Captain Rex, Hondo, Vader, Ahsoka, and More Are ALL in Star Wars Rebels Season 2 (w/ Trailer)

Star Wars Rebels day kicked off at Star Wars Celebration with an announcement-filled panel featuring the show’s cast and crew. James Arnold Taylor, the voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi, came out with a mash-up digitally inserting him into the first Star Wars: The Force Awakens teaser trailer to plenty of laughs. The weekend’s mainstage host began with an introduction in which he performed at least 40 of the several hundred voices he’s done as a voice actor.

Taylor introduced Taylor Gray (Ezra), Tiya Sircar (Sabine), Steve Blum (Zeb), Vanessa Marshall (Hera), Freddie Prinze, Jr. (Kanan), producer Simon Kinberg, and showrunner Dave Filoni out to the stage with plenty of applause for all.

But first, here’s the just-released trailer to Season 2!

Filoni and Kinberg first talked about the show’s first season, building a dynamic around the idea of family, and exploring the timeframe that hasn’t received much attention before. The actors all discussed their various Star Wars pasts, with Gray and Sircar revealing that they really weren’t huge Star Wars fans before landing their roles. But, they say, they are at a ten out of ten in fandom now. Blum claimed his cred for seeing A New Hope opening weekend in 1977. Marshall, well-known as a major fan of the franchise, said it’s unquantifiable how much she loves it now. Prinze Jr. is a lifelong fan as well; he revealed that the scar on his chin is from playing Star Wars as a kid with a flag pole as a lightsaber.

Simon Kinberg is a massive fan, and said his very first memory as a kid is seeing Star Wars in theaters. Filoni – well, he’s obviously a pretty big fan. 

Filoni digressed into stories about casting the show, and said that he, Kinberg, and season 1 producer Greg Weisman agreed unanimously on every character – it only took them a week. That cast has a blast together, both in the recording booth and on stage at events like this. They talked freely about how they’ve fallen into family dynamics off screen that are similar to what their characters have on screen.

After summing up season one, Filoni introduced season 2’s new trailer, and the entire cast  sat on the floor at the front of the stage to watch it on the big screen. The trailer featured Kanan saying “Things are getting worse, just as they did when I was your age. Back then, there were ten thousand Jedi Knights protecting the Empire. Now…” Ezra finishes, “It’s just you and me.”

Vader is tasked by the Emperor to hunt down “the Rebels of the Lothal system.” The trailer continues with major attacks upon Lothal, the increased Rebel force – Ahsoka “tagging along” with the crew. And there’s Captain Rex! And Other Clones! Hondo! Then it’s Kanan and Ezra versus Vader. It doesn’t look good for Ezra. A new, female villain with a spinning red lightsaber staff like the Inquisitor’s is revealed, plus another alien with a red lightsaber.

After the trailer played twice, Ashley Eckstein (Ahsoka) and Dee Bradley Baker (Captain Rex and the Clones) joined the panel. After expressing their excitement of being back in the Star Wars family, a fan Q&A began.

A young fan on the stage asked Dave Filoni, “How did Rex and the other clones survive, and why don’t they try to kill Kanan and Ezra when they see these Jedi after Order 66? Filoni said there wasn’t enough time to explain, but summarized it like this:

“When George was selling the company, he and I sat down and actually talked about it, and mapped out exactly how Rex and Ahsoka survived. If you remember in Season 6 of The Clone Wars, Fives discovers the truth about the Clone programming, and he tells Rex. I have always believed that the truth can break any spell. It’s kind of a mystical thing but real and true as well. Of course, when Rex doesn’t turn against the Jedi, that makes him a traitor, and the other Clones will go after him as well.”

Filoni finished with one more tease, saying “We may all love Captain Rex, but Kanan not so much, for obvious reasons.”

Has Kanan completed the trials and officially become a Jedi Knight? Prinze thinks that he’s not even halfway there yet.

And could viewers see Ahsoka vs. Vader in season 2? “Ahsoka and Vader is a topic that George and I discussed,” Filoni said. “I asked the same questions, what does she know? Would she know? It’s part of the story that we have to tell you now.”

Another fan asked about the status of Cad Bane, another fan-favorite character. Filoni noted that Rex and Hondo were both in the trailer and that, when they started, they “really wanted the Rebels crew to have their space.” The characters [from Clone Wars and the Original Trilogy] coming in are “important to this story now,” and they “have to be very careful about which characters that we bring into it.”

Stay tuned for more Star Wars Rebels from Star Wars Celebration Anaheim.