So that happened! And then that happened! And then THAT happened!

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Yes, suffice to say, the Star Wars Rebels season finale was jam-packed with one major event after another, including a big character death and a huge character return – one that was notable enough to trump the impressive arrival of Darth Vader, even.Yes, Ahsoka Tano is back in play in Star Wars, as Anakin Skywalker’s former Padawan returned and was revealed as the true identity of the mysterious “Fulcrum.”With the season over, I spoke to Rebels executive producer Dave Filoni for an in-depth conversation about bringing Ahsoka back, killing off the Inquisitor, growing the Rebel Alliance and putting Tarkin and Darth Vader into the mix going into Season 2.

Ahsoka Tano in Star Wars Rebels.

Darth Vader in Star Wars Rebels.

I don’t. I don’t really do that. It’ll come to me anyway. [Laughs] My email starts to pile up with links. I don’t have to watch anything live. It’s going to hit me whether I want it to or not. But it was pretty fascinating. Someone even sent me some reaction videos where people film themselves watching it, which is really fascinating. It’s mind-blowing man, I gotta say. I thought it was a big deal bringing Ahsoka back, but I helped create her, so for me and my crew it was a big deal because that’s our character. But watching the reaction online… You take this character that when she first appeared, there were a lot of naysayers. We all remember hearing people say, “This is the worst character since Jar Jar Binks.” Add just seeing stuff like that that fans say, we were like, "We’ll see. "We’ll work on it and evolve her." Now to have this resounding cheer go out from fans… At least the positive fans are far louder than the negative. I don’t think any of us were prepared for that. It’s cool though. I love it.I think it’s always a question of how. I mean, of course it’s something I would have wanted but I was very aware of one fact, which is, it wasn’t just that we had been bought by Disney. That was one aspect of a huge amount of change that was occurring at the time we were trying to create this show. George [Lucas] was also stepping down creatively and administratively from Lucasfilm prior to that when he brought Kathleen Kennedy on board. So I had Kiri Hart and Rayne Roberts and Carrie Beck and I was working with them and I’d never known them or worked with them before. I wanted to create an atmosphere of collaboration. I didn’t just want to say, “Well, I want to use my characters!" or characters from Clone Wars. And we all wanted to be very careful, rightfully so, about using Clone Wars characters because we were afraid people would confuse the show for Clone Wars and it’s not Clone Wars. There was some debate on when would we bring Ahsoka in or would she even come in. Would any Clone Wars characters? I think what was great was from the very beginning, Kiri and everyone were very big fans of Ahsoka. They had watched Clone Wars and they were fully on her side of the court. It was something they wanted. Plus it was a character that, by the end, George was particularly proud of and so were we. So having been, I don’t want to say cut short, but having her story end, we could see a need to continue it but we wanted to make sure we did it in the right way. But so far, so good.Well, I think it’s a little bit of both, right? We do have many outlets but one thing I’ve been very thankful for, as far as Ahsoka is concerned, is that Kiri Hart has been very particular about that character and always comes to me whenever it comes up, if there’s interest in Ahsoka. Of course, you can imagine that after she left the Jedi Order and after Clone Wars was taken off the air, there was actually a tremendous amount of interest about Ahsoka in other forms of media, creatively, wanting to explore her character. I didn’t feel like that was the right thing to do it and something that’s great is getting the creative support from your peers around you to say yeah, you’re probably right and let’s hold off on that. I always feel strongly that while we can have everything at our fingertips right now, something that made Star Wars so powerful to me growing up was we would go through a long period of time where we wondered what happened to Han Solo. He was stuck in carbonite. Now, everything’s instant. But I think we built a deep love and connection to our characters because, for lack of a better term, we dreamed about what they were going through. We wondered and we anticipated, so when the payoffs came, I think it was a lot better, a lot stronger, so I thought making people wait to find out what happened to Ahsoka just built up her mystique a little bit more, a little bit better until we nailed her down. But there are things happening in Season 2 where I’ve thrown a line here and a line there that I know will land with the fans, and they’ll be like, “What is she talking about? What is that referencing?” I think it will drive them insane with curiosity, in the best way possible. People will start to piece it all together and then hopefully, I can one day tell these kind of stories that I want to. I myself am curious at what medium it will be in at the end of the day. I don’t know.[Laughs] I have to do it, is that right?!Well, it’s a very challenging thing, as you can imagine. What people send me already is fascinating to see how people have gravitated to that matchup and are already predicting it. I guess in some ways, I don’t want to say yes or no, but it seems like a collision course, doesn’t it? Even the way they’ve appeared on the show already… But it would be a hard conflict for her to walk away from, I’ll say that. This is not a spoiler but there were several things that I wanted to go over with George before he was out completely. One of the things that he and I sat down and had fairly lengthy discussions about was Ahsoka and Darth Vader. We forged a plan that basically was what she would know, what she didn’t know, what ways she would react, what he would think. So all these things that we may or may not cover, I know I’m basing them, deeply rooted, in all the things that we had kind of planned. So I was glad to have gotten this kind of backstory detail, so if a confrontation happens, it’ll be legitimate. I will feel that it needs that backing and informative detail. I guess that, in summary, that just tells you it’s come up before, already. It’s something that’s always been on our minds since the early creating of the character, once you realize she’s Anakin’s Padawan. That has implications that are very far reaching, but we’ll see. That’ll be a sticky thing and hopefully very epic. To that end, I would say that I would caution people, and I said this already -- Ahsoka is not going to bunk up on the Ghost. That’s not her style. You have to think of her more as a figure that comes in and out of the story, a figure that has a lot of knowledge and advice, kind of a mentor, definitely a warrior, but one that’s very cautious about when to draw her sabers and actually fight. It’s an extremely dangerous time, especially for someone like her that has a personal connection to someone like Darth Vader, whether she knows that or not. We’ll have to wait and see. That’s one of the big questions, I would imagine.It is fascinating. It’s ten years now I’ve worked with Lucasfilm. April is my ten year anniversary. It’s just… What’s hard to digest for me is that this character now is she’s living, breathing, walking around in Star Wars, like any. There’s a whole generation that has embraced her like any [other character]. The Clone Wars generation is so vocal online that I really believe that they’re behind powering this surge represented Monday night when she appeared. It’s interesting. I will say, with everything going on in Star Wars now, it’s such an exciting time. Rebels is happening, and Rebels is incredibly exciting. Episode VII is happening and that’s incredibly exciting. There are so many key creatives working on Star Wars now in different ways, all which have a love for this universe. Is it, like many fans I would assume, an outside hope for me that one day there will be Ahsoka in some form, walking onto the [movie] screen - that would be fantastic. I won’t lie to you and tell you that’d be something I would be against. I’d be all for it. I don’t think it makes her any more legitimate than she currently is but I think it would be just fascinating, mostly because of how this character has evolved, in her age, in her attitude. It’s so rare to get to watch an animated character grow up like this, over time, especially in this type of story. It would be interesting but you know, I’m all for any medium. We’ve had comic books with Ahsoka, animated series with Ahsoka. She’s been in video games. She’s left an indelible mark which is, I could not have guest when we began this whole thing and she was running around saying “Sky Guy.” We’re a long way from that point.

Continue to Page 2 as Filoni discusses killing off the Inquisitor and the excitement and challenge of having Darth Vader as an ongoing part of the series.