Princess Leia Comes to Star Wars Rebels in Season 2 Return

When Star Wars Rebels returns for its mid-season premiere, it’ll be bringing along a very important guest star, and one of the founders of the Rebel Alliance: Princess Leia Organa.The episode, “A Princess in Lothal” hits Disney XD on January 20 at 9pm, the new timeslot for the series.

The episode features Leia, around 15 at the time of the series, heading to the Rebels’ crew’s home base of Lothal to search for more ships for the growing Alliance. An Imperial planetary lockdown ruins her plans, likely leading to the crew of the Ghost being enlisted to help.

“We thought we had an opportunity to show her learning to be a leader, experimenting with the personality that becomes the stronger more resolute character you see in A New Hope,” showrunner Dave Filoni told TVInsider in the announcement. “One of the complex challenges of depicting Leia in Rebels is that we have to remind the audience that at this point she is part of the Empire. She doesn’t believe in the Empire, but she is acting the part, almost a double agent.”

Indeed, the young revolutionary served as an official Senator within the Empire, as late as the events of the first film. Leia is only in the one episode this season, and including her certainly presents a challenge that other “Original Trilogy” characters don’t. It’s a little more problematic for Leia to interact with two young Jedi, for instance, than it is for Lando Calrissian or one of the droids who were also around during the prequel era. It’s an interesting challenge, but one Filoni is up for.

“We’ve been pretty good at bringing [certain characters] back, not just because people want them, but because we have an important sotry to tell with them, and how things cross over,” he said.

The voice actor for Leia is Julie Dolan, who voiced her in Star Wars: Uprising, the mobile video game that takes place directly after the events of Return of the Jedi.