Animated Star Wars shows The Clone Wars and Rebels were always viewed as official canon, but it didn’t look as though they’d ever have any bearing on the live-action arm of the franchise. Of course, that all changed in a major way with The Mandalorian‘s second season, which opened the floodgates for a slew of fan favorites to make the jump.
Rosario Dawson’s Ahsoka Tano and Katee Sackhoff’s Bo-Katan debuted in Din Djarin’s second run, while Ming-Na Wen’s Fennec Shand returned the favor by dropping by The Bad Batch. Throw in the constant rumors that Aladdin‘s Mena Massound and Rebels‘ Lars Mikkelsen are poised to be announced as Ezra Bridger and Grand Admiral Thrawn, and it’s all systems go.
In a new interview with ScreenRant, Rebels co-creator Simon Kinberg revealed his excitement at getting to see so many familiar faces cross over into live-action on a much bigger scale than he could have possibly anticipated.
“I’m super excited to see them turning the live auction. Honestly, it was something that we talked about from the very beginning of the process of the show, was, ‘it would be so awesome to see them live-action’. Initially, we were thinking of them as potential cameos in the movies, which happened. But to see them actually take life and have their own real storylines and shows is super exciting, and my involvement is I keep in touch with those folks and we’ll see.”
The latest rumors claim to have spotted Kevin McKidd on the set of The Mandalorian Season 3, so if he has been sighted then we can presumably add Fenn Rau to the list of Rebels alumni diving headfirst into the world of streaming exclusives. It’s an exciting time to be a Star Wars fan, with Lucasfilm pulling out all the stops to get everyone back on board after the polarizing reactions to The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker.
