to show side battles that Thrawn is probably winning against other Rebel threats and Rebel cells. Hopefully we can cover that in other material or comics or books somewhere so you’re getting a better view of the character now that he’s in play .

Continue on for more with Dave Filoni…