Lucasfilm is Very Cautious About Revealing Too Much About The Force

When Star Wars Rebels season three kicks off this Saturday on Disney XD, it brings with it some brand-new looks at the Force, the connective tissue of the entire Star Wars universe. The introduction of the mysterious being Bendu, an ancient creature that exists between the light and dark sides of the Force. Bendu seems to know much more about the nature of this universal energy feature than any Sith or Jedi ever could, even seeming bemused by Rebels regular Kanan Jarrus calling himself a "Jedi Knight." That's something showrunner Dave Filoni loves exploring, but also wants to remain cautious with.

"I think the neat thing that people have come to understand is that the Force is a lot more complex than they thought, and that the Jedi and the Sith are just orders within the concept of using the Force. They can't lay claim to being the only ones that have power over the Force because the Force is an energy field that surrounds all living things. Everyone's involved in it," Filoni told ComicBook.com in an interview. "I love those Force ideas, though I think that touching upon them briefly is better than explaining them outright. It's a delicate line to cross there if you start explaining too much of it," he cautioned.

Rebels isn't the only thing exploring the Force in new directions this year, though, as Rogue One: A Star Wars Story will get into the concept of the Force as a religion, revered by more than just Jedi. Interestingly, Filoni says he doesn't thinkthat he and the rest of Lucasfilm are really "changing" the way that the Force is looked at, just revealing things that are already there.

"I think that the more stories you tell, it's just inevitable that the more things are going to come to light. Even with George when we worked on Clone Wars, he brought up things like the Mortis realm and the god-like things on Mortis. He talked at length about all types of things surrounding the Force, and a lot of that is basically what we're mining here. While George never told me to create a character like Bendu, the Bendu character fits in with a lot of things that he and I talked about, at least as far as my interpretation of it goes," he said.

The Star Wars fandom - and creators - of today have grown up with the Force, and while he acknowledges that and the "natural desire to go deeper" into these mysteries, he tries to pull back.

"I tend to try to be very cautious about that because I don't really ever feel that I have too much of a right to be the person giving those answers, though it's probably more true now that completely everything's changes hands than it was before. I think when you work with George it's easier to say, 'Well, it's his universe,' but now that universe is our responsibility," Filoni said. "For all of the interesting things that people might think are being added, it's really just us trying to solidify these explanations for ourselves and for fans as far as what is the Force and what makes it work, so that we all are on the same page telling our stories. We're not going off in wildly different directions.

"I would say that foretelling many different things about the Force now or revealing it, we still want to keep it very special and unique and not, you could say, give it all away. You can't do that. You don't want to undermine the magic of it. It's a delicate balance, for sure, when you're dealing with the Force."

Believe it or not, that "delicate balance" line was not an intended pun.

The balance of the Force will be in question throughout Rebels season 3 as Kanan struggles to understand how to move past his blindness, Ezra struggles with the temptation of the dark side and the Sith holocron, and they eventually deal once again with Force magic, Darth Maul, and more.

Star Wars Rebels returns Saturday September 24 at 8:30 p.m. with a special hour-long premiere.