Star Wars: A New Hope Character Makes Surprise Star Wars Rebels Cameo

Copy that, Gold Leader. Yes, another major guest star from the Original Trilogy was in Star Wars Rebels tonight in the epsiode “Secret Cargo” besides Mon Mothma. Mothma was voiced by Genevieve O’Reilly, the actress who also just played the character in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, but she brought along a few friends: Gold Squadron.

Yes, that’s Captain Jon “Dutch” Vander there fighting alongside the Ghost crew. Ezra Bridger even becomes the temporary Gold Two! Vander was Gold Leader in Star Wars: A New Hope, played by actor Angus MacInnes. The actor then reprised his role, recording new audio while old recovered clips of him from 1977 played in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

While MacInnes didn’t voice Vander this time around – Yuri Lowenthall played Gold Leader in this episode, it’s still fun to see another character from the original trilogy and the more recent and closely related Rogue One show up. There are some pretty classic lines of dialogue and Easter eggs in there, as well: Gold 5 goes down (there’s a different one in A New Hope), and the same sort of tactical pilot talk like “break off” and such is in there, too.

As the story in Star Wars Rebels finishes off season three and goes into season four, we should continue seeing characters from the live-action films make their way into the series with increasing frequency. In just two weeks, we’ll be seeing Obi-Wan “Old Ben” Kenobi, after all.

More Star Wars Rebels News:

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5 Things We Want to See in Star Wars Rebels Season 4

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Star Wars: New Look at Obi-Wan Kenobi vs. Darth Maul Rebels Rematch

Star Wars Rebels airs Saturdays at 8:30 p.m. ET/PT on Disney XD, and follows the adventures of Hera (Vanessa Marshall), Sabine (Tiya Sircar), Zeb (Steve Blum), and the Jedi Kanan (Freddie Prinze, Jr.) and Ezra (Taylor Gray), a small crew that’s finding their way in the nascent Rebel Alliance a few years before the events of Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. Executive produced by Simon Kinberg and Dave Filoni, the in-canon series helps to connect the worlds of the films and the previous animated series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, with guest appearances so far by characters like Lando Calrissian, Ahsoka Tano, Darth Vader, Darth Maul, Leia Organa, Wedge Antilles, and more.