Western Animation / Star Wars Rebels

"If we don't stand up, who will?"^Characters From left to right: Ezra Bridger, Kanan Jarrus, Zeb Orrelios, Hera Syndulla, and Sabine Wren, with Chopper. Top row: Grand Admiral Thrawn, a Lothwolf, and Governor Pryce.

"We have been called criminals, but we are not. We are rebels, fighting for the people. Fighting for you... I see what the Empire has done to your lives, your family, and your freedom. It's only gonna get worse. Unless we stand up and fight back. It won't be easy; there'll be loss, and sacrifice, but we can't back down just because we're afraid — that's when we need to stand the tallest. That's what my parents taught me. That's what my new family helped me remember. Stand up together, because that's when we're strongest: as one!"

— Ezra Bridger

Star Wars Rebels is a CGI animated series set in the Star Wars franchise and a sequel to Star Wars: The Clone Wars, as well the first major Star Wars installment released following Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm. It is created by Dave Filoni, who directed The Clone Wars, Simon Kinberg (X-Men: Days of Future Past) and Carrie Beck, and executive produced by Filoni, Kinberg and Greg Weisman (Gargoyles, The Spectacular Spider-Man, Young Justice (2010)).^note Weisman later left the show after Season 1 to work on Rain Of The Ghosts, though returned for the tie-in comic Kanan.

Set fourteen years after Revenge of the Sith,^note or about five years after Solo, or five years before Rogue One and A New Hope the Galactic Empire is securing its grip on the galaxy and hunting down the last of the Jedi Knights. Young orphan Ezra Bridger (Taylor Gray) stumbles upon Kanan Jarrus (Freddie Prinze Jr.), a former Jedi who leads a Rebel group including Twi'lek pilot Hera Syndulla (Vanessa Marshall), Mandalorian warrior Sabine Wren (Tiya Sircar), Lasat strongman Zeb Orrelios (Steve Blum) and astromech droid Chopper (Himself) aboard the Ghost. As he joins up with them, Ezra learns the ways of the Force, and the Ghost crew fights alongside many allies against the ever growing threat of the Empire. Their journey takes them to many strange locales, and thanks to their stubborn belief in the power of hope, the Ghost crew becomes much more than they had ever dreamed of.

The series premiered on October 3, 2014 as a one-hour special on the Disney Channel and began airing regularly on Disney XD the same month. The show ran for four seasons and concluded on March 5, 2018.

While the show was airing, Chopper made an appearance in live-action for a background cameo in Rogue One. After the show's end, more characters from Rebels slowly began to reappear in live-action installments in the Star Wars franchise, starting with Zeb returning in The Mandalorian (as a CGI character, once again voiced by Steve Blum). After that, Ezra, Sabine and Hera (now played by Eman Esfandi, Natasha Liu Bordizzo and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, respectively) - as well as other recurring characters like Ryder Azadi and Grand Admiral Thrawn (with their actors Clancy Brown and Lars Mikkelsen reprising their roles) - made the jump to live-action in Ahsoka.

Supplemental material

• A New Dawn, a novel released about a month before the start of the series which provides backstory about two of the show's major characters: Kanan Jarrus and Hera Syndulla.
• Ezra's Gamble, a junior novel taking place shortly before the start of the series.
• Kanan, a prequel comic further detailing the past of Kanan Jarrus at the very end of the Clone Wars and the beginning of the Dark Times, was also released, with former showrunner Greg Weisman writing several issues.
• Ahsoka, a young adult novel that reveals how Ahsoka's survival in the aftermath of the Clone Wars led to her position in the Rebellion as we see in her debut.
• HoloNet News, Imperial propaganda news report shorts on Tumblr providing background information on Lothal for the then-upcoming show.
• There are also a number of other supplementary books to the series, including The Rebellion Begins, a novelization and Adaptation Expansion of the premiere film Spark of Rebellion; and Servants of the Empire, a four-book series focused on Zare Leonis, an Imperial cadet who ends up serving as a spy for the Rebels.
• Star Wars Rebels Magazine contained eight-page comic strips that took place in between episodes of the show.
• Adventures in Wild Space takes place shortly after the rise of the Empire and contains cameos of characters from Lothal as well as nods towards concepts first introduced in Rebels.
• The short story "Mercy Mission" explores Hera (and Chopper in a minor role) as a younger pilot delivering supplies to the Free Ryloth Movement while she was still centered around her homeworld.
• The short story "Rebel Bluff" revolves around Vizago, Lando, and Jho prior to the Siege of Lothal.
• The short story "TK-462" is a Lower-Deck Episode, which, towards the end, explores a background event taking place on Lothal during the absence of the Ghost crew sometime in Season 2.
• Thrawn, Thrawn: Alliances and Thrawn: Treason, a series of novels about the titular villain. Thrawn is a prequel set before Thrawn joined the show in Season 3 (with some of the later parts concurrent with Seasons 1 and 2), Alliances is set between Seasons 3 and 4, and Treason is set during Season 4.

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Star Wars: Rebels is followed in production order by Resistance, the seventh season of The Clone Wars and The Bad Batch.

Please move any character tropes to the proper characters page and tropes associated with specific episodes and story arcs to the recap page.

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The show provides examples of:

A-C

• Aborted Arc:
  • The Wookiees from the first episode owe the Ghost crew. This debt is never brought up again.
  • Vizago sold the disruptors from "Droids in Distress" to someone, but this is never brought up again either.
  • We're introduced to Zare Leonis, who is infiltrating the Imperial Academy so that he can find his Force-sensitive sister, Dhara, who disappeared while attending the Academy. This is dropped after the first season, as that story is told in the Servants of the Empire book series.
  • In "The Siege of Lothal", Maketh Tua mentions that the Empire has a list of rebel sympathizers that can't be touched by the Empire due to their connections, which is never alluded to again. (This is likely meant to be a reference to Senator Organa and Princess Leia, but we never have that confirmed.)
  • In "The Lost Commanders" and "Relics of the Old Republic", Rex gives the crew information on locations throughout the Outer Rim that they could use to salvage parts from and possibly use as a base, including Mandalorian outposts. While his knowledge does get used throughout the show such as leading a mission to Agamar, this knowledge on Mandalorian outposts was never brought up again, and confrontations with Mandalorians were either through ties with Sabine or circumstantial coincidences.
  • In Season 3, Thrawn states that he intends on feeding Fulcrum II bad information in order to play the rebels. However, the next time this is brought up, instead, Thrawn informs Pryce, Tarkin, Konstantine, and an eavesdropping Kallus that he's going to stop the rebels' attack on Lothal. Kallus travels to Ezra's tower so he can alert the rebels!... But this is All According to Plan for Thrawn, who knew that Kallus had overheard the meeting and thus used him to find the device he uses for his Fulcrum transmissions, which he matches the trajectory of its signal with the path that General Dodonna's fleet is going, thus starting up the season finale. This being Thrawn, it's possible he deliberately made everyone think he was going to Feed the Mole.invoked
  • In addition, in response to The Reveal that Kallus is the new Fulcrum, the rebels expressed distrust, but over the season, began to build up their trust in him. With Thrawn's claim to use a Feed the Mole plan, it seemed that this was set-up to destroy the rebels' newfound trust in Fulcrum, but as Thrawn ended up doing something else, in the end, the rebels forgive Kallus and thank him for his efforts.
  • In "Wolves and a Door", Kanan and Ezra discover a mysterious cave painting in the Loth-wolf den, which shows what appears to be Lothalian wildlife watching a child being abducted by two Jedi that resemble Yoda and Ki-adi Mundi. Kanan is heavily implied to have a connection to these cave paintings (even being teased by his voice actor), but this apparent connection is not explored again.
• Ace Custom:
  • Thrawn's Imperial Star Destroyer, the Chimaera, sports a unique paint pattern on it's underside, resembling the beast of the same name.
  • Imperial TIE ace Commander Skerris pilots yellow and red-striped TIE Interceptors and later an advanced TIE Defender.
  • In Rebel Assault, Hera flys an X-wing with a green and orange paint job reminiscent of the Ghost.
• Ace Pilot:
  • Hera, who again and again pulls the crew out of situations they would never have survived otherwise.
  • Darth Vader, who single-handedly brings down an entire rebel fighter squadron and frigate.
  • Fenn Rau. He nearly manages to get Hera killed.
  • TIE Pilot Baron Valen Rudor apparently, at least according to the Empire.
  • Wedge Antilles and Hobbie Klivian, and of course, the other students at the Skystrike Academy. Rake and Commandant Relik were/are presumably this as well.
  • Captain Vult Skerris and his squadron of TIE Interceptors.
• Achievements in Ignorance: Holocrons are generally thought to be Mutually Exclusive Magic (someone on the Light Side of the Force can't use a Dark Side aligned holocron, and vice versa) until Ezra demonstrates the ability to use both. The truth is a bit more complicated: someone has to know how to think like a Jedi or Sith to use the holocrons, not necessarily be one, and since many Jedi and Sith are trained from a very young age they're either incapable of understanding each other's mindsets or refuse to try out of (rightful) fear of corruption.
• Action Girl: Sabine, the graffiti-making Mandalorian weapons expert, and Hera Syndulla, the pilot of the Ghost. Ketsu, Ahsoka, and Numa as well.
• Actor Allusion:
  • In general, Steve Blum as a member of a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits stuck in Perpetual Poverty flying around in a Cool Starship. It shouldn't be hard to figure out what else fits this description.
  • In "Shroud of Darkness", the Seventh Sister flirts with Kanan. Their voice actors, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze, Jr., are married in real life.
  • Kevin McKidd and Ray Stevenson are once again warriors of a once-proud regime that came long before us, though here, they're bitter enemies. They are later joined by Tobias Menzies.
  • Kevin McKidd's character has the same haircut he had himself in Dog Soldiers.
  • Possibly unintentional, as his role in Rebels is more of a shoutout to the Battlefront games if anything else. Corey Burton voices a character who is a drill sergeant to military cadets, but unknown to him, at least one of them is a rebel spy (and at least another would become a turncoat). In Transformers: Animated, he is the spy, and the guy he framed becomes a genuine turncoat.
  • This is not the first time Mary Elizabeth McGlynn has played a high-ranking, racist Imperial Antagonistic Governor who is in charge of the show's main setting and is a major villain against the local rebels yet has a soft (though somewhat skewed/hypocritical) spot for family (though this part is addressed in Thrawn rather than in the show itself). And unlike Cornelia, Pryce rejects redemption.
• Air Vent Escape: Played with in the pilot. When Ezra does this in the Ghost, Sabine and Zeb can hear him clanking around in the vents. On the much larger Imperial Star Destroyer, however, it works perfectly. He stops doing this once he's grown bigger in Season 3.
• Air-Vent Passageway: It seems Ezra is quite accustomed and fond of using these to get around. He does it three times in the pilot and again in "Droids in Distress". His comments to Kanan along the way give the implication that he's no stranger to doing so. Notably works much better for Ezra (and sometimes Sabine) than for any of the adult characters, especially the massive Zeb who gets stuck when trying to climb into an air vent. Ezra stops doing this once he's grown bigger in Season 3. He is forced to do this again several times during the course of Season 4 though.
• The Alcatraz:
  • The Spire on Stygeon Prime appears in the third episode, "Rise of the Old Masters". This is the same place Darth Maul was contained at the beginning of Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir. By the time frame of this series, Jedi Master Luminara Unduli (or her corpse, at least) is being held there.
  • Mustafar is also treated as this during the final episodes of Season 1, specifically being called the place that 'Jedi go to die'. Makes sense, since Darth Vader has taken up residence on the planet.
• Alien Sky:
  • Lothal has two moons. Also, its atmosphere seems to be golden, rather than blue. Considering Lothal is an Industrial Ghetto and Ezra's vision depicts an un-imperialized Lothal with a normal blue sky, this can be chalked up to pollution. The sky returns to blue in the Grand Finale, after the destruction of the Imperial forces occupying the planet and the reclamation of the capital city.
  • Garel's sky seems to be constantly purple like a sunset, being a desert/mesa planet.
  • In "Holocrons of Fate", Ezra has a vision of the location of where 'the key to destroying the Sith' lies; twin suns.
• All-CGI Cartoon: Much like The Clone Wars, this series is also entirely generated on computer (specifically using Autodesk Maya).
• All There in the Manual:
  • Since the rebels left Lothal after Season 1, Zare Leonis's storyline was no longer given attention by the show. Instead, his quest to find his sister was continued in the Servants of the Empire book series.
  • You'll get a lot more out of this series if you watched the previous one.
  • Why did the Ghost crew go to Lothal in the first place? The online game, Ghost Raid, reveals that it was supposed to be just to resupply the Ghost after hitting Imperial convoys on several other worlds for the entire game.
  • Subsequently, the novelization for "Spark of Rebellion", The Rebellion Begins, reveals that after acquainting with Vizago when they got to Lothal, he told them about the rebel Wookiees. But unfortunately, when the crew tries to meet up with them, Trandoshans and the Empire had already got to them first, kicking off the events of the pilot episode.
• Almost Kiss: At the end of the promotional short "The Machine in the Ghost", it appears as though Hera and Kanan are about to kiss before they are interrupted by Chopper.
• Ambiguously Brown: Ezra, Kanan, and Sabine's tan skin tones sparked some debate about what their ethnic origins could be. It was later confirmed that all three human protagonists are mixed race.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • In the episode "Dume", the giant Loth-wolf named Dume that appears to Ezra. If it's not a reincarnation of Kanan, then why does it share his real name?
  • At the end of "Twilight of the Apprentice". Is Ahsoka still alive and descending into the Sith Temple, and if so, why? Or is that her ghost and a metaphor to show that this is the end of her story? As of "A World Between Worlds", and the series finale, "Family Reunion - and Farewell", she is shown to be alive even after the war.
  • Also in "Family Reunion - and Farewell", Ezra and Thrawn's ultimate fate, after Ezra uses a pod of purrgil to drag the ship they were in through hyperspace to an unknown destination. The only thing we know for sure (as it was confirmed by the aftershow) is that both survived, and since Ahsoka sees fit to go look for Ezra after the war it can be presumed he survived that too. The question is finally answered in the live action series "Ahsoka", which reveals that Ezra and Thrawn were taken to another galaxy by the Purgill and stranded there.
• And the Adventure Continues: The finale, taking place sometime after the war, has Sabine and Ahsoka off to find Ezra.
• Animation Bump: Subtly. For starters, the lighting in Season 2 has improved from Season 1. There's also a noticeable case towards the end of Season 3 where Obi-Wan's holocron recording plays with more lively animation than previously seen in the beginning of Season 1.
• Animesque: Carrying over from The Clone Wars, the characters have a touch of anime on their character designs.
• Anyone Can Die: Season 3 going into Season 4 really started knocking down the bowling pins, with Gar Saxon, Maul, Konstantine, and Sato perishing in late Season 3 and Slavin, Titus, Old Jho, Vult Skerris, Kanan, Gregor, Rukh, and Pryce kicking the bucket in Season 4.
• Arc Hero: Season 2 adds Ahsoka Tano to the cast as a Big Good type figure leading Kanan and Ezra to contrast the new Big Bad Arc Villain Darth Vader leading the Inquisitors. She also has history with him as his former apprentice, and the climax has the two face off in battle.
• Arc Villain: Aside from the overarching villainy of Emperor Palpatine and Grand Moff Tarkin (plus the Wild Card of Darth Maul), there's:
  • The Grand Inquisitor (plus Agent Kallus and Maketh Tua) for Season 1, with Tarkin playing a direct role in the finale.
  • Darth Vader (plus the Inquisitors, Admiral Konstantine and Kallus) for Season 2.
  • Grand Admiral Thrawn (plus Governor Pryce, Konstantine, Kallus^note (although no for long), and the Mandalorians) for Seasons 3 and 4.
  • Emperor Palpatine himself plays a direct role in the final few episodes of the series following Kanan's death, although Thrawn remains the main antagonist.
• Arc Welding:
  • The audience finally gets to see and hear Obi-Wan's unseen message from Revenge of the Sith almost a decade after the film came out. This, plus the number of cameos from characters from the original movies and prequels, ties the series tightly to the established canon.
  • The reveal of Fulcrum's identity, Ahsoka Tano, welds Rebels and The Clone Wars together. The appearances of several other The Clone Wars characters including Rex, Wolffe, Gregor, and Hondo Ohnaka on the show takes this even further.
  • Sabine being a Mandalorian allows the show to explore the aftermath of the Siege of Mandalore, the intended ending to The Clone Wars had it gotten there. Taking advantage of the ambiguity behind the events helps serve the storyline, especially when Mandalore is touched upon in Season 3.
  • Likewise, the Grand Inquisitor was one of the Temple Guards that arrested Barriss Offee but took her Motive Rant into consideration, which is part of the reason why he became who he is now.
  • "Breaking Ranks" is released around the same time the unfinished The Clone Wars episode arc "The Crystal Crisis on Utapau" is. Said arc reveals that kyber crystals (AKA, lightsaber crystals) can be used for superweapons, bringing to the viewer's mind of the Death Star. We learn later that the Lothal Jedi Temple is specifically on Lothal because of Lothal's abundance in kyber crystals, with the show and Servants of the Empire noting that Imperials are taking farms so that they can mine in them and the reason why Lando is on Lothal. Rogue One revealed that Jedha, another Jedi/Force-related place, is being harvested by the Empire for its kyber crystals. Catalyst finally outright confirmed that the Empire needed kyber crystals to build the Death Star laser, meaning that the Empire is on Lothal to harvest its kyber crystals, while also cashing in on factories for things like new ion disruptors and TIE Defenders to make the most of their time on the backwater world.
  • In the Season 2 premiere, Maketh Tua promises that she knows "the true reason the Empire came to Lothal" but gets killed before she can explain what she meant. Season 4 finally reveals the truth: The Emperor brought his Forces to Lothal because Lothal's Jedi Temple has a portal to The World Between Worlds.
  • The situation in "Zero Hour" is caused by the "A-plot" of Thrawn and the Imperials searching for Chopper Base after manipulating Kallus when Thrawn discovers the agent's Fulcrum plot thread. As a response, Mandalorians from Sabine's plot thread become Big Damn Heroes/The Cavalry to help the rebels escape with their lives.
  • A truly awe-inspiring example in "A World Between Worlds", when Ezra enters the titular World Between Worlds and hears voices from EVERY major canon installment in the franchise since the Disney buyout, including past seasons of Rebels, The Force Awakens, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and even Rogue One, thus neatly tying the past, present, and future of the entire Star Wars saga together in one single scene.
• Arc Words:
  • "I'll be right behind you." or any other variation will be followed by something bad, usually whoever says it.
    • Chronologically, Depa said it first in Star Wars: Kanan to Caleb before being killed during Order 66.
    • Kanan says it to Ezra before being captured in "Call to Action".
    • Ezra to Tua to board a shuttle that exploded and got her killed in "Siege of Lothal".
    • Hera to Sabine to flee while being shot down by the Protectors in "Protector of Concord Dawn". Unlike the other examples, she survives and gets better.
    • Sabine to Ezra on saying she'll use her jetpack to board the Phantom II, telling him to use his Force powers to go on ahead. She ends up getting her jetpack shot mid-flight by Saxon, but gets on board and is fine.
  • A 'spark of rebellion' and ignition of a flame, though this is mostly used in other media in reference to Rebels and not actually by the show itself, such as the act names in A New Dawn, the NEU novelization of Return of the Jedi, Servants of the Empire, and so on.
  • In Season 2: "Malachor."
  • Season 4 specific: "All paths are coming together" and "Dume."
• Armor Is Useless:
  • Played straight for Stormtroopers in regards to blocking blaster bolts, but averted in regards to explosions, which they can survive as indicated by "Art Attack" and "Entanglement".
  • Subverted when it comes to Ezra's energy slingshot; the bolts are too weak individually to stop a Stormtrooper, though several in quick succession will do the trick, and the Grand Inquisitor's armor blocks them completely, which greatly explains why he lets Ezra blast him rather than dodging them.
  • Averted entirely for Kallus; he takes a blaster bolt to the chest and is no worse for wear. Sabine similarly gets shot in the head and chest (by her own pistol shots deflected back at her by Vader), both of which her armor stops.
  • Also averted with Kanan's shoulder pauldron, which stops Vader's lightsaber from cutting his arm off during their duel.
  • In "Stealth Strike," Rex points out the poor quality of Stormtrooper armor compared to Clone trooper armor—considering that he survived a blaster bolt two inches from his heart way back when, he can attest to this pretty well. Even Kanan is aware that Stormtrooper armor doesn't protect against anything.
• Armor-Piercing Question
  • In "The Protector of Concord Dawn", Sabine to the Protectors, who are aligned with the Empire solely for business.
    Sabine: So who's in charge here; the Empire or Mandalore?
  • In "The Honorable Ones", Kallus never questioned his duty to the Empire, he fails to understand why they would do something like wipe out the Geonosians and the point of it. He directs these questions to Zeb, who tells him to find out for himself.
  • Later on in the same episode, after Kallus explains the origins of his grudge towards rebels and Lasats, Zeb says that he can't treat all of them as the same. Kallus asks if that same sentiment applies to Imperials, and Zeb replies that it does, just only to the Imperials he knows. By the end of this episode, their answers have likely changed.
• Art Reflects Personality: In one early episode, Ezra asks Sabine to paint something in his and Zeb's quarters, so she paints a cartoon-ish picture of them doing something goofy earlier that episode. When Ezra and Zeb express disapproval at being depicted as fools, she simply states that she draws what she sees. This is one of a number of moments through the first half of Season 1 that shows that Sabine doesn't like Ezra until they both have Character Development.
• Artistic License – Gun Safety:
  • Hera's blaster pistol is noticeably lacking a trigger guard.
  • This gets lampshaded during Ezra's first few experiences holding Kanan's lightsaber. The first time he ignites it (while looking through Kanan's room), Kanan warns him that he'll cut his own arm off if he's not careful. The second time, Ezra activates it (this time with Kanan's permission) with the emitter pointed towards Kanan's face and almost skewers him through it. Kanan wisely decides to shorten the blade length to avoid any repeat accidents.
• Art-Shifted Sequel:
  • Compared to The Clone Wars, the art of Rebels is — while similar — more cartoony, "Disney-fied", with smoother, rounder edges. Also the paintbrush-style coloring of The Clone Wars is gone, and a more vibrant palette is used. The differences are probably best shown on the respective models of Tarkin.◊, though really, this can apply to any previously established character featured in The Clone Wars that made it into Rebels, even accounting for the Time Skip in-between installments.
  • Vader appears subtly different from the way he does in the movies — specifically, his mask has more of an "angry" appearance with more elongated features and the red of his eyes is more pronounced. This is because the show's art style is based on Ralph McQuarrie's original artwork, rather than the finished designs that appear in the films.
  • The Stormtroopers are an interesting case; while they're more or less given the same look as in the films, said appearance is far more cartoony in the show. Their facial features seem especially exaggerated.
  • Ahsoka's appearance in Rebels has various changes from her appearance in The Clone Wars, even accounting for age. The blue stripes on her horns and head-tails are thinner and wavy, the markings on her cheeks extend further up to be level with her eyes, her eye markings are extended to just below her eyes, and her forehead markings are wider. She also now has a long ovalish/rectangular face instead of a square face, something that age normally doesn't change. Her lips are also notably thinner.
  • The entire Ithorian race seems to have a much less bulky body compared to how they looked back in The Clone Wars. The Wookiees also appear quite different.
  • As shown in this preview of "The Lost Commanders," the heads of the basic model of Separatist tactical droids seem a bit larger and more elongated when compared to their original appearance and their vocabulators seem more teeth-like.
• Ascended Meme: Kanan and Hera were given the respective invokedFan Nicknames "Space Dad" and "Space Mom" based on their roles as Team Dad and Team Mom. In "The Siege Of Lothal", after the other members of the Ghost report in, Hera states "Alright kids, do mom and dad proud!" in the presence of Kanan, alluding to these nicknames. Alluded to even earlier; in "Fighter Flight", when Ezra and Zeb get sent away on a supply run, Hera comments to Kanan about how much quieter it is when "the kids" are away.
• Author Appeal:
  • Dave Filoni is a cat person, so it's no surprise that Lothal has a population of alien cats. And the fact that Chopper is "the family cat."
  • Filoni wanted to involve giant wolves in helping Ahsoka escape from Order 66 and even having her ride one (as a Shout-Out to Princess Mononoke), though was not to be. However, in Rebels, we get several references to giant wolves native to Lothal (the aptly named lothwolves), with one finally appearing in the flesh in the final season of the show to help Kanan, Sabine, and Ezra, also letting them ride it. There's also the ancient art of wolves in the Force temples, as well as the show being codenamed Wolf in production.
  • Simon Kinberg has been trying to write an anti-gravity scene for years, which he would finally do in "Spark of Rebellion".
• Awesome, but Impractical: The Inquisitors use a double-bladed lightsaber mounted to a ring mechanism which allows the blades to spin rapidly. While very flashy, the tactical advantages of this are outweighed by the flaws of the design. On the plus side, the spinning allows the user to quickly reorient the blade without adjusting their hands ("Fire Across the Galaxy"), hit with additional force (Ezra's dream sequence in "Path of the Jedi"), turn it into a Deadly Disc when thrown (numerous examples), and create a shield of sorts ("Fire Across the Galaxy"). The Rebels Encyclopedia actually invokes this, explaining that the weapon is meant to unnerve inexperienced Jedi opponents, making them more vulnerable for the real deadly strike. The big flaw is demonstrated in the season finale when Kanan uses his lightsabers to break the ring while the sabers are spinning, causing both parts of the saber to fly out of the Grand Inquisitor's hand and spelling his defeat. By comparison, when Maul got his saber cut in half, he still had at least one functioning saber to work with. Of note, Kanan had overcome his fear of the Inquisitor by then, making the unnerving and intimidation tactic the weapon is meant for completely worthless as well.
• Babies Ever After: The Distant Finale shows Hera with her and Kanan's young son, Jacen.
• Back for the Dead:
  • Morad Sumar returns in "An Inside Man" just long enough to die when Thrawn forces him to test a speeder that Sumar himself rigged to explode.
  • Titus and Slavin return after a season-long absence in the first and second parts of "In the Name of the Rebellion", and both of them die when their ships get blown up.
  • Gregor returns in the final episodes and joins the liberation of Lothal, but suffers fatal wounds during the battle and dies in his commander's arms.
• Back for the Finale:
  • A large number of previously absent characters return in the final episodes, including Kallus, Rex, Gregor and Wolfe, Ketsu Onyo, and Hondo and Melch. And the purrgil.
  • Chava and Gron get a non-speaking cameo together during the epilogue when Zeb takes Kallus to Lira San.
• Bait-and-Switch: Through season 4, Kanan and Hera have a number of conversations about their relationship, and Hera mourns that she never told him after his death, giving the impression that they'd never actually been together. It's not until the coda to the Grand Finale that we learn they weren't talking about getting together, but the fact that they had a child on the way.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: After being defeated by Kanan in a lightsaber duel in the season 1 finale, the Grand Inquisitor chooses a Disney Villain Death over reporting back to his boss, Lord Vader.
• BFG: The T-7 Ion Disruptor that first appears in episode 3, "Droids in Distress"; it's a powerful hand-held rifle designed to disable starships and when used on living beings the results are rather nasty — in the old Expanded Universe, it was said that Disruptors disintegrate living beings, though the effect is just slow enough that the target dies in utter agony, feeling all of their atoms burning away into vapor.^note Word of God says that this is the case in the NEU as well, and their use on Lasan was the first time they'd been used on organic lifeforms, leading directly to their ban by the Imperial Senate. Even the Empire bans their use — or at least, pays lip-service to the idea that they are illegal, but discretely uses them on rebellious planets they want to make an example out of. (They're kind of the sci-fi equivalent of using nerve gas.) Zeb doesn't like them because he has gotten a real good look at what they can do when the Empire invaded his homeworld.
• Big Bad:
  • The Grand Inquisitor is The Heavy hunting down the Jedi in the first season, though Tarkin (despite his limited appearances) is largely responsible for Lothal's poor state and is the superior of the Imperial forces.
  • Darth Vader becomes this in Season Two, undoing what good the Rebellion managed to accomplish in the premiere before sending two more Inquisitors, the Fifth Brother and the Seventh Sister, to hunt down the Jedi. He returns in the finale to confront Ahsoka Tano personally, though Maul has his own agenda.
  • Grand Admiral Thrawn is brought in to deal with the Rebellion in Season Three, with massive results come the finale. He's also part of a Big Bad Ensemble with the Wild Card Maul.
  • In the final season, Thrawn remains the central antagonist, but Emperor Palpatine himself, much like in Return of the Jedi, steps in to play an active role in the last few episodes.
• Big Bad Ensemble: In season three, the primary antagonists are Grand Admiral Thrawn, who is out to crush the fledgling Rebel Alliance, and Maul, who wants to take revenge against all those who have wronged him (which includes the Empire) and corrupt Ezra into becoming his new apprentice. Maul is Killed Off for Real by Obi-Wan Kenobi in Twin Suns, the final episode before the Zero Hour season finale two-parter, leaving Thrawn as the sole Big Bad.
• Big Bad Wannabe: The Seventh Sister in Vader's absence during Season 2. Out of the other shown Inquisitors, the Seventh Sister is seen to be the most ambitious for the position of Grand Inquisitor. She is also seen giving orders to the Fifth Brother (who is implied to be of higher rank than her) and later the Eighth Brother as well. Ultimately, they all get ousted by Ahsoka and Maul, and she will still be under the command of Vader no matter if she gets the promotion or not.
• Big Good: Primarily Fulcrum/Ahsoka, who coordinates various rebel cells including the Lothal crew. Bail Organa serves as a secondary one, scouting out the team for what would become the Rebel Alliance and working with Fulcrum, and serves as the overarching good guy for the most part. Season 3 introduces the primary one of the franchise—Mon Mothma, who officially kickstarted the Rebel Alliance.
• The Big Damn Kiss: Finally. In the season 4 episode "Kindred", Kanan and Hera share a long one. A few good seconds. Sabine takes notice and gets everyone's attention for it.
• The Big Guy: Zeb is the physically strongest and largest member of the Ghost crew, and he also seems a bit gruff at first, but in reality, he's a deeply caring person.
• Big "NO!": At least twice with Ezra, when he's saving Zeb from Agent Kallus and when the Grand Inquisitor threatens to kill his friends. Kanan also invokes this three times in concern for Ezra, in "Rise of the Old Masters", "Gathering Forces", and "Fire Across the Galaxy".
• Bilingual Bonus: The various signs written in Aurebesh actually do spell out what they're supposed to be saying.
• Bilingual Dialogue: All the main characters speak Basic, except for Chopper, who speaks a garbled droidspeak. However, his actor Dave Filoni, uncredited until the final episode, is speaking English and if you pay attention you can figure out what he's saying (he has a filthy mouth).
• Bittersweet Ending: How the series ends overall. Ezra makes a Heroic Sacrifice to send himself, Thrawn and the Star Destroyer they were in to an unknown point of the deepest reaches of space, effectively taking both one of the remaining Jedi and one of the Empire's most efficient generals off of the board for the entirety of the original trilogy with Uncertain Doom but a hope that Ezra lives. The people of Lothal are freed, albeit not without losses along the way like Kanan or Gregor, and when the heroes tried to anticipate for an Imperial retaliation, the Rebellion would rise up shortly after the series, culminating in peace for the galaxy. While it won't last forever, the heroes earned their victory — though Sabine decides she's not going to simply let things sit, and sets off with Ahsoka to find Ezra.
• A Birthday, Not a Break: The "Empire Day"/"Gathering Forces" two-parter takes place on Ezra's birthday. Throughout the Ghost crew has to protect a Rodian with sensitive intel from the Empire, Ezra's forced to deal with his long-repressed issues about his parents, and Ezra taps into the dark side in a moment of desperation. On the bright side, Sabine found a holo-image of his parents.
• Black-and-White Morality: Played straight at the extremes: The Ghost Crew are good, the Emperor, Tarkin, Pryce and Thrawn are bad. Subverted with prejudice practically everywhere else, as a wide variety of sympathetic Imperial characters are introduced, while both the Rebels and anti-Imperials get at least one villainous figure. One of Ezra's most important lessons is that good and evil can come from anywhere, but also learns that not all of his allies share the same values or even fight the Empire for the same reasons he does.
• Book Ends: One of the first shots in Rebels is Ezra looking off from the tower he lives in, onto Lothal's capital city. The "epilogue" portion of the finale also starts this way.
• Boring, but Practical: Thrawn realizes the Rebellion has a significant fighter advantage, so his master plan is "develop better starfighters." It's not as flashy as a superweapon, but just the handful of prototypes he gets built nearly destroy the Rebellion before it begins.
• Bottle Episode:
  • Or rather, bottle season—the first season of the show is largely concerned with the affairs of the planet Lothal, which is Ezra's home. Given that the theme of the series is that the spark of rebellion will spread like wildfire, the rest of the series explores a greater number of settings.
  • Season 4 is once again is confined to Lothal. The planet is locked down tight and once the Ghost crew enters, they will be stranded and unable to leave. They make the choice knowing this.
• Brick Joke:
  • In "Spark Of Rebellion", when Kallus asks for Ezra's name, he answers; "Jabba The Hutt". Ten or so Episodes later, when Kallus corners Kanan & Ezra, he refers to Ezra as; "Jabba"?
  • In the pilot, he falls on Ezra, who immediately claims he can't breathe because of Zeb's smell. In the first episode of season two, Zeb gets locked into a crate and breaks out gasping for air, explicitly citing his own stench as the cause.
  • And in "The Holocrons of Fate", we get Maul commenting on his and Ezra's cabin: "What a . . . curious smell."
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Chopper's personality in a nutshell.
• Broken Aesop:
  • Deconstructed. Kanan tries to teach Ezra the peaceful ways of the Jedi, but ultimately every problem they have is solved with conflict. Maul's influence ultimately proves to be a catalyst to what Ezra had been internalizing for a long time, and he starts Slowly Slipping Into Evil as a result.
  • This dynamic is Played for Drama in "Mystery of Chopper Base" where Kanan's contradictory actions lead to Ezra having trouble knowing when to play diplomacy and when to use violence against the spider creatures. Though once Kanan experiences a paradigm shift, he revises his previous actions and shows Ezra the possibility of making peace with the spiders.
• The Brute:
  • Taskmaster Myles Grint, a large, dumb subordinate of Aresko.
  • The Fifth Brother in Season 2, is a short-sighted Blood Knight, who refuses help from others and would kill his target without hesitation, instead of capturing them to be used as bait for their comrades.
• The Bus Came Back: Nearly every character of significance returns for the final season.
  • Captains Slavin and Titus return for the first few episodes. And both die in the same episodes they return in.
  • Saw Gerrera returns for the first time since Season 3.
  • Baron Valen Rudor shows up as the new proprietor and owner of Old Jho's Bar. Unfortunately, it turns out this was because the previous owner and namesake was executed offscreen for crimes against the Empire.
  • Mart Mattin and Jai Kell join the Rebel cells for the first time since Seasons 3 and 1, respectively.
  • Gregor and Wolfe rejoin Rex in the finale after last appearing in early season 2, as does Hondo Ohnaka and his Ugnaught crewman, Melch, absent since season 3.
  • Ketsu Onyo, last seen in Season 2, joins her bloodsister Sabine in the final episodes.
  • Cikatro Vizago shows up as a slave aboard the Imperial crawler after last being seen in mid-Season 2.
  • The Purrgil return in massive numbers in the finale as a vital part of Ezra's plan, where he uses them to destroy Thrawn's fleet and teleport himself and Thrawn to an unknown sector of hyperspace.
  • Possibly the longest bus ride of them all: The Mortis Gods return as part of a mural on Lothal after not being seen since their arc in Season 3 of The Clone Wars.
  • The T-6 shuttle, a vehicle not seen since Star Wars: The Clone Wars, makes its return in the finale, fittingly as the starship Ahsoka presumably uses to return to Lothal.
• Butt-Monkey: TIE pilot Baron Valen Rudor. He's been robbed by Ezra, beaten up by Zeb twice, and can't manage to get his hands on a TIE without someone messing that up (once his TIE fighter was blown up, the other time it was stolen). And at the Empire Day ceremony his new prototype fighter was blown to bits in a very public attack, while he was being praised by the Minister no less. Pretty much every appearance ends with him lying unconscious on the ground.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Ezra has a crush on Sabine, but he's too nervous to say anything to her outright, so he resorts to unpolished, cheesy "smooth" talking. Naturally, she's less than impressed.
• Canon Immigrant: Grand Admiral Thrawn is reintroduced to canon in Season 3, serving as the Big Bad of that season and the following one. Season 3 also reintroduces the TIE Defenders, advanced 3-winged TIE Fighters that have been a major part of many Star Wars games going all the way back to 1994's TIE Fighter.
• Cargo Concealment Caper: In the pilot episode, our heroes rescue a group of Wookiees from Kessel by hiding them in a cargo container that the Ghost picks up. Kanan calls this a "22-pickup".
• Casting Gag:
  • This isn't the first time Freddie Prinze Jr. played someone who could lift rocks with his mind, flew around in a cool spaceship as part of a ragtag bunch of misfits that made use of "Spectre" as a designation, or flew around space with a deeper connection to the galaxy than the average person.
  • Not only is this not the first time Vanessa Marshall voiced a character in the Star Wars universe, this also isn't the first time she voiced the pilot of a ship belonging to a retired Jedi.
  • Steve Blum flying around with a ragtag bunch of misfits in a spaceship. Sounds familiar.
  • The leader of the Ghost rebel crew, Hera Syndulla, is voiced by Vanessa Marshall. Marshall's ex-husband, Andrew Kishino, played the Partisan rebel leader, Saw Gerrera, back in The Clone Wars (though Forest Whitaker plays Saw here like he did in Rogue One).
  • Kevin McKidd was the main character of the short-lived Journeyman television series. Here, he's the leader of the Journeyman Protectors.
  • Kallus's first name being Alexsandr is a reference to a production manager, Alex Spotswood, who voices him in temp recording.
  • Andrew Kishino, the original voice for Saw, plays a minor character in Rebels that is nearly the exact opposite of Saw's current characterization—a Reasonable Authority Figure Imperial trooper that puts the well-being of the innocent first.
    • He also uses a similar inflection he uses for Janja in The Lion Guard, a Mook Lieutenant that worries about his own skin but wants to look good in front of his superiors—which is the characterization of Captain Hark's boss, Tiber Saxon.
  • Warwick Davis has a long history of physically playing but not voicing various aliens throughout the franchise. Now he's playing a character only through his voice.
• Casual Danger Dialogue:
  • This seems to be a staple of Kanan and Hera's interactions. In the pilot alone, she discusses recruiting Ezra with Kanan while he's trying to get her to focus on TIE Fighters trying to kill them.
  • The intro to "Shroud of Darkness" has Kanan and Ezra showing annoyance at another encounter with the Inquisitors.
• Central Theme:
  • Fight for the right thing even if it's you against the world, because the truth is, you are not alone in your struggle, and they'll be there to back you up.
  • If you find that you are hurting, reconcile with your past so that you and the people around you can have a brighter future. You Are Better Than You Think You Are.
    • It's never too late to start changing yourself for the better.
• Cerebus Retcon: Possibly. In "Spark of Rebellion", Kallus has an Oh, Crap! moment when he gets caught in Sabine's explosion. While it's partly because he was about to be sucked into outer space, "The Honorable Ones" reveals that Kallus got knocked out and paralyzed by a rebel explosion, which made him helpless as he watched his brothers-in-arms be mercilessly killed.
• Character as Himself: Chopper is credited "as himself" in the credits. Given that Lucasfilm actually went the extra mile and built the character, this isn't too much of a stretch. It becomes useful for gags in Rebels Recon and cameo appearances in live-action works like Rogue One.
  • Averted in the last episode, where Chopper's actor is revealed (see Wham Line).
  • Dume, the giant loth-wolf that's apparently not Kanan is credited as being played by "The Force."
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • Senator Gall Trayvis appears as a hologram in "Rise of the Old Masters" and briefly in "Empire Day" before showing up in person in "Vision Of Hope".
  • Sabine stays with Rau and Clan Wren to deal with the Second Mandalorian Civil War halfway through Season 3. In the season finale, when the Empire lays siege to Atollon and the rebels are unable to call for reinforcements without risking further destruction of the Rebel Alliance, so Ezra chooses to get help from Sabine, Rau, and Clan Wren.
• Chekhov's Skill: In "Siege of Lothal", Darth Vader catches Kanan's wrist and twists it into a throw. In "Twilight of the Apprentice", Kanan uses the same maneuver to beat Maul.
• Child Soldiers:
  • Ezra and Sabine are this, being 15 and 16 respectively. They fall under the "Tragic" type.
  • The Imperial Academy cadets. While we don't get to see much of it in the show, supporting material such as Servants of the Empire and comic strips have cadets participating in things such as maintaining curfews and helping investigations. In the show itself, we get things like Sabine having been a cadet when she participated in an unspecific but questionably moral actions, and other officers on Lothal don't bat an eye whenever they see a cadet (Ezra in disguise) doing things like helping arrest a likely high-prioritized criminal.^note  The Legends continuity included COMPNOR, the COMmission for the Preservation of the New ORder, which included Sub-Adult groups to instill Imperial ideaolgy in young people. SAGroup leaders could be issued stun blasters and given authority to discipline other SAGroup members, and assist in "peacekeeping" initiatives. Cadet behavior here is likely a call-back to this idea.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: It appears to be contagious, as spending a little time with the Ghost's crew inspires Ezra to help them out and to rescue a Wookiee child despite his earlier cynicism. The crew doesn't try to right every wrong they see, but they still take on very dangerous missions for no other reason than it being the right thing to do. Zeb in particular felt he owed these Wookiees, because they were Old Republic soldiers, and when the Empire killed off most of his species to make an example of them, the only reason he and a handful of other Lasats managed to survive was because some Wookiee soldiers helped them fight their way out (though it wasn't even this same group of Wookiees).
• Circle of Standing Stones: There are a few on Lothal, and true to the trope, supplementary material confirms that they're artificial and their origin is unknown.
• Clip Show: "Star Wars Rebels: The Ultimate Guide" is a clip show summary of the first season.
• Clones Are People, Too: Rex, Wolffe, and Gregor are really showing strong individuation from their standardized upbringing by the time of this show.
• Co-Dragons:
  • The Grand Inquisitor and Agent Kallus for Grand Moff Tarkin in Season 1. They encounter the Ghost crew the most and are the biggest threats to them, The Inquisitor is a fallen Dark Jedi while Agent Kallus is a Badass Normal who can beat up Zeb with a weapon not built for his hands. Minister Tua to a lesser extent, as she doesn't participate in the action and is relegated to barking orders. After that, Kallus is the only one left loyal to Tarkin.
  • The Fifth Brother and Seventh Sister take the role along with Agent Kallus in Season 2 to Darth Vader.
  • Season 3 has Agent Kallus with Admiral Konstantine and Governor Pryce under Grand Admiral Thrawn.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Adding another layer to Lightsaber color denoting allegiance; in Season 2 Ahsoka's new lightsabers have white blades. Which invokedDave Filoni has revealed "reflects a lack of affiliation".
• Continuity Nod:
  • In Revenge of the Sith, Obi-Wan said that he sent out a message to tell the Jedi to go into hiding. In this show, we actually get to hear it when Ezra takes a look at a Holocron.
  • The promotion-campaign revealed several nods towards Star Wars: The Clone Wars:
    • Hera Syndulla, the Twi'lek pilot and captain of the Ghost, is the daughter of Cham Syndulla, the leader of the Twi'lek freedom fighters during the Separatist occupation of Ryloth. Cham was also one of the main characters in Lords of the Sith, which mentions Hera in passing a few times.
    • The visor-shape of Sabine's helmet has the same owl-face design as Bo-Katan's helmet, who was the second-in-command of Death Watch. As it turns out, she is descended from House Vizsla through her mother, who was a member of Death Watch.
    • Concept art also shows that Sabine has created graffiti-portraits of Cad Bane and Embo on the walls of the Ghost.
  • In the pilot, Grint and Aresko harass a Lothal citizen over jogan fruit, which were first introduced in Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
  • In the pilot movie, the Empire makes the same mistake they did in Return of the Jedi, jamming the Rebels before the trap was fully sprung.
  • In "Droids in Distress", Bail Organa checks R2-D2 to find more about the rebels while on an Alderaan Diplomatic ship, a nod to how his adopted daughter Leia uploads a message to R2-D2 during A New Hope while her Alderaan Diplomatic ship is being boarded by the Empire.
  • "Breaking Ranks" features Kanan and Hera stopping a Kyber crystal from being delivered to the Empire. In the Star Wars: The Clone Wars Crystal Crisis on Utapau story reels, a giant Kyber crystal was featured as the MacGuffin that Obi-Wan and Anakin tries to prevent from falling into Grevious's hands, and it's heavily implied to be the power source of the Death Star's laser.
  • The episode also resembles "Death Trap" from The Clone Wars in that a boy who's more skilled than his peers (Boba Fett/Ezra Bridger) infiltrates the army ranks as a cadet.
  • In "Out of Darkness", the rhydonium Sabine uses were also used by clone commando Gregor in Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
  • In "Path of the Jedi", Yoda appears to Ezra as a swarm of fireflies; Qui-Gon Jinn appeared to Yoda the same way in the Yoda arc for Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
  • Also in "Path of the Jedi", when Kanan questions how Yoda can commune with him, he responds with "I am here because you are here". Qui-Gon said the same thing to Obi-Wan on Mortis in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, when Obi-Wan questioned Qui-Gon's presence.
  • We get to see how Jedi obtain their lightsaber crystals, which was also previously introduced in Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
  • In "Call to Action", Tarkin mentions his past experience with Jedi.
  • The artwork in Hera's cabin resembles Twi'lek art seen in the Ryloth arc of The Clone Wars
  • In "Fire Across the Galaxy", the rebels steal an Imperial Transport from the same TIE Fighter landing field Sabine raided in the "Art Attack" short. The stormtroopers even remember her, saying "the artist is back" when they spot her (doesn't stop her from blowing up the base yet again). The crew also use the TIE Fighter stolen by Ezra and Zeb from "Fighter Flight" as a Trojan horse/escape vehicle during the mission to Mustafar.
  • Also in "Fire Across the Galaxy", Kanan and Ezra's final battle with the Inquisitor bears a remarkable resemblance to Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon's battle with Darth Maul at the end of The Phantom Menace. Two Jedi — master and padawan — fight a darksider wielding a dual-bladed lightsaber over a series of catwalks. One of the Jedi is knocked out, leaving the other to finish the job. The darksider dies (or appears to) when he falls into a power core. However, there are some notable differences as well. Instead of the padawan being the one to finish the duel, it is the master. In addition, the victor does not push his victim to the latter's death; rather, the victim chooses death, rather than face the wrath of his master.
  • During "The Siege of Lothal," Darth Vader states that he believes Ahsoka can lead the Empire to the other surviving Jedi who are in hiding across the galaxy. He specifically singles out Obi-Wan Kenobi before the Emperor tells him to remain patient. Anyone who has seen Revenge of the Sith knows that Vader is eager to get revenge on Obi-Wan after the latter chopped off three of his limbs and left him for dead on Mustafar.
  • In "Brothers of the Broken Horn", Hondo mentions that he was once good friends with a Jedi many years ago. Or at least he thinks they were friends. He's referring to his adventures with Obi-Wan Kenobi, which occurred in The Clone Wars.
  • In "Protector of Concord Dawn", Sabine reveals that she is (or was) a part of House Vizsla.
  • In "Homecoming", it's mentioned that Cham once fought alongside Mace Windu during the Clone Wars.
  • In "The Honorable Ones", Kallus mentions that his first unit was deployed to Onderon, and were subsequently ambushed by Saw Gerrera's rebels.
  • The population of Geonosis is mysteriously gone, according to "The Honorable Ones". Star Wars: Darth Vader reveals that it was sterilized to keep the construction of the Death Star a secret.
  • In "Twilight of the Apprentice", on Malachor, Ezra finds an ancient crossguard lightsaber (and a couple others have the same design as well) similar to the one used by Kylo Ren in The Force Awakens. This is a Call-Forward, as Kylo Ren based his lightsaber off of a design found from the remains of "the Scourge of Malachor".
  • In "Steps into Shadow", the Spectres are ordered to deliver the Y-wings they captured to General Dodonna's unit.
  • In "The Holocrons of Fate," Ezra sees a vision of what will eventually destroy the Sith. Kanan pulls him out of the vision before it goes too far, but Ezra mentions having seen "Twin suns..."
• Cool Plane: The Blade Wing, the prototype B-Wing star fighter. Comes equipped with a Wave-Motion Gun that Hera uses to take a cruiser out to break an Imperial blockade.
• Cool Starship: The flagship of Phoenix Squadron is a Pelta-Class Frigate known as Phoenix Home, but it gets destroyed by Vader. Later, it gets replaced with a stolen Imperial Carrier.
• Convenient Color Change: After his first lightsaber is destroyed by Vader, Ezra rebuilds it into a simpler form with the blade changing from blue to green.
• Costume Evolution: As the show takes place over a period of years, this is bound to happen. Prior to Season 3, it's mostly color changes.
  • In Season 1 and "The Siege of Lothal", Sabine had blonde streaks in her hair and a faded coat of burgundy on her armor with her firebird insignia, with a dejarik-patterned shoulderpiece and a red anooba on the other. A couple of episodes in, Sabine starts wearing more pouches and ammo. After being shot by Vader, she dyes her hair to blue-green, gets a long-sleeved body glove, adds a '5' decal to the dejarik shoulderpiece and colors the anooba shoulderpiece blue, and also adds more orange and yellow to her armor and helmet.
  • Kallus is given an unstated promotion after "The Siege of Lothal" and is given a different rank badge and symbols on his helmet and collar.
  • Hera gets a pilot's helmet from Quarrie and is seen a couple of times with just her head cap.
  • In Season 3, due to a Time Skip, all of the crew minus Chopper receive one:
    • Ezra is given a buzzcut, civilian clothes appropriate for combat, and is now as tall as Sabine.
    • Zeb has a shoulderless chestplate.
    • Sabine has added purple to her armor and helmet, repainted her starbird insignia as well as seemingly given her armor a fresh coat of burgundy, a new bodyglove (her underarms are colored grey now), and a convor replacing the anooba. Her hair no longer peeks out of her helmet like in previous seasons, as she has cut her hair into a half-tone and dyed it light purple/pink/white.
    • Kanan has a beard, a green outfit similar to Ezra's, and a visor covering his blind eyes.
    • Hera's outfit becomes slightly more official and militaristic, as she grows more involved in the Rebellion.
• Crapsack World: Let's just say society on Lothal really went to hell after the Empire took over the planet. Aside from environmental pollution caused by the factories and strip-mining, and the farmers being forcefully removed from their homes for land development, there are also plenty of corrupt Imperials taking advantage of middle-to-lower class citizens. One can get arrested for "treason" if they say anything negative about the Empire (and being compared to the Old Republic). Also, explosions are incredibly common in Capital City. In Season Two, Darth Vader brings the hammer down on the planet to find the Ghost crew and it's a wrecked shell the next time the heroes visit. By season four, it's a full totalitarian regime, the entire population is enslaved to work the factories, the majority of Lothal has been burned so badly that the sky is just smoke around even minor towns, Lothal's culture has been all but annihilated, and there's the implication that once the empire is done with the planet there won't be a single living thing left.
• Creator Cameo: Dave Filoni voices an AT-AT driver in "Relics of the Old Republic", as well as a couple of other minor roles in other episodes from then on.
• Cryptic Background Reference: The episode guide for "Out of Darkness" mentions that a cup of Spiran caf reminds Kanan of when he and Hera were on the moons of Rion. In Legends, Rion is a tropical resort planet, suggesting this fact is Ship Tease.
• Cunning People Play Poker: One episode opens with Zeb losing the team droid, Chopper, to none other than Lando Calrissian in a game of Sabacc. This establishes his characterization in the episode as a cunning shyster and manipulator as he joins the crew of the Ghost on an inpromptu mission in exchange for Chopper.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Ezra and Kanan have both improved a lot since the start of the show, but it's not enough to help them against Darth Vader. The Sith Lord spends the entire battle smacking them around like they were nothing. To make matters worse, he didn't really seem to be trying all that hard, especially considering the power he showed at the end. There's a reason he's The Dreaded.
  • Ahsoka deals an embarrassing Curb-Stomp Battle to the Seventh Sister and Fifth Brother, which paints them in a far less threatening light for the remainder of the series.
  • Sabine is on the receiving end of one from Kanan when she first starts training with the Darksaber. He's initially wielding his lightsaber with only one hand, then turns it off and dodges all of her strikes. He takes advantage of this to taunt her, using Reverse Psychology to help her find the focus and clarity she needs to use the Darksaber to its full potential.
  • Obi-Wan Kenobi takes Maul out in about five seconds once their duel begins.
• Curtains Match the Window:
  • Ezra has indigo blue hair and eyes.
  • His father, Ephraim Bridger, has black/blue hair and similarly colored eyes as well.
  • Kallus has light-brown hair (specifically strawberry blonde) and light-brown eyes.
  • Jai is a dark brunette with dark brown eyes.
  • Zare's hair is dark brown and so are his eyes.
  • Like in live-action, Wedge's hair and eyes are dark brown.

D-G

• Dark and Troubled Past: Almost the entire crew.
  • Kanan is plagued by the guilt that most of the other Jedi died during Order 66 and he did not. Specifically, he is wracked by guilt that his own master sacrificed herself so that he could escape - even though this is what she wanted to happen, and her last words to him were to run and save himself.
  • Ezra lost both of his parents on his seventh birthday (which he shares with Empire Day) when they protested against the Empire, causing him to develop a (temporary) "look out for number one" mentality and some abandonment issues.
  • Zeb is one of the few remaining Lasats left in the galaxy after they were nearly wiped out in a genocide using banned weapons.
  • Sabine was a former cadet at the Imperial academy on Mandalore, and was manipulated into building superweapons for them, which they then turned on Mandalore and her loved ones. When she tried to speak out, her family abandoned her to her fate. She then was forced to run from Mandalore, became a bounty hunter and was left for dead by her partner before finally joining up with the Ghost crew.
  • Hera grew up on Ryloth, a planet occupied first by the Separatists, then by the Empire. She lost her mother, who was fighting for the Resistance, at an early age, and grew estranged from her father as he neglected his family for the sake of his cause. Word Of God also states that she was personally hurt by Order 66.
  • Kallus has one too. His first unit was stationed on Onderon, where they were attacked by Gerrera's rebels and a hired Lasat mercenary. Kallus was conscious but unable to do anything due to injuries when the Lasat made sure his remaining, already-wounded teammates were dead. For reasons Kallus did not understand, he was spared.
• Dark Action Girl: Ketsu Onyo (who is a Foil to Sabine), at least initially. The Seventh Sister counts as well.
• Darker and Edgier:
  • Much like The Clone Wars before it, Rebels grows noticeably more sombre the further in you get. You can see the transition in the first season alone, which gradually gets darker and more violent. To put it this way: the TV movie that started off the whole story has Wookie kids being sentenced to slave labor in the Star Wars equivalent of salt mines, and the first episode introduces us to war crimes and genocide the Empire has committed. By the end of the season, three of the main Imperial characters are dead, Darth Vader has arrived, Rebel warships are openly attacking the Imperial Navy and Ezra has gotten a nasty pair of scars. This still pales in comparison to the finale of Season 2.
  • Season 3 is incredibly ominous, with Ezra gradually becoming more corrupted by the Sith holocron and committing increasingly dubious acts - in the premiere episode of the season he mindcontrols an Imperial gunner into murdering other people and then committing suicide! - Kanan coping with PTSD and the loss of his sight, Hera in personal danger on at least two occasions, Maul determined to sway Ezra to the Dark Side and kill Kanan, and Grand Admiral Thrawn showing up with the intention of setting the Rebels against each other and utterly destroying them.
• Dark Reprise:
  • Inverted, "Empire Day" reveals that the Imperial March is the Empire's actual anthem, though the melody is much more upbeat than its usual sound.
  • Another inversion occurs in the series finale, when we get a higher-pitched, more "heroic" version of invoked"Thrawn's Web" as Ezra defiantly shuts Thrawn down while in captivity aboard the Chimaera.
• Deadpan Snarker: Whenever they're not being serious (and sometimes when they are), all six heroes regularly count as this.
• Decon-Recon Switch:
  • Who Ezra and Kanan choose to become will determine their future and their role in the Galaxy.
  • Continuing from the above, Ezra is constantly exposed to new ways of thinking from different mentors and enemies, which is not helped by his growing natural affinity with the Force, and also being impressionable and curious:
    • Kanan (who had never formerly finished his own training and had to learn via duels with the Inquisitors; his biggest concern is preserving your humanity while managing to find another way around to survive) attempts to constantly control and protect Ezra from the Dark side due to his own insecurities, while Maul and the Presence (the former being raw to emotion like Ezra and the latter being a revered official Sith Lord) encourage him to go in the opposite direction, by doing whatever it takes to get the job done faster and pragmatically, no matter how scrupulous and to use his negative emotions as his strength.
    • Among the others are Ahsoka, who, while does not seems to be heavily involved in Ezra's training, serves as a personal example to Ezra as a non-Jedi who is still strong in both morality and skill; and Rex, who though isn't a Force-user, teaches Ezra on ruthlessness without going off the deep end.
  • "Rise of the Old Masters" does this with There Is No Try. Kanan says this to Ezra during his training, who asks him how you can do something without trying. Kanan admits that he never understood it either and is just parroting Master Yoda. At the end of the episode, Kanan figures out what it means - if you simply try to do something, you'll have far less chance of succeeding than if you focus on doing it.
  • Of the Kid Hero trope (and likely of Anakin as well):
    • Ezra is rather humorous and clumsy, but it turns out he has powers (The Force), which throws him into the Galaxy of the Rebels vs. The Empire, and of course, his powers are part of his sob story, which motivates him to join the Rebels.
    • It sounds like it will be a fun adventure about kicking evil's butt... but the show explores what kind of stress that induces on a teenager, including the horrors of war like the loss of family, friends, and innocents caught in the crossfire, and the burden of attempting to carry on a legacy of a dying philosophy, also being constantly susceptible to people who want to take Ezra under their wing, as described above.
    • Ezra is constantly wondering if the fight is worth it, but what keeps Ezra from Jumping Off the Slippery Slope and staying a good person at heart is maternal support from Hera, Kanan's teachings, Zeb's respect, Sabine's faith in him, and his friendships with Chopper, Rex, Ahsoka, etc.
    • To sum it all up, like the movies, Rebels is a Coming of Age Story.
  • Briefly discussed in "A Princess on Lothal". The crew tries to come up with ways to retrieve the ships, until each one is shut down, and they are brought to silence, discouraged with the plan. Leia brings life and hope back to the discussion with this piece of encouragement:
    Leia: I know you need those ships, so don't tell me why we can't get them; tell me how we will.
• Deus Exit Machina:
  • The Bendu mysteriously disappears after being shot down by Thrawn, keeping the most overpowered Force being in the show absent for the final season.
  • Ultimately how the series deals with the question of where Thrawn and Ezra were during the original trilogy. In the series finale, Ezra pulls a (non-lethal) Heroic Sacrifice and jumps himself and Thrawn somewhere into hyperspace, leaving both the Empire's most brilliant tactician and the only other surviving Jedi (or more accurately, Padawan) MIA for the entire timeline of the original movies.
• Didn't See That Coming: Thrawn lampshades the fact that the rebels always pull an unexpected tactic out of their ass, and that's how they manage to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. He's able to anticipate a lot of the crap they pull, but in the third and fourth season finales, the Jedi surprise even him.
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: At the beginning of the "Property of Ezra Bridger" short, Ezra's whistling the Rebels main theme while taking a walk on Lothal's plains.
• Disabled Means Helpless: Subverted when Kanan is blinded. Kanan sees himself as useless and Ezra is overprotective of him, which they both attribute to his disability. As they go deeper into the root of their issues, however, it's revealed that Kanan's feelings of uselessness stem from his failure to stop the events of Malachor and Ezra's overprotective because he doesn't want to see him hurt again.
• Disc-One Final Boss: The Grand Inquisitor is set up to be a major antagonist, but he does not survive beyond the first season's finale.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Ezra by Sabine, to the point of Skewed Priorities. In "Rise of the Old Masters", he takes a moment to smile at her as he's about to fall off the Ghost and towards the distant ground.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • The town full of homeless people displaced by the Empire is ironically called "Tarkintown". It's clearly inspired by the Hoovervilles of The Great Depression.
  • Another episode shows that the Empire has a five-year plan for Lothal and the majority of worlds in the Outer Rim. A "five-year plan" was the term for a series of economic intervention plans within the Soviet Union and other communist states; the Nazis employed a similar four-year plan.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": invokedAccording to his voice actor Steve Blum, Zeb "is also know as Garazeb Orrelios, but only to his mom." Hera uses it as a Full-Name Ultimatum whenever she's mad at him.
• Doomed by Canon:
  • Kanan, Ezra, and Ahsoka are all Jedi in various forms that aren't around for the films, so by necessity there must be some circumstance that will, at the very least, distance them from the Rebellion proper. Despite Yoda's claim that Luke was the last of the Jedi in Return of the Jedi, invokedWord of God says they're going with Yoda not knowing due to limited contact — he's in hiding on Dagobah, after all — specifically to try and avoid getting locked into this trope. It's worth noting that Yoda isn't above bending the truth if he feels it's necessary. The series plays with this by having Ahsoka specifically deny being a Jedi in the present, while Kanan and Ezra don't go around advertising their abilities. Ultimately, Kanan dies in a Heroic Sacrifice in "Jedi Night" (Filoni stated in the follow up Rebel Recon that they didn't kill him off because of the aforementioned 'last of the Jedi', but because 'he had to be an example of how to be selfless, how to become enlightened'), Ezra is taken to parts unknown, and Ahsoka is stranded on Malachor for most of the war and only shows up after the war is over to start looking for Ezra.
  • A notable subversion would be Grand Admiral Thrawn. While in the original Legends continuity, he was assassinated by his own bodyguard, the Disney-era continuity cast aside Legends as being non-canon, making it very possible Thrawn's fate in this series could be something completely different, and whether he would live or die was up in the air. Even in the Legends continuity, he lived until several years after the movies. Thrawn ends up taken off to parts unknown and is assumed still alive, and his bodyguard definitely can't assassinate him because he's definitely dead.
  • Thrawn's TIE Defender project can't become widespread, because the Empire doesn't make use of them in the trilogy. After a limited production run, events conspire to cripple production and resources are presumably diverted to the Death Star rather than try to rebuild the necessary infrastructure.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • For people that have seen Revenge Of The Sith, Obi-Wan's hopeful message becomes a bit darker in hindsight when one remembers that he delivered the message just before learning that Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader. "Our friendships will be tested," indeed.
  • In the pilot, Kanan tells Ezra that if he decides to train under him he can learn what it truly means to be a Jedi. As the series progresses, it becomes clear that learning how to be a Jedi again by teaching Ezra is going to be Kanan's character arc.
  • In "The Siege of Lothal", Kallus mocks Tua before she dies in an assassination planned by him and Vader, due to her wanting to switch sides. Come "The Honorable Ones", and now he's the one that's shaken up and in doubt.
  • Before the Season 2 finale, "Twilight of the Apprentice", in the ending of "The Mystery of Chopper Base", Kanan comforts Hera by telling her that they'll see each other again. When he returns, he can no longer see. He failed his promise. Although this would bear further fruit in the episode "Jedi Night", when Kanan's eyes clear before his death due to being close enough to the Force that sight doesn't matter, allowing him to fulfill his promise to Hera.
• The Dreaded:
  • Darth Vader. As Kanan put it, it's not a matter of fighting him, just surviving.
  • Judging by the crew's reactions in the Season 3 trailer, Grand Admiral Thrawn also qualifies.
• Dressing as the Enemy:
  • The human members of Spectre team frequently use stolen Imperial uniforms and trooper armor for infiltration purposes.
  • Chopper is frequently repainted as an Imperial astromech (white and black with some red highlights) to infiltrate their ships and installations. This actually backfires in the season 3 episode "Double Agent Droid", when a team of Imperial programmers set a trap for him.
• Drone of Dread: The sound effect used to indicate the dark side of the Force takes the usual high tone used for the light side and pitches it up until it's piercing.
• Dual Wielding:
  • Kanan and the Grand Inquisitor both do this with borrowed/stolen lightsabers at one point. And Ahsoka is once again armed with both a standard and short lightsaber.
  • Kanan once again dual wields, this time with his normal lightsaber and a red lightsaber, when fighting against the Sentinel. Becomes a Meaningful Echo to "Fire Across the Galaxy", because the Sentinel is a Force-vision of who the Grand Inquisitor once was.
• Dwindling Party: A rare villainous example with the major recurring Imperials:
  • Season 1 introduces Aresko and Grint, Agent Kallus, Minister Maketh Tua, Kassius Konstantine, Lieutenant Lyste, and the Grand Inquisitor, while Governor Pryce is mentioned a few times. By the end of the season, Aresko, Grint, and the Grand Inquisitor have been killed.
  • At the beginning of Season 2, Maketh Tua is eliminated. The Fifth Brother, Seventh Sister, Eighth Brother, and Admiral Titus are introduced afterward, with all the Inquisitors being killed in the season finale.
  • Season 3 introduces Grand Admiral Thrawn, Captain Slavin, Commander Skerris, and Governor Saxon, while Titus returns with a demotion, and Governor Pryce finally shows up in-person. By the end of the season, Skerris, Saxon, and Konstantine are dead, Lyste is framed & arrested, and Kallus has defected to the Rebel Alliance.
  • Titus and Slavin are both killed near the beginning of Season 4. Thrawn's assassin, Rukh, is brought in, leaving only Thrawn, Rukh, and Pryce left by the midpoint of the season.
• Due to the Dead: After Ahsoka is apparently killed by Vader on Malachor, Sabine paints a Morai (the owl-things associated with Ahsoka) on her left pauldron.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Listen closely toward the end of the "Mystery of Chopper Base," a laugh can be heard in the distance. Presumably the Bendu.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • How the Phantom docks with the Ghost seems to change a lot in the first season. Normally, we see it docked facing backwards, with the crew entering through the rear hatch. However, some scenes show it docking facing forward, with the rear hatch facing outside the ship. Later episodes seem to rectify this, with the crew now shown climbing a ladder into the Phantom, making which direction it's pointing while docked moot.
  • Kallus makes no note of Zeb in "Spark of Rebellion" and also has his bo-rifle in the first half of the episode, but only seems to realize that Zeb is a Lasat or decides to use his bo-rifle against Zeb in the next episode when Minister Tua reports a Lasat in the Ghost crew.
  • May be a case of shifting story tones, but Season 1 has a linear story, while the rest of the seasons have episodes that have different seemingly unrelated plots with parts of the episode order being interchangeable with one another.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After endless failures, tragedies, and false starts, at the end, Lothal is liberated, everyone but Kanan survives the war, Zeb returns home, Hera bears Kanan's son, and Sabine and Ahsoka set off to find Ezra and bring him home.
• Elite Mooks: The Grand Inquisitor (and possibly the rest of the Inquisition as well) has his own special forces units that are a cut above the regular Imperial troops on Lothal.
• The Empire: Palpatine's Galactic Empire, of course. The series takes place during the time when the Empire is securing its grip on the galaxy.
• The Emperor: Palpatine/Darth Sidious, naturally.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": So far the Grand Inquisitor has No Name Given, and even he refers to himself simply as "the Inquisitor". After it's established that there are multiple Inquisitors in Season Two, he is referred to as the "Grand Inquisitor". Even when we get to see him as a Jedi in "Shroud of Darkness", he never gets named and is only credited as "the Sentinel".
• Evil Brit: Par for the Star Wars course, almost every Imperial character that isn't a Stormtrooper speaks this. Ezra exploits this trope by speaking in their accent when he's on their own communication channels. The Grand Inquisitor is also voiced by British actor Jason Isaacs, making him one of the few Star Wars aliens with a British accent. According to the Servants of the Empire tie-in series, it's called a "Core Worlds accent" in-universe.
  • Subverted with Grand Admiral Thrawn in seasons three and four. While it's not exaggerated, he speaks with a dialed-down version of his voice actor's Danish accent (that sometimes gets more pronounced, such as when Thrawn finally loses patience with Pryce.) Word of God states Filoni chose a Danish voice because the accent was "alien" but not readily identifiable to American audiences and would set Thrawn apart even among the other villains.
• Evil Duo: Commander Aresko and Taskmaster Grint are slated for these roles, with Aresko being the brains and Grint being the brawn. They even have the same voice actor.
• Evil Is Deathly Cold: Whenever Ezra senses Darth Vader, he feels a deep chill throughout his body. Ahsoka feels the same thing too in the finale.
• Evil Laugh: The Grand Inquisitor laughs twice as he taunts Ezra, threatening to kill him, his master and his friends, which really sets the boy off.
• Evil Learns of Outside Context: After finally tracking Obi-Wan down to Tatooine, Maul questions Obi-Wan as to why he specifically chose to come to this planet of all places. Maul is quickly able to decipher that there's someone on Tatooine Obi-Wan is protecting, and because Maul now knows this, Obi-Wan can now not let Maul leave Tatooine alive.
• Evil Mentor: According to Kanan's voice actor, the dark-aligned villains (Grand Inquisitor, Darth Vader, Maul, and other Inquisitors to a lesser extent) unknowingly taught the Incompletely Trained Kanan to be a better fighter and teacher for Ezra, and Kanan subconsciously went along with it. It's worth noting that the Grand Inquisitor's past self (which is actually the Force itself taking A Form You Are Comfortable With, according to Word of God) is the one to promote Kanan into Jedi Knight.
• Expressive Ears: Lasats like Zeb, and Cikatro Vizago.
• Expy:
  • Chopper, the Ghost's resident astromech, is based on R2-D2's early designs and shares much the same role. With his grumpy personality and tendency to ignore orders, he also has a bit of C-3PO and R3-S6 in him. Dave Filoni told his crew "If R2-D2 was a dog, then Chopper is a cat." When the astromechs meet, they're quick to butt heads.
  • Zeb, the alien muscle of the group, is a member of a species similar to Wookies (called Lasats) and is based on early concept art for Chewbacca, as well as filling a similar role.
• Faceless Goons:
  • Not just the Stormtroopers, but done with the generic Imperial officers, as well. Almost all of them have their visors angled in such a way that their eyes are hidden, and they all share the same chin. This is particularly noticeable in "Gathering Forces", where the Grand Inquisitor walks down the bridge of a Star Destroyer and past a half-dozen identical officers.
  • A heroic variation for Phoenix Squadron, who at least have both genders and different colored suits and helmets.
• Failure Is the Only Option: For starters, Ezra will never find his parents, and no matter great their efforts, the rebels will never succeed in liberating Lothal, at least this early in the war.
  • To elaborate, the rebels cannot win any major incursion or battle as the first victory is on Scarif. (As dictated by the opening crawl in ANH)
  • As of the finale, turns out to be a case of Exact Words. Lothal is liberated, but not by the Rebel Alliance. In the grand scheme of things, it became too late in the game to be considered a serious blow to the Empire. After all, Krennic already came up with Plan B—the Death Star to attempt to rectify this.
• Fake Static: Zeb attempts some in "Fighter Flight" when speaking to Imperials on the ground from the stolen TIE Fighter after they ask him for his operating number. They don't buy it and start ignoring his orders.
• Family-Unfriendly Death: The Inquisitors tend to have nasty ends. The original Inquisitor drops himself into a pit of fire, the Seventh Sister is cut in half, and the Fifth Brother is impaled. While most of these hide behind a Gory Discretion Shot, the nature of them isn't sugar-coated in the least.
• Family-Unfriendly Violence: Kanan takes a lightsaber to the eyes in "Twilight of the Apprentice." Unlike the aforementioned Family-Unfriendly Deaths, this one surprisingly isn't off-screen. The wound is shown for all of a second, but it is particularly nasty and leaves him blind.
• Fangirl: Sabine has graffiti of Cad Bane and Embo (with the latter circled with a heart-shape) on the wall of her quarters aboard the Ghost.
• Fantastic Racism: According to the visual guide (and carrying over from the Legends Expanded Universe), the human-o-centric Empire looks down on aliens, and it is rare for them to serve in high-ranking positions. The Grand Inquisitor is one of those exceptions, as is Grand Vizier Mas Amedda (a Chagrian). Notably, the new Inquisitors also appear to be nonhuman.
  • Agent Kallus seems to be this, though most of it has been against Lasats. It turns out it's from a misplaced grudge, due to trauma from seeing his first unit getting killed by a mercenary that just so happened to be a Lasat. He's actually pretty remorseful about the massacre of Lasan when he recounts it to Zeb in "The Honorable Ones", but it isn't clear if he felt bad ever since the massacre or he was blinded by his vices, hatred, and guilt to distract himself up until then, but it's likely the latter.
    • It also seemed like he was about to harass Hera for being a Twi'lek when they finally get acquainted in "Vision of Hope" before Tua walks in and tells him to cut to the chase.
• Fashion Dissonance: It's Star Wars, and especially closer to the Original Trilogy in the timeline, so the fashion may remind you of the 70's. Noticeably, Ezra and Mart have moppy hair with colorful outfits, Sabine's color palette edges between this and modern day fashion, Kallus as a rebel has unkempt hair and a puffy jacket that cuts off before the hips, several Imperials have the standard sideburns of the day, and so forth.
• Fashionable Asymmetry:
  • Kanan has a a right shoulderpad but not a left one, and Ezra has a guard on his right leg but not his left. Appropriate for a master and apprentice.
  • Sabine's shoulderpads are coloured differently, and her armour as a whole is decorated with splotches of her spray paint.
  • Numa has a left shoulderpad from Waxer's armor.
  • Chopper's left leg is from a different model of astromech droid.
• Fastball Special: Kanan and Ezra develop a modified version of one where Kanan uses the Force to "throw" Ezra over large distances.
• Faux Affably Evil: Maul has learned proper manners and is usually quite polite about killing you. Thrawn is always poised and very polite. Both of them are still completely evil.
• Flirting Under Fire: Ezra tries to flirt with Sabine while she's shooting down TIE fighters, which she responds to by rolling her eyes and getting back to shooting.
• Foe Romance Subtext: There's some really creepy foemeroticism between the Seventh Sister and Ezra. (Completely one-sided on her part, though - Ezra's terrified of her while she's the one actually temping him with the Dark Side and making subtextually-uncomfortable advances.) She's apparently grabby with everyone, since she exchanges snarks with Kanan and gets touchy with Darja, and she stops being specifically 'flirty' with Ezra by "Future of the Force".
• Follow the White Rabbit: A white loth-cat. It first shows up in "Legacy" and leads Ezra towards his parents, and later shows up in season 4 to guide him (presumably) towards safety.
• Foregone Conclusion:
  • Zig-zagged, just like in The Clone Wars. The Ghost crew obviously won't be the ones to defeat the Emperor, though they do have a hand in building the fledgling Rebellion itself, and by necessity any characters from the Original Trilogy must survive, but everyone else is fair game.
  • The Ghost and Chopper are visible on screen in Rogue One, so they must survive the series. And Word of God from the filmmakers says the 'General Syndulla' being paged by the base intercom is Hera, not Cham.
  • The Battle of Scarif is established by the opening crawl of the original film as the Rebellion's first victory against the Empire in a pitched battle. Any major offensive or defensive action by the nascent Alliance fleet is therefore doomed to failure. Indeed, except for small-unit raids, skirmishes, and hit-and-run attacks, every major battle between the Rebel Alliance and the Empire ends in a Rebel defeat, at best escaping with enough ships left to fight another day. Even the liberation of Lothal is largely the result of a local uprising with the only assistance from the Rebellion being the Ghost crew itself.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In the promo short "Art Attack", Sabine taunts the stormtroopers by claiming that she's "read [their] book. It's a short one!" It's later revealed she's a former Imperial cadet.
  • If you watch Sabine's introduction video, her pre-rendering model shows her as being a dark brunette. We learn in Season 3 that her natural hair color is dark brown.
  • In "Spark of Rebellion", Ezra says that the Ghost crew aren't going to come for him, because people don't do that. In "Gathering Forces", he tells Sabine that if he believed that his parents would save him he wouldn't have been able to survive.
  • Sabine pretends to be an Imperial cadet in "Droids in Distress". In "Out of Darkness", it's revealed that she is a former Imperial cadet.
  • At the end of "Fighter Flight", it's implied through facial expressions and body language that despite what they claimed, Ezra and Zeb didn't destroy the stolen TIE fighter. It returns in the season finale, proving instrumental in the plan to rescue Kanan.
  • "Rise of the Old Masters":
    • The crew is tipped off about Luminara Unduli being imprisoned in the Spire by a broadcast from Senator-in-Exile Gall Trayvis, and it turns out to be a trap. When Trayvis appears in person in "Vision of Hope", it's revealed he's an Imperial agent.
    • The Grand Inquisitor offers to train Ezra in the Dark Side, and Ezra replies that he's never heard of it. In "Gathering Forces", Ezra taps into the Dark Side to hold him off. The hints that the Grand Inquisitor (and even the Seventh Sister at one point) might have viewed Ezra has a potential Dark Side apprentice become harsh and relevant when Maul gets the closest to even having Ezra as a Dark Side student.
  • Hera tells Sabine in "Out of Darkness" that the reason all intel is on a need-to-know basis is that, if captured, the crew members can't reveal what they don't know. After "Call to Action", Kanan is captured and tortured for information, but it's ultimately pointless because he doesn't know anything about a larger rebellion. Hera also reassures Sabine that there is a greater movement going on, which is revealed in "Fire Across the Galaxy" when several cells join forces to extricate our heroes, Bail Organa is revealed as a mover-shaker of the Rebels, and Fulcrum reveals their identity.
  • A meta-example: A promotional slogan for the Season 1 finale, "Fire Across the Galaxy", was "Who will fall?" It's the Grand Inquisitor, quite literally.
  • In "The Siege of Lothal", Kanan at one point sarcastically addresses Hera as "General". Fast-forward a few years, and Rogue One reveals via a namedrop that she's been promoted to that rank. It was later confirmed by Filoni at Celebration 2017 that Hera would be promoted to General by the series finale.
  • In "Legends of the Lasat", Chava tells Zeb of a prophecy involving the salvation of the Lasat race, where the Child saves the life of the Warrior. She later reveals Zeb is the Child and Agent Kallus is the Warrior. Sure enough, two episodes later, "The Honorable Ones" involves Zeb saving Kallus' life as part of an Enemy Mine situation, which ends up with Kallus beginning to genuinely question the Empire, opening the road to his redemption arc.
  • "Shroud of Darkness":
    • The Sentinel's mannerisms, voice, uniform, etc. are very similar to the Grand Inquisitor's, and it indeed is him before his fall. Also counts as Five-Second Foreshadowing, because he only has a total of about five minutes of screentime before he unmasks himself.
    • Kanan's interaction with the vision of the Temple Guard Sentinel becomes meaningful when he takes up an old Temple Guard mask to conceal his eye wounds. Also, in the first part of "Twilight of the Apprentice", he briefly examines the petrified corpse of a masked Temple Guard.
    • Kanan realizes that he can't protect Ezra forever, only train him as best he can. In a case of Dramatic Irony, Kanan's depression after the events of Malachor leads him to isolate himself and neglect Ezra's training, resulting in Ezra falling under the influence of the Sith holocron.
  • "The Mystery of Chopper Base":
    • Kanan and Ezra are sparring, and Kanan tells Ezra to keep his blade up, as raising it could cost precious time in deflecting an attack. This is exactly how he's blinded: he lets his blade down after a fight against the Inquisitors ends, Maul abruptly attacks him, and Kanan can't block it in time.
    • Before the Jedi trio leave to deal with the Inquisitors, Kanan promises Hera that they'll see each other again, and doubts he can keep that promise. This turns out to be Exact Words; while Kanan does return to the Ghost, he was blinded on Malachor.
    • On Lothal, just before he's consumed by the explosion he's holding back, his eyes turn clear, allowing him to see Hera one last time before his death. Kanan kept his promise, in the end.
  • The Fifth Brother is blind and uses the Force to see. Shortly after he dies, Kanan ends up blind and has to rely on the Force for vision.
  • A cross-media example: In "Steps Into Shadow", Agent Kallus comments with restrained, but audible, disdain that Thrawn's most recent victory in the Battle of Batonn (which got him promoted to Grand Admiral) had a large number of civilian casualties. Governor Pryce in response states that the casualties were "within acceptable limits," Thrawn remains notably silent. Come the Thrawn novel, it's revealed that the civilian casualties at Batonn were all Pryce's direct fault, not Thrawn's, and only he and Eli Vanto suspect the truth (and have no evidence to call her on it).
  • The Visual Guide for Rogue One (released prior to the second half of Season 3, around the time Rogue One came out) revealed that Saw would conduct an investigation on Geonosis in 2 BBY, but his lungs would be poisoned with Geonosian insecticide, hence why he has a respirator by the time of Rogue One. As Season 3 takes place during this time, we get to see this happen in "Ghosts of Geonosis"... though apparently the poisoning happens later.
  • Similarly, the same book revealed that Senator Mothma would become public enemy number one for publicly calling Palpatine a "lying executioner". The second half of Season 3 has the episode "Secret Cargo", in which Thrawn is going after Mothma for committing treason, as well as Mothma personally helping the Rebellion become the Rebel Alliance.
  • In "Heroes of Mandalore", Ezra and Sabine talk about Mandalore's devastation, with Ezra noting that her homeworld is very different from his. When he returns to Lothal in "The Occupation", he learns that Lothal is in much worse shape than Mandalore.
  • In ""The Siege of Lothal", Maketh Tua mentions there's a secret reason the Empire wants Lothal. Since she's killed before she can divulge it, it isn't until two seasons later that we get hints of what's actually happening on Lothal, with the loth-wolf arc slowly building towards The Reveal that Lothal has a portal to the World Between Worlds, which can access all of space and time.
  • There's glimpses of the World Between Worlds long before Ezra formally visits it in "The World Between Worlds", first when Ezra is getting his kyber crystal in "Path of the Jedi" and next in "Shroud of Darkness" when he's talking to Yoda.
  • In "Zero Hour", the Bendu tells Admiral Thrawn "I see your defeat. Like many arms surrounding you in a cold embrace." As it ultimately turns out, this refers to the many tentacles of the Purrgil, restraining Thrawn while Ezra jumps them both to hyperspace.
  • When Ezra speaks with Yoda, he usually appears in a black, void-like space filled with stars and white glowing runes, which is exactly the form the World Between Worlds takes.
  • One moment in "World Between Worlds" and two moments "Family Reunion" where Hera has her hand on her stomach.
  • In "The Mystery of Chopper Base" Zeb cheers up Ezra by telling him that he'll be back, and then jokes they'll probably have toppled the Empire by that time. This is Ezra's exact fate by the end of the series, vanishing into hyperspace and later returning after the Empire falls.
  • As mentioned in Freeze-Frame Bonus directly below, the silhouettes of Ezra's parents are visible behind him as he flies through the portal, which foreshadows Palpatine using a portal to his old life to tempt him in "Family Reunion - and Farewell".
  • The words "All paths are coming together" are spoken several times before we reach the World Between Worlds, which consists entirely of long pathways linked together.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Right after Ezra flies out of the portal in "World Between Worlds", for a split second one can see the silhouetted figures of his parents in the portal behind him.
• Funny Robot: Chopper enjoys pulling pranks on the rest of the Ghost crew.
• Genocide Survivor:
  • Kanan Jarrus is one of the few survivors of the Jedi purges, which affected him deeply. He changed his name and spent over a decade denying he had ever been a Jedi.
  • After The Empire bombed the hell out of Lasan, Zeb believed that he was the Last of His Kind. This changed when he encountered two fellow survivors who guided him to the true homeworld of the Lasat.
  • The Empire also genocided the Geonosians, leaving one fellow referred to as Klik-Klak.
• The Ghost:
  • No, not the ship itself; a background character, Governor Arihnda Pryce is neither seen nor heard at any point, merely referred to... that is, until Season 3, where she appears in the flesh.
  • Emperor Palpatine is in this territory for the most part, as he is mentioned a lot. We do hear him talk to Vader in the Season 2 premiere, but we never see him make an appearance at all. And after so long, the series will end with Ezra facing the Emperor himself.
  • By Season 4, not only is Orson Krennic mentioned frequently, he has worked his way into the story without appearing in the flesh.
• Glamour Failure: Palpatine's illusion portraying himself as a kind old man briefly flickers to that of the Emperor when Ezra destroys the Lothal temple.
• Godzilla Threshold:
  • In the pilot, Kanan actually using his lightsaber and revealing himself to be a Jedi was seen as an absolute last resort by the Ghost crew. It's no longer the case later on, now that the cat of Kanan being a Jedi is out of the bag, though he still doesn't use it at all the time so as to avoid drawing attention to himself.
  • Ezra indebts himself to Vizago and reveals that he and Kanan are Jedi in order to get information from him that will help rescue Kanan from Tarkin.
  • In the season one finale, Fulcrum reveals her identity (Ahsoka Tano) and brings together a number of Rebel cells in violation of existing protocols in order to extract the crew of the Ghost after they rescue Kanan over Mustafar.
• Goggles Do Nothing: Hera's goggles seem to be perpetually above her eyes but never on them, or in other cases, off her head. One can assume they're supposed to make her look like a legitimate pilot (she owns the Ghost, after all), she would never need them when flying since her cockpit is airtight. Whenever she needs facial protection, she trades the goggles for a full face visor. Subverted in the last season, where Hera puts the goggles over her eyes when she's riding a loth-wolf through tall grass, when her eyes could reasonably need some protection.
• Going Cosmic: The first season is fairly mundane with a little Jedi weirdness in the form of the Temple, but otherwise pretty straightforward. As the seasons go on and we learn more and more of the Imperial's plans the series journeys further and further into the esoteric sides of the Force, with neutral Force beings, a Gate of Truth, reincarnation, and Magitek becoming a matter of course, culminating in the discovery of a portal to a Force dimension through which all space and time can be accessed and actual time travel. Atypical in that the elements were planned from the start so it feels organic, with lots of Foreshadowing and build-up to the reveals.
• Gory Discretion Shot: The Grand Inquisitor's decapitation of Grint and Aresko is blocked by Tarkin's shoulders, followed by a cutaway to Tua and Kallus's shocked expressions. This being in spite of the fact that lightsabers instantly cauterize wounds instantly for nearly every species in the Galaxy, this trope is enforced for dramatic purposes.
  • In "Path of the Jedi", we get a distant shot of Kanan getting stabbed, as well as Shadow Discretion Shots of the crew being cut down (with a shot of Sabine's legs, the rest of her body behind the dejarik table).
  • "Twilight of the Apprentice" has the Seventh Sister getting cut in half, with only a shot of her torso falling to the ground, and the Fifth Brother getting Impaled with Extreme Prejudice, with only a shot of his reaction. Then it gets averted when Kanan gets a lightsaber thrown at his face and scarring his eyes, with an actual model of his scars.
  • In "Family Reunion - and Farewell", we don't get to see Rukh getting electrocuted, but from the way Zeb flinches away in disgust, it can't have been pleasant.
• Graffiti of the Resistance: Sabine's starbird insignia (itself likely being based off of the Clan Vizsla insignia) eventually evolves into the insignia of the Rebel Alliance.
• Greater-Scope Villain:
  • Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine; The Inquisitor works for Darth Vader while Emperor Palpatine is, of course, the ruler of the First! Galactic! Empire! Vader steps down to a more direct role in season 2, and after four seasons, Palpatine finally takes the Big Bad seat of the show for the final episodes after a brief voice cameo in the Season 2 premiere, although his role is ultimately secondary to Thrawn's.
  • In a non-person example, the Death Star. Starting towards the middle of Season 2, more and more of the conflicts the Ghost crew encounter are caused by the fallout of the Empire's construction of their super weapon. Thrawn works hard on his TIE Defender project in direct competition with the Death Star for Imperial resources and funding, and, as he's The Heavy of the show's second half, it naturally helps cause great conflict for the heroes.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: Zeb disables a couple of Stormtroopers by grabbing them and throwing them at their partners. He shows fondness of this trope when does it again in a later episode.
• Groin Attack:
  • Hera punches Lando in the nads after he puts her through trouble in "Idiot's Array".
  • A stormtrooper regains consciousness right when Ketsu decides to use the space between his legs to make an assisted jump with her staff. Just the space, not his crotch.
• The Guards Must Be Crazy: In the pilot, Ezra fakes being sick to trick two Stormtroopers into the cell while hiding behind the steps. They go in and check, then he runs out and traps them in.
• Guns Akimbo: Sabine dual wields blaster pistols. Fenn Rau as well.
• Gunship Rescue: A squadron of Rebel Blockade Runners saves the Ghost crew during their rescue mission to Mustafar.
  • Hera and the prototype B-Wing in "Wings of the Master."

H-L

• Hand on Womb: Blink-and-you-miss-it at the beginning of the series finale, Hera does this while overhearing Ezra talking to his family photo, foreshadowing that she is pregnant with Kanan's child.
• Happy Ending Override: Sabine's Mandalorian arc, built up throughout the show, culminates with the laying of the first seeds of Mandalorian revolution against the Empire, along with her bestowing the Darksaber upon Bo-Katan. Then The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett reveal that The Empire responded with "The Great Purge", the near-extermination of the Mandalorian people and culture. Moff Gideon, who oversaw the Purge, managed to take the Darksaber from Bo-Katan, although she narrowly survived.
• The Heavy: The Grand Inquisitor, a Dark Side user who's one of Vader's top lieutenants, seems to be set up as this. He is for a while, but it doesn't quite shake out that way long-term.
  • The Seventh Sister and the Fifth Brother attempt to pick up the slack after the Grand Inquisitor's death, but they don't last long either.
  • Grand Admiral Thrawn, upon showing up, runs the Empire's efforts against the Rebellion under Tarkin's command, and unlike the Inquisitors, Thrawn managed to survive his introductory season, allowing him to continue his role past Season 3.
  • Agent Kallus started out as the Big Bad for the pilot movie, but became the most recurring villain, and hunts down the Ghost crew and the growing rebellion where ever they may be. Now that Kallus has had a Heel–Face Turn, this is no longer the case.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: The criminals the Ghost crew run into have a complicated relationship with each other.
  • Lando initially had a deal with Azmorigan to trade his puffer pig for Hera up until he screws him over by telling her to make a run for it when she gets the opportunity. Azmorigan is an associate of Vizago, and Vizago is the guy who hired Lando on Lothal (which is probably how the deal got set up in the first place).
  • In Rebel Bluff, Vizago and his subordinate Lando (and Jho at the beginning, but he pretty much stays out of it and was only there to play with them) play sabacc with each other before the former loses and accuses the latter of cheating, until Ria steals the pot, forcing them to do an Enemy Mine to get it back. By the end of it, Vizago ends up offering Lando a job offworld (also avoiding the Siege).
  • Hondo somehow tripped up Vizago and temporarily stole his ship, then tried to steal his credits when he would trade his power generators to Azmorigan by claiming he was standing in for him. Hondo ends the episode on both of their bad sides, but by the time the latter returns (in Season 3), the duo create an alliance and decide to go to the crew (or Ezra, mostly) to help them go on a treasure hunt. In the series finale, he fully devotes himself to the Rebellion for Ezra's sake.
• Heinousness Retcon: In the season one episode "Droids in Distress", Agent Kallus gloats to Zeb about how he took a bo-rifle (a weapon only wielded by the honor guard of Zeb's species, the Lasat) from a Lasat he killed, and that he was the one who gave the order for the Imperial forces to use the T-7 ion disruptors (weapons meant to take down starships) to decimate the population of Lasan. However, during an Enemy Mine situation in the season two episode "The Honorable Ones", Kallus admits that he was given the bo-rifle after defeating its owner in combat (as per Lasat tradition). It is also revealed that Kallus wasn't the one who gave the order to use the disruptors, and had only claimed credit to make Zeb angry.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic:
  • Averted with Sabine, who does wear the helmet belonging to her Mandalorian armor when appropriate.
  • Also averted from time to time with Ezra, who wears a customized cadet helmet whenever they go on long missions.
  • Kanan gets a helmet of his own in "The Call" so that all three can breathe in the toxic environment.
  • Yet still played straight for all of them since they often remove their helmets or lift their visor in any situation when it's helpful for the audience to see their faces even though blaster bolts are flying left and right.
• Hero of Another Story:
  • Dave Filoni mentioned/hinted in an interview that this is what the Ghost crew are and would end up as through the course of the story with relation to the Rebel Alliance from A New Hope.
  • Zare's story is never followed up in the show. "Breaking Ranks" was a backdoor pilot to the Servants of the Empire series, which is concurrent to Rebels.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Any surviving Jedi are largely dismissed by Imperial citizens, who view them as traitors to the Republic/Empire, disappointments, inefficient, or any combination of the above. Considering there aren't many of them left, no one really cares anymore, let alone give a second glance.
• High-Dive Escape: Kanan and Ezra pull this kind of escape from a pair of Inquisitors. It helps that Ezra has already used the Force to summon some flying creatures to aid their escape.
• Homage Shot:
  • "Droids In Distress" has Senator Organa kneeling next to Artoo to learn about the Ghost crew, paralleling Leia giving the plans to Artoo.
  • Grand Moff Tarkin's arrival on Lothal parallels Darth Vader's arrival on the Death Star II in the opening of Return of the Jedi. And for bonus points, the Imperial March from The Empire Strikes Back is playing.
• Heroic BSoD: This happens to Ahsoka when she finds out who Darth Vader really is. Doesn't slow her down, though.
• Humongous Mecha: The Empire uses walkers yet again. However, unlike the more familiar AT-ST and AT-AT used in the movies (although the AT-AT does appear in season 2) the primary walker unit in the series is the AT-DP, which in terms of size is somewhere between the AT-ST and AT-AT.
• Hypocritical Humor: Sabine loves to call the Stormtroopers "bucketheads". While wearing a Mandalorian helmet, which looks even more like a bucket.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Ezra says this word-for-word to Jai Kell after shoving him off a moving platform.
• I'm Standing Right Here:
  • The rebels have to come up with a different plan when they're trying to free Jedi Master Luminara Unduli. In the elevator, Sabine and Zeb voice their frustration:
    Sabine: Ugh, his plan gets worse all the time.
    Zeb: Just hope he doesn't change it again.
    Kanan: I'm standing right here.
    Sabine and Zeb: ...We know.
  • In "Out of Darkness", Zeb and Ezra decide to tell Kanan that Hera and Sabine are stranded without fuel, but not that it's their fault for not checking the diagnostic. He finds out anyway, since they're yelling at each other right outside his door.
• Implied Love Interest:
  • Kanan and Hera act a lot like a couple that has been together for a while, with Hera calling Kanan 'love' and 'dear' and the way they act with each other. There's also their Team Mom and Team Dad aspects, and their reunion in the season one finale practically begged for a kiss, making it seem like they are already an Official Couple, even though they don't show it. (Or not around "the kids", at any rate.) At the end of the "Machine in the Ghost" short, Kanan and Hera seem quite close to sharing a kiss. In the prequel book A New Dawn Kanan is clearly very attracted to Hera and would be interested in pursuing a physical relationship, but she makes it clear she doesn't have time for romance; whether that's changed in seven years has yet to be seen.
  • In the season two episode Homecoming, when preparing to meet Hera's father Cham for the first time, Kanan acts like a suitor who's about to be introduced to his girlfriends father. According to Kanan's voice actor, Freddie Prinze, Jr., this in part is because the two do have feeling for each other.
  • Season 4 takes the Implied part of their relationship and shoves it out the airlock. The trailers leading up to the season premiere showed Kanan wanting to upgrade their relationship. Episode 5 marks their first onscreen kiss. Episode 8 has Hera finally confess to Kanan the full extent of her feelings for him moments before Kanan is killed. And to top it all, the series finale reveals in its epilogue that they had conceived a child prior to Kanan's death.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Over the course of the entire series the Empire's finest have never managed to shoot anyone or anything important:
  • The first season in particular took a fair amount of heat for this. In some episodes it can be worse than it was in the original series, and that's saying something.
  • Sabine lampshades this to the Trope Namers themselves during a diversion on a TIE flight pad. She even tells them they could benefit from more time at the academy.
    Sabine: You call that shooting? I think you boys need a little more time on the practice range.
    • Meanwhile, Sabine shoots very well despite having been trained in an Imperial academy.
  • A pretty noticeable case occurs in "Spark Of Rebellion", in which Kanan jumps out of cover while Stormtroopers are shooting at him and walks directly toward them slowly and without a weapon, and they all keep missing him. The only ones that come close come within inches of him, but he tilts his head a bit to avoid the blaster fire. Of course, given that this is the point where he pulls out his lightsaber and reveals himself as a Jedi, Rule of Cool is in effect.
  • "The Siege of Lothal" contains a moment where they're deliberately not firing at rebels when said rebels are hidden already behind cover, so they fire at their only possible escape route to trap them as the Imperials approach them and kill anyone that feels stupid enough to walk into the line of fire.
  • The concept is mocked by Rex:
    Rex: I hope you brought a better class of soldier than these... storm troopers.
  • Later on Rex complains about the armor they wear, which is apparently ill-fitting and the helmet badly obscurs vision. Even Rex is firing like normal Stormtroopers until he takes off his helmet, then his Clone Wars skills kick right back in. However the ill-fitting part may simply be due to Rex being out of shape.
  • In the first episode of Season 3 the team is shot at – and missed by – stormtroopers, TIEs, and an AT-ST; on top of that, the heroes themselves consistently miss their opponents even in straight hallways. For some reason, almost everyone hits what they aim for on their first shot (usually fired without aiming) and then falls into this trope.
  • Very notably averted by any stormtroopers under the command of Thrawn, especially the Death Troopers which immediately subdue Kanan with one stun blast.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Sabine covers Ezra and Kanan's escape from Darth Vader by shooting a pair of blast at him. Vader oneups the usual blaster deflection trick by sending the shots straight back at her, hitting her in the left side of the chest and the head. Her armor saves her life, or else he'd have almost effortlessly killed her.
• Inappropriate Pride: After his Heel–Face Turn, Kallus was not happy about the low level assignments he was getting.
  Kallus: Why would she give me such a meaningless task? I've commanded Imperial squadrons.
  Rex: I think you just answered your own question.
• Innocuously Important Episode: Episodes that are supposedly Filler end up being this.
  • "Out of Darkness," introduces the asteroid base where Fulcrum has been leaving supplies. At first, it seems to be a one-off episode involving Sabine and Hera bonding. Only two episodes later, it turns out to be the place that Kanan and Ezra lead the Inquisitor to throw him off Tseebo's trail.
  • "Idiot's Array" gives us The Charmer himself, Lando Calrissian. He has the Ghost crew smuggle some "mining equipment" to Lothal. Fast forward to the Season Two premiere, "The Siege of Lothal," and he helps the crew escape from Darth Vader himself (admittedly, Lando appears in a cameo with a Small Role, Big Impact, but still...).
  • Inverted in "Twin Suns", with the Obi-Wan and Maul conflict being so important to the saga as a whole that it overshadows the more relevant to the series plot of Ezra finally giving up on hunting the Sith and choosing his family and the rebellion over power and revenge.
  • Out of all of season 2, "The Call" seems the most like filler, focusing only on a raid and Ezra connecting with space whales. In season 4, the lessons Ezra learned from the purrgil help him commune with the loth-wolves which proves vital to the final arc. This gets a massive Call-Back in the series finale, where Ezra summons an entire armada's worth of purrgil and uses them to jump him and Thrawn into hyperspace.
• Insistent Terminology:
  • Hera Syndulla doesn't crash, she has very exciting landings.
  • Likewise, Hondo is a pirate, not smug. . . glug. . . whatever you just said.
• Interquel: The series bridges the nineteen-year gap between Revenge Of The Sith and A New Hope. Specifically, it is set fifteen years after Revenge of the Sith, and about four years before A New Hope (Season 1's "Empire Day" is specifically stated to take place on the fifteenth anniversary of Palpatine's formation of the Galactic Empire).
• Interspecies Romance: Kanan, who is human, and Hera, who is a Twi'lek
• Invasion of the Baby Snatchers: In "The Future of the Force", the Inquistors go so far as to kidnap Force-sensitive children right in front of their parents, who are powerless to stop them.
• Ironic Echo: Ahsoka, Maul, and Thrawn have similar ideas on how to defeat enemy forces.
  Ahsoka: [We're here to find knowledge in] the forbidden kind. To defeat your enemy, you have to understand them.
  Maul: To defeat your enemy, you must know your enemy. Even practice their beliefs.
  Thrawn: To defeat an enemy, you must know them. Not simply their battle tactics, but their history, philosophy, and art.
• Ironic Name: The Greek Goddess Hera was Zeus's wife and patron of marriage, but she's also known for her vengeful nature, hunting Zeus's illegitimate children, and being an Abusive Parent for Hephaestus. Considering this, it's quite ironic that Hera Syndulla, the Team Mom of this series, is named after her.
• I Work Alone: In Spark of Rebellion, Ezra Bridger says this to Agent Kallus when he accuses him of being a Jedi Padawan training under Kanan Jarrus. Not long after, however, the accusation ends up becoming true.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Pretty much every crew member of the Ghost is this at one point or another.
  • Kanan isn't as much of this as he was in A New Dawn, but he's still very skeptical towards some non-crew members because they could be troublesome.
  • Ezra starts off as a cynical street rat only looking out for himself, but that didn't stop him saving a fruit vendor from being arrested for a misdemeanor against the Empire. Like Kanan, he becomes nicer and less self-serving after he meets the crew.
  • Zeb seems pretty gruff and willing to kill Ezra when they first meet, but he ultimately cares for the crew and their cause and eventually comes to respect Ezra.
  • Hera can sometimes come off as a nagging Team Mom whenever any of the crew does something stupid, but only because she has their best interests at heart. Otherwise, she's probably the nicest member of the crew.
  • Sabine has some trust issues (a result of her time with the Empire) and comes off as a bit dismissive towards Ezra, but like everyone else in the crew, is fighting for a righteous cause.
  • Chopper for the most part is an obnoxious, hedonistic (and mildly sociopathic) prankster towards just about everyone, but his loyalties ultimately lie with the crew, even if his ownership rights have been lost to someone else.
• Jurisdiction Friction: Kallus starts having some friction with the Grand Inquisitor. While the Grand Inquisitor seems fixated on Kanan and Ezra, Kallus aims to bag the whole group. He still has this to some degree with Tarkin, but quickly realizes he is way outside his depth in dealing with the top of the Imperial food chain.
  • He still clearly can't resist being subtly snarky when Tarkin himself returns in defeat from Mustafar... and then he sees Tarkin's "guest", and he realizes the depth is beyond his head at this point.
  • There seems to be some friction between the Navy and the ISB whenever naval personnel screw up. However, when it comes to dealing with mystical Inquisitor mumbo-jumbo, Agent Kallus and whatever Imperial commander is present usually side with each other against the Inquisitorius in friction events.
• Kingpin in His Gym: In "Through Imperial Eyes," when Agent Kallus and Lieutenant Lyste are admitted into Grand Admiral Thrawn's office, they see him sparring with assassin droids in a side room.
• Knight of Cerebus:
  • Although Agent Kallus brought a decent level of threat with himself, the Grand Inquisitor is the real one for the show. Right up until he showed up in "Rise of the Old Masters" the series was rather light, with only occasional and momentary dips into a serious tone. Then, in the span of just a few moments, a holo-recording of Luminara Unduli's last moments and her mummified corpse was shown, followed up by the Grand Inquisitor curb-stomping Kanan, and a chase sequence that the heroes barely get out of.
  • Tarkin serves as a far more aggressive example - he shows up in "Call of Action" and, in order: executes Aresko and Grint for their incompetence and warns Kallus and Tua that further failure will not be tolerated, manages to trap the rebels, and captures Kanan. His final lines imply that he's just getting started.
  • The last scene of season one finale hints that Darth Vader will be this for season two, if not the entire series, and certainly is when he shows up. Flushing the rebels out of Lothal, then decimating the rebel fleet in the season 2 premiere.
  • "Twilight of the Apprentice" is one of the (if not the number one) darkest episode in the show, thanks to Darth Maul. For starters, he kills both the Seventh Sister and the Fifth Brother, and blinds Kanan.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: The Grand Finale ultimately reveals that after the destruction of the Imperial control center on Lothal (with all personnel onboard) and the loss of the Jedi temple's gateway to the World Between Worlds, the Empire decided to cut its losses and abandon the planet to focus on more pressing issues, like the growing Galactic Civil War and the Stardust Project.
• Lampshade Hanging: In "Kindred," Ryder Azadi is introduced to the crew's rather haphazard way of getting out of trouble. He's not exactly impressed with it.
  Ryder: How have you people survived this long?!
• La Résistance: The series starts on a planet recently occupied by the Empire, where the citizens show dissatisfaction for its iron-fisted rule and for labor for its war-facilities.
• The Leader: Kanan is the de facto leader of the group, though Kanan and Hera sort of form a Team Dad and Team Mom leadership duo. Hera actually owns the ship they live on (the Ghost is consistently referred to as her ship, not Kanan's) and she is its pilot. Moreover, Hera is the one who communicates with their mission contact Fulcrum, not Kanan. It's implied that they did this on purpose to compartmentalize information: Kanan is out in the field running ops while Hera is usually flying the ship, thus he is more likely to be captured, in which case they don't want him to have any vital information about the wider rebel network that can be tortured out of him. This is exactly what happens at the end of Season 1: Kanan is captured in the assault on the planetary communications array, but even under heavy torture he simply doesn't know anything about Fulcrum to tell the Grand Inquisitor, because Hera always handled that.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The midseason trailer for Season 2 has Ahsoka do this in a clip taken from "Twilight of the Apprentice", likely in reference to the increasing amount of re-entries into new canon starting especially at this part of the series.
  Ahsoka: There is always a bit of truth in Legends.
• Legacy Character:
  • In Season 2, the Fifth Brother shows up to replace the Grand Inquisitor who died in the Season 1 finale. The Seventh Sister invites herself in, and they end up running into the Eighth Brother along the way.
  • Season 3 introduced a new Fulcrum after Ahsoka's disappearance in the Season 2 finale.
• Leitmotif:
  • The sinister Enter Kallus and variations such as the also militaristic Holocall With Kallus and the beginning of New Found Respect. 0:43 in the former is his cue (ex. plays when the rebels first spot him in "Empire Day"), and he also has another cue for whenever he begins a showdown with Zeb (notably when he challenges him in "Droids in Distress" and reveals the trap in "The Honorable Ones"), and one similar to a Scare Chord on horns (when he shows up in "Breaking Ranks").
    • Enter Kallus sounds like a twisted version (as in, the notes are deeper) of this part of The Clone Wars theme. It could be showing how Kallus is loyal to the successor of the Republic so that the 'dark times' never occur again... or possible Foreshadowing, if "The Honorable Ones" means anything.
  • A haunting organ can be heard whenever Grand Admiral Thrawn appears.
• Lensman Arms Race: The Empire typically uses TIE Fighters and Interceptors, built for speed but lacking armor, shields, or even a hyperdrive. However, they use a lot of them to make up for their weaknesses. The Rebels, on the other hand, use hardier and more versatile fighters, since they have fewer resources and pilots. In response to this, the Empire, under the guidance of Thrawn, begins manufacturing TIE Defenders, which retain the speed of a TIE Fighter but have shields and a hyperdrive.
• Lighter and Softer: Started off as one of the lightest canon Star Wars works, and especially compared to Star Wars: The Clone Wars (which had its own lighter beginning but was still quite intense). The tone in the first season was fairly playful and sometimes comes across as playing pranks on the Empire instead of being genuine guerilla combatants. There are substantially fewer on-screen deaths and the action is more ambiguous about the severity of the violence, deaths that are on-screen are substantially less graphic. The Clone Wars utilized Gory Discretion Shot but never shied away from making it clear when someone was dismembered, while this shows adheres more strictly to Never Say "Die" (IE, Ezra's parents and Kanan are merely said to be "gone"). The show does end up going in some dark directions, particularly once Maul enters the picture, but never quite gets as intense as The Clone Wars could be.
• Live-Action Escort Mission:
  • The "Empire Day"/"Gathering Forces" two-parter has the Ghost crew trying to get Tseebo, a Rodian with half the Empire's secrets in his implant, off Lothal and to safety. Unlike most examples, Tseebo's catatonic most of the time, and actively helpful for the rest.
  • "Secret Cargo" has a squadron of Y-Wings and the Ghost crew escorting Senator Mon Mothma to the secret rebel base on Dantooine after she pretty much flips off the Empire. Thrawn and the Seventh Fleet including TIE Defenders are in hot pursuit of them.
• Lost Him in a Card Game: In "Idiot's Array", Zeb bets Chopper in a game of Sabacc, believing his hand is unbeatable. Lando, however, has an "Idiot's Array" and takes Chopper, forcing Kanan to broker a deal so Lando will give him back.
• Lovable Rogue:
  • Lando Calrissian. He's such an asshole that nearly everyone in the show hates him...but he's such a smooth asshole that most of the audience loves him.
  • Hondo Ohnaka, carried over from The Clone Wars. Age hasn't slowed him down one bit... though he doesn't have his pirate crew anymore. Despite this, he never ceases to amaze.

M-P

• Mama Bear: Sabine's mom may have abandoned her own daughter, but it's not something she'll do again. Proof? She shot Saxon when he tried to shoot Sabine In the Back after he lost their match. Don't threaten her kids.
• The Man Behind the Man: Darth Vader, for training the Grand Inquisitor, and Emperor Palpatine, for running the Empire. As Lothal is pretty out of the way, most of the work is left to the Grand Inquisitor and local security.
• Meaningful Echo: Star Wars is a story of repetition, after all.
  • "Twilight of the Apprentice" to The Force Awakens. Ahsoka confronting Vader, with the latter saying that the man she once knew is dead by his hand, is similar to Han trying to reach out to Kylo Ren, who also says that Ben Solo is dead. Both heroes die (ambiguously in Ahsoka's case) in their attempt to bring back the good in their loved one. Word of God says that this parallel was unintentional though.
  • Season Three to Return of the Jedi in regards to Ezra's character arc. When we first see him, he is older, wiser, and wielding a new green lightsaber to replace his blue one that he lost in a battle with Darth Vader, along with his innocence. He is also perilously close to falling to the Dark Side. Its a nearly spot on match for Luke's arc by Jedi.
  • "I'll be right behind you." Specifically, these were the last words Depa said to Caleb during Order 66, to save himself while she stalls. In "Call to Action", Kanan stays behind to stall the Imperials so that the crew can live to fight another day, knowing he will be captured. They also end up being more or less his last words when he sacrifices his life in late Season 4.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Kallus is a very callous person, indeed. But surprisingly less so than most Imperials, or at least, that is what it seemed like at first. Not only does he murder a stormtrooper for making a sly remark, but we later learn that he was the one who gave the order to decimate Zeb's people, driving them to near extinction. A fact that he mocks Zeb with.
    • Somewhat subverted in "The Honorable Ones" when he helps Zeb for reasons other than pragmatism and expresses regret for the events on Lasan, which he lied about commanding out of a grudge he grew from the trauma of his first unit being mercilessly killed by a Lasat mercenary.
  • Like how a skywalk means 'to walk in the sky' and above things, a bridge... well, is a path above something that connects two other paths together. Take out the 'Z' in Ezra and you get 'Era Bridger'. He's the protagonist of a show that bridges the eras of the prequels and sequels, or Republic and Empire, together.
  • Some of the episode titles are either this or they're the Non-Indicative Name trope.
    • "Spark of Rebellion". As Kallus said himself, a spark left unchecked can catch fire, in an analogy to how easily rebellion can be spread. Fitting for the pilot episode of a show about rebels.
    • "Droids in Distress" is in reference to C3-PO and R2-D2 getting stuck with a band of apparent thieves. Though it seems that the only one that was in any real distress was Threepio.
    • "Rise of the Old Masters" can be seen as this. In a way, Luminara seemed to have risen from the dead if you didn't know that it was actually a special hologram. And this episode did make Kanan realize that he needs to step up his game. And if you've watched Season 2, it might make sense if it's also in reference to the Grand Inquisitor.
    • "Breaking Ranks". To 'break ranks' means to march or charge out of your designated order in a military unit, as well as publicly disagreeing with your own group. The episode is about The Infiltration of the Imperial Academy by Ezra and Zare, as well as getting Jai out of future peril.
    • "Out of Darkness" is referring to the fyrnocks.
    • "Empire Day" is about Empire Day.
    • "Gathering Forces" is about Ezra tapping into the stronger parts of the Force... and he goes too far and taps into the Dark Side.
    • "Path of the Jedi" is when Ezra undergoes Jedi trials and gains his kyber crystal so he can make a lightsaber.
    • "Idiot's Array" is in reference to the Instant-Win Condition in sabacc, which starts up the whole plot. This also references how most of the crew were butt monkeys.
• Midseason Upgrade: The Ghost's auxiliary ship, the Phantom fighter/shuttle, got kitted with a hyperdrive engine by the Mon Calamari engineer Quarrie midway through Season 2, and also with an astromech socket so Chopper can serve as an astronavigator for it.
  • Halfway through Season 3, Sabine gets the Darksaber and set of Madalorian Vambraces (wrist-mounted weapons similar to those used by Boba Fett).
• A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: In "The Siege of Lothal", Ahsoka joined the Ghost crew in their attempt to stop Vader from destroying the rest of Phoenix Squadron. When she realizes that the pilot of the lone TIE is a Force-sensitive, she and Kanan use the Force together to try and probe him. She's so thoroughly horrified when she and Vader mutually recognize each other that she faints.
• Mix-and-Match Weapon: Ezra's lightsaber has a stun blaster built into it. It was inspired by Lasat bo-rifles, which can alternate between blaster rifles and electrostaffs.
  • In "Legends of the Lasat", it turns out Zeb's bo-rifle doubles as a mystic staff as well.
• The "Mom" Voice: Hera is the Team Mom, and it shows, from the way she will use a Full-Name Ultimatum on Zeb (Garizeb Orrelios!) to when she has to explain to a frustrated Sabine why it is that she and Kanan keep details from the others, to once giving an explanation to Ezra about why it is that the sale of ion rifles has Zeb in a particularly foul mood, advising Ezra to give Zeb his space. And on one occasion, she uses her "Mom" voice to send Ezra and Zeb on a Snipe Hunt for a piece of fruit she knew would be next to impossible to find on Lothal, telling them not to come back without at least one. It was meant to be a Team Building Exercise, but if Hera knew the antics that Zeb and Ezra got up to during that outing, she'd probably never let them off the ship again.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • Episode 11, "Call To Action", feels like this. Two episodes previous, we were hyuk-hyuking it up with Lando Calrissian in cartoon hijinx which, while enjoyable, were ultimately light-hearted. The first scene after the intro of "Call To Action" itself has the two recurring funny bumbling cartoon-like Imperials chasing our heroes in a good fun bike chase. And then, two episodes after Lando and five minutes after the chase, Tarkin has said bumbling officers beheaded without warning in front of the other Imperial characters to make a point that failure will no longer be tolerated. The Imperials then barely let up on the brutality for the remaining fifty minutes or so of runtime of the season.
  • There was a lead-up to the Season 2 finale in the form of "Shroud of Darkness", but it is followed by closing the B-Plot of the new base location in the more light-hearted episodes, "The Forgotten Droid" and "The Mystery of Chopper Base".
• Myth Arc: The series ultimately revolves around two themes: the liberation of Lothal, and the question of what the Empire wants on Lothal in the first place. Initially, it seems that they just want its' resources, for either Thrawn's TIE Defender Project or the Death Star, or something else. However, the endgame of the series reveals that Palpatine himself wanted the Lothal Jedi Temple so that he could access a portal to the World Between Worlds and conquer all of time and space. The series finale also culminates with the Ghost crew summoning as many allies as possible and ultimately liberating Lothal from the Empire.
• Mythical Motifs: The Phoenix. Nearly all the protagonists have arcs focusing on becoming new, better people after their Dark and Troubled Past, the rebel fleet in season 2 is called Phoenix Sqaudron, Sabine's symbol (confirmed to be the inspiration for the Rebel insignia) is the GFFA version of a phoenix, the starbird, and Ezra wears primarily orange with a bird's head on his back. To a lesser extent, fire is a running motif throughout the series, with the rebellion being compared to fire spreading, and fire appearing in several events that permanently change a character's life or the show itself.
• Mythology Gag:
  • As in the original trilogy films, the series starts with an Imperial Star Destroyer gliding ominously across the top of the screen. (This time, it's in a planet's atmosphere.)
  • During one scene, Zeb poses as a "Hairless Wookiee" in order to infiltrate an Imperial compound. Zeb's design is based on the early concept art for Wookiees.
  • Obi-Wan's holocron message (itself a Continuity Nod to Revenge of the Sith) ends with him saying the remains of the Jedi Order need to stay in hiding, but "A New Hope will emerge."
  • The Inquisitor is Pau'an.
  • Kanan's speeder-bike is described in supplementary materials as being a Joben-T85 produced by Zebulon Dak Speeder Corporation, referring back to the ending of the first arc of the Droids cartoon.
  • The pilot droid RX-24 from "Droids in Distress" was the pilot in the original Star Tours ride. They're both even voiced by Paul Ruebens.
  • In "Breaking Ranks", Kanan and Hera go after an Imperial kyber shipment, mention of which goes all the way back to a May 1975 synopsis of an early draft of A New Hope (although its first actual appearance was as the MacGuffin in Splinter of the Mind's Eye and it's now spelled as "kyber crystal").
  • The Imperial troop transports bear a strong resemblance to this 1979 toy,◊ down to the prisoner cells mounted on the sides.
  • The training obstacle course in "Breaking Ranks" is confirmed by Dave Filoni to be based on both the Box and the clone training yard from Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
  • The lines that the Grand Inquisitor says to Ezra in "Gathering Forces" are similar to what Emperor Palpatine says to Luke in his throne room in the Death Star in Return of the Jedi.
    • Kanan has a star map in the holocron.
    • Ezra's lightsaber sounds similar to Kylo Ren's from the The Force Awakens teaser.
    • When Ezra first activates his lightsaber, he holds it very similarly to Luke in some of the original artwork for A New Hope.
  • The title of the episode "Idiot's Array". In the old Expanded Universe an "Idiot's Array" is a winning hand in sabbac (and the episode establishes that that's still the case in the new continuity).
  • The Kanan vs Vader fight in "The Siege of Lothal" is noticeably slower and heavier than fights in the rest of the series, resembling the original Obi-Wan vs Vader fight in A New Hope.
  • "Shantipole" is the project name for Quarrie's B-Wing development program as well as the planet it takes it name from. In the old EU, Shantipole was the name of the asteroid base where the same B-Wing development program (called the Shantipole Project) was conducted by Admiral Ackbar.
  • The Hammerhead-class corvettes used by Princess Leia resembles the Endar Spire from Knights of the Old Republic. They even share the same class name, Hammerhead, with the difference being that the former are corvettes while the latter were cruisers.
  • The Empire's national anthem in "Empire Day" is an upbeat remix of the Imperial March.
  • Darth Vader's helmet design is reminiscent of Ralph McQuarrie's original concept, which featured a brow that made him look very sinister.
  • The outfit worn by the young Princess Leia is taken from unused concept art McQuarrie did of Leia for A New Hope.
  • The Lasat term for the Force, "The Ashla", was the proper name for the Light Side of the Force that George Lucas created for early script drafts. The Dark Side on the other hand was referred to as the Bogan, which the Bendu brings in Season 3.
  • Ahsoka states "There is always a bit of truth in legends", referencing the formerly Exiled from Continuity elements in the Legends continuity.
  • The Bendu's name is a reference to Lucas's idea of the Jedi-Bendu, who became the Jedi in the final product.
  • The Imperial Security droids in "The Wynkahthu Job" bear a strong resemblence to the Phase-II Dark Troopers from Dark Forces.
  • Kanan using the Force to launch a missile back into the imperial walker that fired it is a reference to The Force Unleashed II. The fact that he resembles Rahm Kota while doing it is a bonus.
  • Season 3 has Maul confronting Obi-Wan Kenobi on Tatooine, like he did in the Old Wounds comic. He even says "I will mend this old wound".
  • The code word to shut down the droids Thrawn spars with is "Rukh", the name of his Noghri bodyguard in the Legends continuity. He'd later appear in Season 4.
  • The Kalikori, a Twi'lek family heirloom, takes its name from a Twi'lek village on Tython in Star Wars: The Old Republic. In the game, the name was said to mean "Beginning".
• Never Say "Die": Averted, most of the time. A notable exception is in "Spark of Rebellion", which uses "end" as a verb twice in places where the meaning was obviously "kill", even though it's still used later on in the same special.
  • Another notable exception comes after Kanan dies. Ezra says he's "gone" when Zeb asks what happened to him, and an Imperial mook confirms to Governor Pryce that he "perished."
• Never Trust a Trailer: Based upon the early trailers and especially the character shorts released on YouTube, the show appeared to go for a Lighter and Softer direction to the point that was on the verge of becoming Denser and Wackier. Then the pilot premiered, and while it turned out to be Lighter and Softer compared to later seasons of The Clone Wars, it also became clear that the show does take itself seriously, and it got Darker and Edgier as it went on.
  • These are more of cases of Never Trust Merchandise, thanks to toylines and accompanying artwork for it.
    • The Grand Inquisitor had a shield (which would've made lightsaber combat impractical if he actually used it) and wore his helmet in combat like the Seventh Sister. He never uses the shield, and he never uses the helmet outside of its one appearance when he flew a TIE.
    • Kanan had a jetpack and an oxygen respirator, he never uses them and probably never will because he can't fly if he's blind, and the figure that had the accessories was from Season 1-2 anyway.
    • Zeb had a piece of headgear during the toyline for Season 1-2, but has not yet worn it, though there's still a chance it could appear.
  • One of the Season 2 trailers had Azadi tell Ezra that his parents escaped prison and are alive, making it seem like Ezra would be torn between staying with the Rebellion or going to go look for his parents. Nope, it was an edited voice clip. They're dead.
  • The Season 3 trailer implied that the plot of the pilot, "Steps Into Shadow", was about the Ghost crew stealing Y-wings from Reklam station, for a strike fleet. In actuality, Ezra comes up with idea when they were actually just supposed to scout the area, and it nearly ends up getting him and the others killed.
  • Downplayed with the Season 3 trailer's introduction of Thrawn. Cham stated that the Empire has become better at anticipating their moves, and that he underestimated the commander. It sounds like he is referring to Thrawn, and is immediately succeeded by Thrawn emerging from the shadows, but in the actual episode, he is referring to Captain Slaven. However, considering how incompetent Slaven seemed in the same episode, it is likely that he only did this with Thrawn overseeing him.
  • The trailers for the second half of Season 3 greatly hyped up that the forthcoming confrontation between Darth Maul and Obi-Wan Kenobi would be an epic battle with a massive scope. "Twin Suns", the episode the confrontation takes place in, actually focuses far more on Ezra himself, and the actual fight is very poetic, subdued, and quick, as opposed to the massive lightsaber battle the trailers hyped up.
• No Flow in CGI: Played with. The characters have specific locks of hair that flow fairly realistically with motion and the wind. Outside of these sections, however, their hair tends to stay still even when it shouldn't be. Averted completely with Hera's lekku, since they're much easier to animate.
• No Gravity for You:
  • In the pilot, the team disables the gravity on a prisoner transport to trip up some Stormtroopers.
  • Chopper activates this while sabotaging the Interdictor's gravity well in "Stealth Strike".
• Non-Indicative Name: Some episode titles.
  • "Rise of the Old Masters" only involves one Jedi Master, and she turns out to be Dead All Along.
  • "Gathering Forces" sounds like it involves The Cavalry or recruitment, but it's actually referring to Ezra's growth in his connection to the Force, at a rate that makes him more vulnerable to the dark side.
  • "Vision of Hope" does involve an actual vision, but it's one that was horrifically misinterpreted.
• No OSHA Compliance:
  • According to the visual guide, the working conditions in the spice mines of Kessel are brutal, as the workers are constantly exposed to a mineral that is also used for a dangerous drug without protective gear (for Real Life analogies, it's like a combination of working in a salt mine and on a drug plantation), and the royal family of Kessel (located on the other hemisphere of the planet) allows the operations, but turns a blind eye to the lethal working conditions. The Empire takes advantage of this and sends prisoners there as a subtle means of executing them, including children. If old Legends lore is anything to go by, spice is produced by energy spiders (and said spiders eat people) and are highly flammable. So spice mining without proper gear or protection is suicide, and the Empire has no problem in sending slaves to their deaths for fast drug credits.
  • As shown in "Fire Across the Galaxy", the engine rooms of Imperial Star Destroyers have narrow walkways over a large chasm with no guardrails. Thus, there's nothing preventing any crew men from accidentally stumbling over or accidentally dropping something dangerous into the engines and causing them to explode (such as the Grand Inquisitor's lightsaber).
  • The room housing the shield generator for Lothal's capital building abides by the traditional Imperial policy of narrow walkways with no safety rails suspended over exposed power relays.
  • In the finale, we see that there is absolutely nothing protecting from someone from falling into the power conduits of the Lothal planetary shield generator, nor is there a ladder, access hatch, or any other easy way to escape from the pit once fallen in. Which makes it particularly absurd is the (completely unshielded) electrical conduits are more than powerful enough to electrocute, or possibly vaporize a living being, as Rukh unfortunately finds out.
• Nobody Poops: Played for laughs. AP-5 walks in on Wedge trying to urinate, and apparently he's done this to Zeb before too.
• Nom de Guerre: The Ghost's crew refer to each other as "Spectre (Number)" when they're on missions or else don't want people to know their names. If one's piloting the Ghost or the Phantom, then the name of the ship is used as the callsign instead.
• "Not So Different" Remark: In "Zero Hour", Kallus says this to Thrawn about how the latter thinks he'll be the one to defeat the rebels just because he supposedly has the skills to do so, but he can be vanquished like any other Imperial such as himself from experience. Thrawn rebuffs this, saying that he isn't Kallus.
• Not Quite the Right Thing: Inverted in the season one finale. The crew is ordered to go into hiding to ensure that their message of hope will not meet a depressing end. They decide to go rescue Kanan, which all of them know is risky and, at least in a military sense, a bad decision. After they succeed, whispers of what happened reach across the galaxy, sending the message that the Empire is Not So Invincible After All. While people did listen to their message, the fact that they backed it up is what sparks unrest on Lothal.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: The last season is notably darker, and the music reflects this. The show is aware it's ending.
• Off Stage Villainy:
  • The destruction of Tarkintown in "The Siege of Lothal" takes place offscreen; we only get to witness the aftermath and the characters' reactions. Granted, it is less than forty-five minutes long and has to remain kid-friendly, but they avoid showing even a single shot of the Empire destroying the town.
  • The Inquisitors are seen boarding a ship in "The Future of the Force" in the intro and proceeding to kill off onlookers. The next time we see the ship, it is empty and floating around in the void, with a Sole Survivor that dies soon after Ahsoka finds her.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Kallus and Tua have stark reactions of this sort to the surprise beheading of Aresko and Grint right in front of them. Poor Tua barely manages to avoid screaming in pure terror but is still obviously struggling to maintain her composure at all; Kallus manages to remain a little more collected but is still obviously having trouble believing what he's seeing.
  • Kanan and Ezra react this way when Darth Vader uses the force to lift a walker that had fallen on top of him. It makes Kanan and Ezra realize just how hopelessly outmatched they are and convinces them to run away.
  • The entire episode of "The Honorable Ones", from Zeb and Kallus when they realize they're about to crash into the moon of Bahryn, to escaping the bonzami.
• Once per Episode: For most of Season 2, new characters are introduced every episode. The only one that seems to avert this is "The Mystery of Chopper Base".
  • "The Siege of Lothal" introduced Commander Jun Sato and Phoenix Squadron.
  • "The Lost Commanders" brought back Captain Rex, Commander Wolffe, and Captain Gregor.
  • "Relics of the Old Republic" introduced the Fifth Brother.
  • "Always Two There Are" introduced the Seventh Sister and her parrot droids.
  • "Brothers of the Broken Horn" brought back Hondo Ohnaka.
  • "Wings of the Old Master" introduced Quarrie, BG-81, and Eesh Fahm.
  • "Blood Sisters" introduced Ketsu Onyo and EG-86.
  • "Stealth Strike" introduced Admiral Brom Titus.
  • "The Future of the Force" introduced Darja, Oora, and babies Elora and Pypey.
  • "Legacy" introduced Ryder Azadi and a white lothcat.
  • "A Princess On Lothal" introduced Princess Leia Organa.
  • "The Protector of Concord Dawn" introduced Fenn Rau and the Protectors, who also debuted in the Kanan comic issue that was released on the same day.
  • "Legends of the Lasat" introduced Chava and Gron.
  • "The Call" introduced Boss Yushyn.
  • "Homecoming" brought back Cham Syndulla, Gobi Gile, and Numa Bril.
  • "The Honorable Ones" could count as an exception, unless the mentions of Saw Gerrera and the Lasat mercenary count.
  • "Shroud of Darkness" had a vision/holorecording of Anakin Skywalker, the Sentinel (a younger Grand Inquisitor), and Yoda debuting with a real model.
  • "The Forgotten Droid" introduces AP-5 and an unnamed Imperial freighter captain.
    • "Mystery of Chopper Base" introduced Lieutenant Dicer.
  • "Twilight of the Apprentice" introduces Darth Maul and the Eighth Brother.
• Only Six Faces: Noticeable among the non-named Imperials, as well as the members of the Phoenix Squadron and citizens. Lyste's and Tua's models aren't even original, the former just being a raised hat to remove the anonymity it gives to generic officers, while the latter is a Palette Swap of a generic citizen. Rudor is also just a helmetless TIE pilot and Oleg is just a generic cadet with green markings to accompany the rest of his unit.
• Our Weapons Will Be Boxy in the Future:
  • Sabine's blasters are basically bricks with a grip, which is pretty standard for Mandalorian weapons.
  • Ezra's lightsaber, built from whatever parts the crew had lying around, looks like a staple gun with the saber hilt as the handle. It doubles as a stun blaster.
• Out of the Inferno: In "The Siege of Lothal", Vader gets two burning AT-DPs toppled on top of him by the Ghost crew. Just as they're about to leave, he almost casually lifts them of himself.
  Ezra: If that doesn't kill him, what will?
  Kanan: Not us.
  • Kallus recalls the Lasat mercenary walking out of smoke and fire as he executed the rest of Kallus's unit one by one.
• Outside-Context Problem: Grand Admiral Thrawn is one of the greatest strategists of his universe, known for coming up with extremely elaborate plans and predicting the unpredictable. It's probably safe to say, however, that giant force-sensitive space-traveling whales appearing and trashing his fleet is fairly hard to plan for.
• Passing the Torch: Obi-Wan's message at the end of the pilot can be seen as this, not just from the Jedi to whatever new hope rises, nor from The Clone Wars to Rebels, but potentially from the entire pre-Disney era to the current era of Star Wars itself.
• Pastiche: The series's art-style has been repeatedly described as "Ralph McQuarrie's concept-arts brought to life in CG", as a deliberate homage to the late artist's work. While it may be harder to see in individual stills, it's easier to notice in the actual animation; it's at its most apparent with the lightsaber blades & Darth Vader's helmet.
• Pink Means Feminine: Sabine wears pink Mandalorian armor. Word of God has once insisted that it's actually more of a burgundy color. She adds more colors to it over the seasons, with her hair in Season 3 also being dyed something between purple, pink, and white.
• Police Brutality: Some of the Imperials on Lothal (including the Stormtroopers) use their positions for personal gain and sometimes take advantage of the weak and helpless, such as demanding protection money from factory workers who are essentially working as slave labor. They'll even consider showing dislike for the Empire as "treason".
• Production Foreshadowing: Late in Season 1, Hera mentions Mustafar as the place "where Jedi go to die." In Rogue One, released two years later, we found that Darth Vader has set up a castle on Mustafar.
• Propaganda Machine: HoloNet News acts as this, routinely twisting events to make the Empire look better.
• The Purge:
  • Order 66 already got most of the Jedi. It's the job of the Inquisitorius to hunt down those who are left.
  • Zeb's race was subjected to this; he is one of the few Lasats left.
  • The Geonosians, as detailed in Star Wars: Darth Vader.

R-Z

• Railing Kill:
  • Subverted when Agent Kallus and a random Stormtrooper are knocked over a railing into a pit, as they both manage to hold on to one of the pylons. Double subverted when Agent Kallus kicks the Stormtrooper down anyway.
  • Sabine knocks a Stormtrooper down one in "Rise of the Old Masters".
• Reconstruction: Rebels is essentially this to the entire Star Wars franchise. The prequels tended to deconstruct many popular elements of the series; for instance, showing us how a lonesome boy who grew up surrounded by war would likely turn out in reality. Rebels takes many of the Original Trilogy's elements (including the one mentioned) and puts them in a whole new light, letting us remember what was so great about Star Wars in the first place while still keeping in mind how to make it work.
  • "Rise of the Old Masters" in particular has a Decon-Recon Switch as an underlying theme. In the beginning of the episode, Kanan quotes Yoda's "Do or do not; there is no try," from The Empire Strikes Back, only for Ezra to point out the (apparent) contradiction, leading to Kanan second-guessing the teaching. However, the episode ends with Kanan saying that he won't try to teach Ezra, he will teach Ezra. They may fail, but they will do what is required of them.
  • "Relics of the Old Republic" seems aimed at fixing many of the problems with the AT-ATs from The Empire Strikes Back. Their weaknesses are lampshaded, but so are their strengths. In particular, the weak point at the neck ends up being used as a plot point.
  • As time goes on, the rebels become identified by the Empire through information that already exists on them.
    • In Season 1, information on Kanan Jarrus and how he used to be Caleb Dume was known as early as "Rise of the Old Masters". Ezra's identity wasn't identified until "Vision of Hope", when he reveals to Trayvis that his parents were responsible for the Bridger transmissions. Kallus learned that Hera was the pilot of the ship in "Vision of Hope". An image of Sabine without her helmet was somehow taken and identified as her, as we learn in Season 3.
    • In Season 2, Kallus found out sometime before "Wings of the Master" that the name of the crew's ship is the Ghost, as well as Zeb's name before "The Honorable Ones".
    • In Season 3, they had enough information on Chopper to be able to pull up a complete profile of him (including images of each time he went undercover with an Imperial paintjob) when he tripped an alarm.
• Recurring Element: Rebels continues the Star Wars tradition of creating ideas inspired by those in Wuxia and Jidaigeki genres.
  • Kanan is a Samurai Cowboy and later a Blind Weaponmaster, which explicitly was said to be a homage to Zatoichi. He's even got the samurai-like ponytail, the goatee (which becomes a full-on beard later), and a piece of samurai-like armor for one of his arms.
  • Ahsoka, as well as the Seventh Sister, the Fifth Brother, and the Sixth Brother also have samurai-inspired appearances as well.
  • The Bendu is an old, wise creature with knowledge of the higher world.
  • Sabine uniting the Mandalorian clans to rise against Saxon and the Imperial occupation by showing she has the power of the Darksaber sword sounds almost like something out of a medieval story (such as King Arthur or Joan of Arc), including old samurai movies, where the prodigal offspring returns to their homeland with a MacGuffin so to rally the daimyo (feudal rulers) back into battle to reclaim the family's fortune and honor.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over:
  • The Grand Inquisitor has gray skin with red Facial Markings (a standard for the Pau'an species), wears black armor, and wields a double-bladed red lightsaber.
  • Even moreso Darth Vader, who shows up to Curb Stomp the entire crew of the Ghost AND take out most of a Rebel squadron on his own.
  • Maul, once he makes his reappearance on Malachor.
• Red Shirt Army: Phoenix Squadron, introduced in Season 2. First appearing in "The Siege of Lothal", the Squadron is shown to do pretty well against average TIE fighter squadrons, but near the end, find themselves on the receiving end of a Curb-Stomp Battle from Darth Vader, with only a small number of them surviving. Afterward, they usually have at least one unnamed pilot getting killed whenever they get a space battle scene.
• Relative Button: When the Grand Inquisitor taunts Ezra, threatening to kill his master and friends, Ezra's anger summons a huge creature to attack the darksider.
• Resolved Noodle Incident: Two instances of events that were referenced in Rebels, but hadn't been shown yet in canon. In "The Lost Commanders", the Siege of Mandalore is mentioned. In the Season 2 finale, Maul and Ahsoka appear to know one another, and Maul even taunts her by saying, "Running away again, Lady Tano?" The planned The Clone Wars finale arc was the Siege of Mandalore where Maul and Ahsoka would have met, but it was scrapped when the series was cancelled. With The Clone Wars being brought back for a seventh and final season, the Siege of Mandalore, as well as Maul and Ahsoka's meeting, have been revealed in spectacular fashion.
• Retired Badass:
  • Kanan has forsaken his past as a Jedi since the Order was destroyed. He's forced to come out of retirement at the start of the series.
  • Dave Filoni confirmed that all of the surviving Clone Troopers from the Clone Wars were relieved from combat duty and were reassigned to managing various Imperial projects due to their Clone Degeneration. He also notes that a number of them are either bitter or distraught over Order 66. Rex, Wolffe, and Gregor are among them, though they all have their brain chips removed, keeping them from carrying out the order. Rex himself later comes out of retirement.
• Retired Badass Roundup: Captain Rex and a few other old clone troopers take up the cause again. Ultimately, Rex is the only one who joins the Rebel network, though Wolffe and Gregor both cover his escape.
• Retraux: Well, close as you could get in CGI, but the lightsabers and blaster shots look more like the effects from the original trilogy than the prequel era.
• The Reveal:
  • As revealed by "Fire Across The Galaxy", the first Fulcrum is Ahsoka Tano. The second Fulcrum, revealed through "An Inside Man" is Kallus.
  • As revealed by "Legacy" Ezra's parents were executed between the events of the first two seasons.
  • "Shroud Of Darkness" reveals that the Grand Inquisitor used to be a Jedi Temple Guard.
  • As revealed in "The Holocrons Of Fate", the key to destroying the Sith is Luke Skywalker, as anyone familiar with the movies will be able to tell you. It should be noted that this is mostly implied by means of the answers for Maul and Ezra's queries revolving around Tatooine, even though none of the characters actually realize this (making it something of an Internal Reveal for the audience).
  • "A World Between Worlds" reveals that Emperor Palpatine himself wanted Lothal and its' Jedi Temple because it housed a gateway to a dimension that lets a visitor influence and control all of time and space, which would let him essentially conquer all of reality. Furthermore, Ezra uses this dimension to save Ahsoka from being killed by Vader on Malachor, confirming her survival after two years of uncertainty.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified: Hera's group tries to keep the death count to minimum, and when they do attack the Empire deaths tend to be just the result of defending themselves and never the objective. Tarkin even points this out when informed of their latest raid, deeming them more principled than other Rebel cells. This actually makes them more dangerous to the Empire because it's harder to paint them as simple terrorists, while also making it easier for the civilian population to sympathize with them.
• Run or Die:
  • Whenever the Grand Inquisitor shows up, the only option is to hold him off long enough to escape - at least until "Fire Across The Galaxy".
  • And when Vader shows up, the team is lucky to even have the chance to run.
  • Same thing with the other Inquisitors, although by this point, they can hold them off a little easier than with the Grand Inquisitor.
• Sampling: The music used in the show often borrows and reworks music from the first six Star Wars movies. Interestingly, the show also borrows a bit of the soundtrack of the Indiana Jones movies on occasion.
• Samurai Cowboy: Kanan is described as a "Cowboy Jedi", he uses blasters, has a lightsaber with a Chokuto-style tip, and wears his hair in a samurai-esque ponytail. This becomes a lot more interesting when you consider that Star Wars was partially inspired by the Western and Wuxia genres in the first place.
• Saved by Canon: The Ghost itself appears at the battle over Scarif in Rogue One, ensuring that it survives to around the era of A New Hope. Given that it's not clear who is actually piloting the ship, however, the survival of all of the crew is not a Foregone Conclusion. Although Hera at least does make it through the events of the series — she's name-dropped on the comm chatter as "General Syndulla" (and Word of God confirms it's her, not her father Cham) — as does Chopper, who we briefly see.
  • A Forces of Destiny short features Hera interacting with Leia and Han after the Battle for Endor, so she at least is confirmed to make it all the way through the Rebellion and into the era of the New Republic.
  • Hera also appears in the game Star Wars: Squadrons, set about two years after the Battle of Endor, as the commander of the Starhawk Poject, and description text from the game's cosmetic rewards state that Chopper is still with her.
• Schrödinger's Canon: Like The Clone Wars before it, Rebels uses, alters, or discards elements from the Legends continuity as it sees fit:
  • A news report the Ghost crew listens to mentions the "Base Delta-Zero Initiative." In Legends, Base Delta-Zero was an Imperial code phrase for orbitally bombarding a planet so thoroughly as to destroy all life on it (the Star Wars equivalent of Exterminatus).
  • The Imperial Inquisition, charged with hunting down Jedi and other Force-Sensitives not troublesome enough to draw the attention of Darth Vader himself, were detailed in various Legends works, notably as antagonists in assorted tabletop role-playing games.
  • Lightsaber crystals (renamed Kyber crystals) appear.
  • Interdictor cruisers were a popular tool in the Legends canon, especially of. . .
  • Grand Admiral Thrawn, who appears at the start of Season 3 as an antagonist for the Rebels.
  • The ISB, the Imperial Security Bureau, was detailed in a few Legends works, where it was Palpatine's initiative to keep the Empire completely under his personal control (drawing parallels between various institutions in Nazi Germany, like the SS and Youth Groups, to instill the Nazi idealogy into everyone). How much of a State Sec they are remains unexplored thus far.
  • The Code of the Sith and Malachor, both introduced in the Knights of the Old Republic games, have been brought back. Like in Legends, the Battle of Malachor occurred thousands of years ago that resulted in the planet being devastated by a superweapon with massive loss of life. However, unlike in Legends, the planet is called Malachor instead of Malachor V, the war was fought by different parties for different reasons and the superweapon functioned differently.[[labelnote:differences]]Legends: The war was fought between the Jedi-backed Republic and the Mandalorians, and the superweapon crushed both fleets into the planet with gravity waves. Canon: the war was fought between the Jedi and the Sith and the superweapon was a Force artifact that released a Force vortex that petrified both armies. Ironically, this is a LOT like the Thought Bomb from Legends.
  • The Imperial Light Carrier the Rebels steal is based on the Quasar Fire-class cruiser/carrier from Legends, specifically the Flurry which appeared in The Truce at Bakura.
  • The TIE Defender first appeared in TIE Fighter, and sporadically in other Legends canon since (mostly, other video games, or stats for it in various RPGs). In a case of Broad Strokes, in Legends the TIE Defender wasn't conceived until after the Battle of Hoth, and it (as well as the preceeding production model of Darth Vader's TIE Advanced) was designed to remain competitive with the more advanced Rebel starfighters that were appearing, like the X, A, and B-Wings. The TIE Defender in Legends also had ion cannons in addition to its lasers, while the Defender in Rebels appears to only have lasers.
  • In a similar case of Broad Strokes, the B-Wing in Legends was the result of "Project Shantipole," Admiral Ackbar working with Verpine engineers to build a fighter to replace the sturdy, yet aging, slow, and unmaneuverable Y-Wing, with one of the stated design goals being that the fighter would be able to reliably destroy Nebulon-B Frigates, which the Empire was increasingly deploying to guard supply convoys the Rebellion desperately wanted to raid. In Rebels, the B-Wing is developed on the planet Shantipole by a Mon Calamari engineer (melding Admiral Ackbar coming up with the concept and the Verpine actually building it), and is explicitly stated to be designed to destroy much larger ships.
  • Rukh, and by extension probably the Noghri, are also re-canonized partway through Season 4.
  • Word of God confirms that Thrawn survives Ezra jumping them both to lightspeed, so, assuming that he's still with Ezra when Sabine and Ahsoka go looking for Ezra, he's alive post-Return of the Jedi, just like in Legends.
• Scenery Porn: Just about every place in the show, from Lothal, to the Ghost, to the Star Destroyers.
• Second Episode Introduction: It's technically the first episode of the season, if you don't count the premiere movies.
  • Minister Tua is introduced in the episode after "Spark of Rebellion". A minor case, as she is only a major character to Season 1.
  • Rex, Wolffe, and Gregor return in "The Lost Commanders".
  • Not really a character introduction, but "Holocrons of Fate" reveals 'he lives' and the key to destroying the Sith are the 'twin suns', possibly in reference to Obi-Wan and the Skywalker twins. Confirmed as of "Visions and Voices."
• Secret Police: The Imperial Security Bureau, or the ISB for short, is tasked with taking out hidden Rebel cells.
• Secret Test of Character:
  • Kanan allows Ezra to steal his holocron as a test to see if Ezra can open it. He also allows Ezra to steal his lightsaber later on, offering to let him keep it as a trinket or make his own as a Jedi.
  • While in the Lothal Jedi Temple, Ezra is led to believe that the Grand Inquisitor has killed the crew and that the crew has no faith in him, his worse fear being alone again. He overcomes it, as he realizes that his friends are True Companions and even if he is left alone once more, he can still continue forward. This allows him to make contact with Yoda, who leads him to the next part of his trial.
  • Before giving him his kyber crystal, Yoda asks Ezra why he wants to become a Jedi. Ezra says he wants power and revenge on the Empire for taking everything away from him. Yoda leads him to a better answer by asking if he was taught to think this way by Kanan, to which he answers no, as the crew has taught many including himself how to hope again and that they are protectors; they're his inspiration. Somewhat subverted, as Ezra starts to go back to his original style of thinking (wanting power) by the next time he speaks with Yoda.
  • Hearing that the Sentinel wants to kill Ezra before he falls, Kanan refuses to let him do so and fights him. Kanan ends up not doing so well, and is forced to resign to the Sentinel's mercy, coming to admit that he has to put faith in what he has taught Ezra and that Ezra will be okay in Kanan's absence. And for that, the Sentinel grants Kanan his knighthood.
  • To make sure he's definite in wanting to defect, Sabine talks with Wedge about how this is Not What I Signed Up For when it turns out the Empire has no problem with shooting down civilian and unarmed transports. Wedge agrees, and with that, Sabine reveals her identity as a Rebel infiltrator that has come to help him and the other sympathizers at Skystrike.
• Sensor Character:
  • Ezra and Kanan first meet when they sense each other's presence in the marketplace.
  • Kanan senses Rex in "Stealth Strike" when the latter is about to be tortured.
  • The Fifth Brother senses Zeb and Sabine hiding in "Always Two There Are".
  • The Seventh Sister sensed Kanan, Ezra, and Ahsoka at the Lothal Jedi Temple in "Shroud of Darkness".
• Sequel Hook:
  • The final scene of Season 1 is Darth Vader arriving on Lothal to stamp out the fledgling rebellion.
  • The last scene of Season 2 shows Ezra opening the Sith Holocron.
  • Why the Emperor appears to need Ezra to open a portal to the "World between Worlds". The place is equally left mysterious beyond it's ability to transcend space and time.
  • The entire series ends with Ezra and Grand Admiral Thrawn having been lost in Hyperspace during the elimination of the Emprie's control over Lothal. After a Time Skip, Sabine reveals that she and Asohka are off on a quest to find Ezra.
• Series Goal: For the heroes of this story, liberate Lothal from the Empire. However, this goal just gets more and more elusive each season.
• Silent Snarker: Chopper is a variation: while he can't speak a language discernible to viewers, everyone in-universe can understand his quips.
• Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers!: Ezra finds the idea that anyone would act selflessly to help others to be ridiculous. Hera calls him out on this, telling him his life is worth nothing if it only means something to himself. Surprisingly, even Kallus shares this view; when Ezra repeats the sentiment after being told he'll be used as bait, Kallus just smiles and says nothing, clearly knowing better.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: After the ending of Season 1 establishes the possibility that the people of Lothal could overthrow the Imperial presence on the planet, Darth Vader shows up in Season 2 and ensures that it remains firmly under the Empire's control.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: The three retired clone troopers in "The Lost Commanders" are still carrying a lot of baggage from the Clone Wars; Rex is bitter about his forced retirement by the Emperor, and ashamed at the Clone Army's betrayal of their Jedi Generals. Wollfe is paranoid and fearful of the Empire, and Gregor has become a cackling Cloud Cuckoolander.
• Ship Tease:
  • A little between Kanan and Hera at the end of "The Machine In The Ghost", which is promptly interrupted by Chopper. In the show itself, Hera calls Kanan "love" as an Affectionate Nickname. It helps that they're the Team Dad and Team Mom of the group, respectively.
    • In the season 2 episode Homecoming Kanan spends a good part of the first half of the episode trying to look good in front of Cham, acting very much like a boyfriend trying to impress his girlfriend's father.
    • They embrace at the end of "The Mystery of Chopper Base" before he leaves for Malachor, with him promising that they'll see each other again. And they embrace once more at the end of "Twilight of the Apprentice", when Hera realizes he's blind.
  • Ezra is a bit surprised to see Sabine is Beautiful All Along without her helmet in "Spark Of Rebellion". Sabine mostly responds with irritation at his attempts to flirt in succeeding episodes, until "Empire Day" and "Gathering Forces" give them some moments. Though they later had some moments during the third and fourth seasons. During the, series finale, Ezra hyperjumps away to parts unknown. Several years later, after the Empire has been defeated, Sabine (after caressing the mural of his face) still believes he is alive and finally has time to search for him.
  • Both Ezra and Kanan's intense dislike of Lando in "Idiot's Aray" stem from his flirting with Sabine and Hera, respectively.
  • Ezra and Princess Leia get quite a bit in "A Princess on Lothal".
• Shoo Out the Clowns:
  • Bumbling Imperial officers Aresko and Grint are executed on Grand Moff Tarkin's order for their embarrassing defeats at the hands of the rebels. This serves as a sign that Tarkin and the Empire are taking the kid gloves off, and as a warning to Kallus and Tua that further failure is unacceptable.
  • While Lyste is extremely downplayed (being more of a Butt-Monkey with amusing fails), his last episode ends with him being dragged away to a detention cell while screaming that he is innocent and begging Kallus to help him after the latter betrays him. Thrawn has no interest in freeing him even after discovering Kallus is the true rebel spy because it would screw things up for his plans.
  • Hondo is as funny as ever and also has pretty much done a Heel–Face Turn, or at least isn't actively trying to go after the heroes like he sometimes did in The Clone Wars. However, he stops being a recurring character mid-Season 3 as the plot gets more serious and the threat of Thrawn and the Empire becomes more dire. He doesn't return until the series finale.
• Short Teens, Tall Adults:
  • Ezra is noticeably shorter than the adult characters, despite being 15. Averted after the Time Skip, with Ezra becoming as tall as Sabine and Hera.
  • Averted for Sabine herself, who is as tall as Hera. This never changes. Also justified, as women are typically shorter than men.
  • Leia is shorter than Ezra, though looks more mature.
  • The cadets are also the same height as Ezra as well.
• Shout-Out:
  • One of the Stormtroopers' identification number is TK-626.
  • The clones' AT-TE is a moving house on legs, referencing Howl's Moving Castle.
  • According to Pablo Hidalgo, Kanan becoming blind after an attack from Maul was a reference to Zatoichi.
  • The scene where Ezra meets "Old Master" is ah obvious homage to Luke's first meeting with Yoda in Empire, with some lines taken word for word.
  • Governor Pryce's whole appearance is pretty much a Star Wars reskin of Irina Spalko.
  • An undercover Kanan and Ezra claim to Stormtroopers that they were supposed to be stationed in B-17. B-17 is the bomber that the design of the Ghost was based off of.
    • Likewise, the disruptors were located in the similarly named Bay 7 in "Droids in Distress", and Sabine lied to Tua that they were located in Bay 17.
    • In "Through Imperial Eyes", Ezra's first detention cell is B-7.
  • In "Warhead", the infiltrator droid's self-destruct countdown is an exact replica of the self-destruct countdown used by predators.
  • In "Flight of the Defender", Thrawn at one point stands in the open firing his sidearm at the hijacked TIE Defender baring down on him, mirroring a similar scene from Patton.
  • Dave Filoni confirmed that Ahsoka's appearance in the finale, with white robes and a staff, is a deliberate homage to the fall and return of Gandalf, with Ahsoka returning from her apparent death and changing from grey robes to white after her battle with the "Balrog" Vader.
• Shown Their Work: When super tactical droid General Kalani appears in "The Last Battle", it's on a planet called Agamar. When he was Put on a Bus at the end of the Onderon arc in The Clone Wars, Dooku had instructed him to take all the munitions he could off the planet and take them to Agamar. Doubly-impressive since this was such a minor character.
• Simultaneous Arcs: With Andor. Both start off in 5 BBY and continue up until shortly before the Battle of Scarif and the the Battle of Yavin, and both deal with the then-burgeoning Rebel Alliance beginning to confront the Imperials out in the open.
• Single-Stroke Battle: Obi-Wan Kenobi versus Maul.
• Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer:
  • Fulcrum's voice actor/actress goes uncredited prior to the character's reveal, most likely to avoid bringing an Interface Spoiler about. In fact, heavy distortion and different actors are used to throw off any attempt to figure it out. Not that it worked, but points for trying.
  • Agent Kallus is absent from the Season 3 debut trailer... and it turns out he's actually Fulcrum II, the voice informing the rebels about the defecting TIE pilots. Same thing nearly happened in the Season 2 midseason trailer, having only a total of two scenes shown, though this is due to only having one episode where he plays a prominent role.
• The Smurfette Principle:
  • As of the first half of Season 3, there have only been three female Imperials: Minister Tua, the Seventh Sister, and Governor Pryce, and none of them have ever had screentime with each other.
  • Captain Brunson is introduced as a minor character in a Season 3 episode and a subsequent cameo later on, but otherwise, the situation is still pretty bad.
• Solar and Lunar: A recurring theme in Rebels seems to be the moon, as how Luke is associated with the twin suns of Tatooine.
  • The theme that plays at the end of "Legacy" where Ezra has a vision of parents (who he discovered had died the night before) in a happier Lothal is called "Twin Moons", in reference to the two moons of Lothal, also similar in name to Luke's "Binary Sunset".
  • "It's Over" was used in the final product, but "Where the Sun Sails and the Moon Walks" was a concept piece for the ending montage of "Twilight of the Apprentice". The 'sun' is either referring to Ahsoka being presumed dead or once again emphasizing Anakin's fall, while the 'moon', Ezra, lives on, though traumatized and corrupted.
  • Lothal has twin moons, while Tatooine has twin suns. Ezra learns that the 'key to defeating the Sith' (either Obi-Wan or Luke) is on a world with twin suns.
    • Kallus's Trust Password to reveal that he is Fulcrum is "By the light of Lothal's moons." In addition, at one point, Kallus journeys to Ezra's tower at night... or should we say, under the light of Lothal's moons.
  • The moon seems to be referencing how it is the light in the dark of the night, and not necessarily an evil, possibly referring to how Ezra and Kanan, as Jedi/relatively light-sided users of the Force, bring hope to the dark times. Plus, it could well also be hinting to how Ezra and Kanan are not conventional Jedi and have done more questionable things with the Force (Ezra much moreso), but are still good people at heart.
  • When Maul dies, there's a shot of Tatooine's twin moons.
• Soldier Versus Warrior: Brought up several times by Rex in-regards to Clone Troopers and Stormtroopers: where time-and-again the Band of Brothers nature of the Clones who were oriented towards completing their missions have managed to outmaneuver the Glory Hound-oriented Imperial Officers and their bumbling Stormtroopers.
• Someone to Remember Him By: In the Distant Finale, Hera is revealed to have given birth to Kanan's son, a Half-Human Hybrid named Jacen Syndulla.
• Sorting Algorithm of Evil:
  • Played straight in the first season. The first threat to the heroes is local ISB agent Kallus, who is talented but a small fry nonetheless. Once Kanan is outed as a Jedi, the Grand Inquisitor joins the fold to even out the odds. After a string of failures, Tarkin shows up to set things right. Finally, when Tarkin is outmaneuvered by several Rebel cells joining together and the Grand Inquisitor dies, he calls in Darth Vader.
  • Completely averted starting in the second season, however. Darth Vader is the first threat the characters face, and he would have easily killed them all if he hadn't toyed with them. When the Emperor calls him to direct his attention elsewhere, he sends two Inquisitors after them... both of whom rank significantly lower than the Grand Inqusitor that hunted them earlier. Then Vader comes back in the Season 2 finale. Maul also enters the scene to inflict heavy losses and show how obsolete the Inquisitors have become.
  • In Season 3, as Maul continues to be a thorn in the team's side even if he can't do much else, Thrawn arrives to hunt them down with an entire fleet and a spy network as well as new, more competent sidekicks.
  • By the fourth season, Palpatine enters the stage, and tops every single bad guy the Rebels have ever met and is coming specifically for Ezra.
• Space Navy: The Imperial Navy, naturally.
• Space Whale: Or space squid. The purrgil are actually a bit of both with tentacles trailing out the back but a face akin to a sperm whale. They're even capable of entering hyperspace unassisted.
• Spanner in the Works: Had Hera not recruited Kanan as seen in A New Dawn, then Zeb, Sabine, and Ezra wouldn't have joined as they were recruited by Kanan. And had they not joined as rebels, then not only would several people not have joined as well, but major events, including Kanan making a comeback as a Jedi with Ezra as his apprentice, Sabine rallying her people against the Empire, Zeb finding the new home of his people, and so forth, would never have happened either.
• Spiritual Antithesis: Rebels zigs where The Clone Wars zags. Using a consistent cast of original characters instead of characters from the movies occasionally straying into Limelight Series. Using story arcs instead of standalone anthology episodes. Being a good bit Darker and Edgier instead of more kid-friendly. And so on.
• Spiritual Successor: The show is basically Firefly in Star Wars. A crew that smuggles and transports cargo while working against a corrupt government.
• State Sec:
  • The Inquisitorius is a secret division consisting of dark side Force-sensitive agents tasked by the Emperor to hunt down the remaining Jedi.
  • The Imperial Security Bureau is, according to the developers, a combination of the FBI and a military police force. In Legends the ISB had their own Stormtroopers that operated outside the command structure of the regular Imperial Military, their own specialized warships and enforcement; a branch responsible for providing specialized enforcers and muscle to assist in the Bureau's operations (mainly by hiring mercenaries). The devs have hinted many of these features are making it over into the new canon.
• Stealth Sequel: Rebels is very much a sequel to The Clone Wars, even though it wasn't advertised as being one in the first season. Come the second season, a number of characters from the series (including Ahsoka, Rex, Wolffe, Gregor, and Hondo) make appearances, with their storylines carrying over from the previous cartoon.
• Stock Scream: The Wilhelm scream is heard when Ezra knocks a Stormtrooper off a bridge in "Spark of Rebellion". He's fine until Kallus kicks him down to his death.
• Street Urchin: Ezra is an orphan who lives on the streets, looking out for only himself, and often steals from the Imperials.
• Suicide Mission: The bulk of Season 4 is one as it is a last ditch effort to save Lothal, which has since heavy with Imperial presence and Mon Mothma has declared Lothal a lost cause. The Specters accept that it's a one-way trip if they take this endeavor; Once they enter, they will be completely outgunned, have no means of escape, be unable to call for reinforcements, and cannot expect to make it out alive. They are on their own on this one.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: The Grand Inquisitor, the Seventh Sister, and Darth Vader have gold eyes, signalling their status as users of the Dark Side.
• Super Prototype: The "Blade Wing" prototype B-Wing starfighter which packs a superlaser powerful enough to take out small capital ships in one shot, something the mass production model seen in Return of the Jedi doesn't have. As well as a separate gunner's station in the lower half of the ship, which production B-Wings also lack. On the other hand, it has its share of flaws, such as the fact that firing the superlaser ruins the hyperdrive.
• Surprisingly Happy Ending: Downplayed: although it's safe to say that probably no one expected a Rogue One ending, it was a Foregone Conclusion that neither of the Jedi protagonists would make it to A New Hope and the Lothal rebellion was Doomed by Canon to failure. Nope. The Grand Finale ends with the revelation that the Empire cut its losses on Lothal and pulled out after Phoenix Squadron forced the occupiers from the planet (without aid from the Rebel Alliance), and Lothal experienced a period of peace that lasted all the way through the original trilogy. While Kanan did die and Ezra removed himself (and Thrawn) from the equation, both he and Ahsoka are confirmed to still be alive-post Return of the Jedi. The series ends with Sabine and Ahsoka, both alive and older, meeting up on Lothal to go search for Ezra.
• Swirling Dust:
  • "Gathering Forces": When Ezra taps into the Dark Side, small pieces of rubble around him levitate as he summons the big fyrnock.
  • "Family Reunion — and Farewell, Part II": Glass shards float around Ezra when he's protecting the bridge and calling on the Force.
• Swivel-Chair Antics: Ezra whenever he's in the co-pilot's chair.
• Take That!:
  • Continuing from how The Clone Wars did it, "The Protector of Concord Dawn" makes some subtle jabs at Karen Traviss' depiction of the Mandalorians back in Legends.
    Sabine: (after Kanan comments on Concord Dawn) My people don't need a reason to pick a fight.
  • Later, she tries to utilize Mandalorian vambraces in duel with Kanan. He soundly defeats her and reminds both the Mandalorians and their out-of-universe fans that tricks and gadgets are no match for the Force.
    Kanan: History lesson: The Jedi won the war with Mandalore!
  • When AP-5 gets stranded in space, he's surrounded by small space betta fish and is about to break into a musical number about how he likes being alone until the Ghost suddenly shows up and rescues him, cutting him off before he can get any further. It's a jab to audience members who think that the show is invoked"Disney-fied", this scene being as close as it will ever get to traditional Disney movies.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • For most of the first season, the crew is regularly skirmishing with the local Imperials, in a pretty ratings-friendly way, and with some of the Imperials even acting a bit like standard "I'll get you next time!" villains. In "Call to Action", Tarkin grows tired of this incompetence and shows up to handle things personally. Which begins with the brutal execution of half the old Imperial recurring cast as a warning to the other half.
  • A lot of these happen when Kanan and Rex impersonate Stormtroopers in "Stealth Strike". Rex lampshades the hell out of the impracticality of the Stormtrooper Armor and how the helmet actually makes his marksmanship go down. And just because they know which cell block Ezra is being held in doesn't mean they know how to get there. Finally, running towards your ally while disguised as the enemy probably means you're gonna get shot at instead of a welcomed hello, as both Rex and Kanan found out the hard way when they showed up moments after Ezra just escaped from his Stormtrooper Guards. Thankfully, Ezra had his gun set to Stun, and it was a good thing Ezra recognized Chopper in spite of his disguise.
  • And as for Rex, he may have been an uber-badass soldier in his prime and he may still be a good fighter, but he's not as young as he used to be. His genetically-accelerated aging coupled with his falling out of practice on Seelos means that he has far less stamina than his younger allies, leading to him being captured and needing Kanan to rescue him.
  • Maul has made his way to Tatooine to finish his business with Obi-Wan Kenobi. There's just one problem: Tatooine is a planet, and planets are big. when we see him again, Maul has been lost for some time, and no closer to finding Kenobi.
  • Similarly, when Maul finally finds Kenobi , their final duel is over in three strokes, which is exactly how most samurai duels went in real life. While both of them are much older, Kenobi still has his entire body and has spent his time in the desert productively, training and meditating until he is truly a master of all the forms of lightsaber combat - shown in the shifting stances he takes before the first swing. Maul, in contrast, is literally Half the Man He Used to Be both figuratively and in terms of skillset, has done absolutely no training or done anything to attain the "inner peace" that Obi-Wan has, hasn't had a genuine lightsaber fight in years and is driven by little more than his hatred and vengeance. All of this on top of the fact that Obi-Wan has been peacefully relaxing at his camp, while Maul has been hunting him fruitlessly through the desert for weeks and is half-mad from thirst, hunger, exhaustion, and heat exposure, as well as other reasons. The Power of Hate is no substitute for training and discipline, especially when you've only got half the body you had at your highest point.
  • Just because you're in a kids' cartoon does not mean Armor Is Useless. Going into battle with no protection whatsoever on your chest is a bad idea, even if some of the enemies you're fighting against are essentially armed workers. Gregor found that out the hard way.
  • No matter how vastly outnumbered and outgunned the rebellion is by The Empire, arrogance and inexperience are not qualities you want in your military leadership, as Pryce and Konstantine demonstrate on multiple occasions. The chain of command exists for a reason, and insubordination by someone commanding armies can be absolutely catastrophic. When Pryce and Konstantine ignore orders from Thrawn and take matters into their own hands on how to deal with the rebels, it usually backfires spectacularly. Konstantine breaking from the formation during a space battle just so he can have his own shot at glory gets his flagship blown up with him on board, and Pryce ordering her troops to blow up the Imperial fuel deposits just to kill Kanan cripples the Imperial operation on Lothal and scuttles the TIE Defender program with only a single dead Jedi to show for it. Thrawn is absolutely seething with rage in both these scenarios, and the only reason he doesn't have both Pryce and Konstantine court-martialed and executed is because both of them die before he gets the chance.
  • There's a reason why ridiculously excessive force to crush a vastly smaller opponent is not often a workable strategy and treating your soldiers and facilities as expendable will play into the hands of a numerically inferior enemy. It is not a good idea to sacrifice a site of massive strategic importance to your cause just to take out your enemy's leadership, as Pryce discovers when she detonates her own power plant with Kanan inside. Sure, she managed to kill a major enemy leader, but at a steep price. The Empire can't afford to give her the resources she needs to fix the damage her dumbass mistake caused (and has no reason to do so) and is forced to take extreme aggressive measures to cement its hold on the planet as a result.
  • The Galactic Empire is huge. Even when taking the franchise's usual approach to scale into account, no matter how powerful the Empire is, it can't possibly hope to maintain absolute control of every planet, especially during a time of Galactic Civil War when the Empire's resources are severely strained both by the ongoing conflict and by massive costly expenses like the Death Star project. Consequently, when Phoenix Squadron destroys the Imperial control center and wipes out the Imperial presence on Lothal in one fell swoop, and the citizenry seizes on this opportunity by revolting en masse, the Empire cuts its losses and abandons the planet to the Rebellion rather than waste time and effort it can't afford reclaiming a backwater planet which offers little strategic importance. As a result, Lothal gets to experience a period of peace and freedom unprecedented amongst the primary worlds for at least the entire period of the original trilogy.
  • It also goes the other way for the official Rebel Alliance. After numerous failed attempts at freeing Lothal, the Rebel Alliance abandons Lothal as a lost cause. Despite being Ezra's homeworld, Lothal has no strategic value and is ultimately just one of the thousands of backwater planets being subjugated by the Empire. The only meaningful targets were the TIE Defender factory, which Pryce crippled herself, and the portal to the World between Worlds, which is only a concern to the force users.
• Team Dad: Kanan helps Hera look after the other members and keep the peace between them, mentors Ezra (in the Force, but also in general), encourages his crew, and protects them with his life. Ezra even calls him 'dad' as part of a ruse for the benefit of a stormtrooper.
• Team Kids: Ezra, Sabine, and Zeb are the Kids to Kanan and Hera. Ezra and Zeb act like brothers, sometimes pranking each other, sometimes working together to deal with Imperial troops. They're even sent out on a Snipe Hunt by Hera to teach them to get along (and manage to return with the "snipe"). And in one episode, Sabine has a serious conversation with Hera about keeping her and the others in the dark, with Hera telling her it's to protect them, as well as the movement against the Empire. Hera also uses Full-Name Ultimatum on Zeb from time to time.
• Team Mom: Hera is described as the one who keeps the team together, by both providing emotional support and keeping the members in line. She's even been known to offer a Full-Name Ultimatum to one of the Ghost crew (usually Zeb) when they mess up in an undeniable "Mom Voice."
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:
  • Ezra and Zeb are the epitome of this.
  • The entire crew (except Sabine) when having to go along with Lando.
  • Kanan doesn't like the Rebel network very much due to their large, enigmatic, militaristic nature. He gets over it around the same time he gets on good terms with Rex in "Stealth Strike".
  • In "The Honorable Ones", Zeb and Agent Kallus have to resort to this when they're stranded on on of Geonosis' moons.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: When he lands on Lothal, the first thing Grand Moff Tarkin does is call out each of the main Imperial characters (Minister Tua, Agent Kallus, and the Grand Inquisitor) for their individual failures in dealing with the Ghost crew.
• Theme Naming: The ship is the Ghost, the auxiliary craft is the Phantom, and each crew member is identified as "Specter (number)".
• Three-Act Structure: According to Word of God, though not every one Season is equivalent to an Act.
  • Season 1 is Act 1, shown by giving us a taste of who the characters are and the setting, the beginning of discussion of Kanan and Ezra as Jedi, using the Grand Inquisitor as a demo of what the antagonists will be like, and introduction of the episodes being told in serials rather than direct arcs like The Clone Wars, among other things.
  • Season 2, 3 and the first half of Season 4 are parts of Act 2. Here, we are introduced to more characters, more conflicts (such as cracks in characters' beliefs and morals, coping with different types of loss, etc.), including more dangerous foes, with at least a few moments that qualify as dark hours with irreversible consequences.
  • The second half of Season 4 serves as Act 3. This is when the protagonists recover from their Darkest Hour and get back up on their feet. We see our characters finally confront the show's main antagonists (Palpatine and Thrawn) and eventually triumph. The denouement takes place during the epilogue, where loose ends are tied up and we learn the fates of the main cast after the final battle.
• Time Skip: In regards to the returning characters from The Clone Wars. Due to the show's cancellation, many plot threads regarding the characters were Left Hanging, with the fates of Hondo Ohnaka, Ahsoka Tano, various Clone Troopers, and possibly others remaining uncertain. The show alludes to what happened between then and this show while developing these characters further.
  • Season 3 is said to take six months after "Twilight of the Apprentice".
  • In general, nearly all of the episodes take place after some span of time after one another, which is usually a few weeks. Considering the rebels have other missions to do that are irrelevant in moving the plot of Rebels forward like milk runs, this makes sense. Namely:
    • There was enough time between "Future of the Force" and "Legacy" for another confrontation with the Inquisitors and a supply mission to another rebel cell, as seen in the magazine comics. From this, we now know that the Imperials took time to plan their attack on Garel instead of immediately attacking it.
    • The tie-in Marvel comics Kanan utilized these inferred time skips around the time of the season one's first half.
    • "Path of the Jedi" contains a time jump at the end to some weeks after Ezra gets his kyber crystal, allowing us to see Ezra ignite his lightsaber for the first time, as he had constructing it over the timeskip.
  • In the series finale, Sabine narrates a Time Skip that covers the entire period of time during which Rogue One, A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi take place.
• Title Drop: Kallus drops the "Spark Of Rebellion" episode title into one of his lines during the series premiere.
• Too Dumb to Live: In a trailer, a stormtrooper stands mere inches from an explosive charge seconds before it goes off. Somewhat justified as the short "Art Attack" shows the events leading up to this; namely it is the second time the trooper saw the graffiti (the first time the bomb wasn't there). He does have an Oh, Crap! moment a second before it detonates.
  • Ezra and Zeb also often fall under this category, as they have a tendency to cause trouble for the entire crew, usually while childishly bickering. Lessened in Season 2 and virtually gone by Season 3.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Ahsoka was a Padawan during Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and even then she was pretty good in a fight, but the episode "Future of the Force" shows that she has likely spent a great deal of the decade-plus between series training in the ways of the Jedi.
  • Ezra and Kanan have come a long way from where they were in "Spark of Rebellion", where the former only had 'adrenaline rushes' of the Force and a slingshot that only amounted as a nuisance, while the latter could only manage holding off lightsabers and making no strikes due to being out of practice. But thanks to the Grand Inquisitor, the pressure of learning how to defend themselves ends up being the right motivation for them.
    Grand Inquisitor: [after Kanan lands kick on him] You've been practicing!
    Kanan: Nice of you to notice.
  • Ezra in Season 3. He now has a separate blaster and lightsaber, and is also more willing to commit more questionable deeds such as not hesitating to shoot down opponents and slicing them down, and mindtricking a walker to walk off a cliff, for starters. It's Not Quite the Right Thing, however...
• Torture Is Ineffective: Despite Hera's claim in one episode that they keep information on a need-to-know basis because "the Empire can make anyone talk", no torture scene is ever shown to actually work, even with the help of Truth Serums. The closest they get is making a person chattier than usual, but even then they manage to keep enough of their wits about them to not answer the torturer's questions.
• Trailers Always Spoil:
  • An Entertainment Weekly clip featuring the Grand Inquisitor's first duel with Kanan revealed the episode's Plot Twist - namely, that prisoner Luminara Unduli was Dead All Along by means of a Freeze-Frame Bonus during a close-up of Kanan.
  • The Season 2 mid-season trailer is full of this, due to the increasing number of Wham Episodes. Filoni even put up a warning the day before it was uploaded. Said spoilers include Zeb not being the Last of His Kind and getting into some sort of mystic ritual, Cham (and Numa) returning, Ketsu returning (due to Freeze-Frame Bonus of the Shadow Caster), Zeb and Kallus scenes, Vader vs. Ahsoka, another Inquisitor, a Yoda appearance, Ahsoka reminiscing of Anakin, and Maul returning.
  • Season 3's initial trailer had the recanonization of Thrawn, the introduction of Governor Pryce, Mandotroopers vs. a jetpack-bearing Sabine, Ezra, and a Heel–Face Turn Fenn Rau, a Lion Turtle-esque Force figure named Bendu giving advice to Kanan, Maul returning and using the Ghost crew as leverage against Kanan and Ezra to fuse the Holocrons together, the Presence and Maul continuing to encourage Ezra to use his emotions as his power, Kanan getting possessed and fighting Maul, still-active battle droids, Sabine getting the Darksaber, and Sabine infiltrating the Skystrike Academy to help defecting pilots including Wedge, using information from the new Fulcrum. And by the way, if you edit the audio of Fulcrum II's voice, it's Agent Kallus.
    • Further promotional videos revealed that the crew (minus Ezra and Kanan) gets held hostage, Sabine, Ezra, and Maul also get possessed by the same spirit(s) that possessed Kanan in the trailer and end up fighting each other, we return to Ryloth and Hera gets held hostage by Thrawn there, and that we will return to Lothal.
  • The midseason trailer for Season 3 revealed that Thrawn finds and destroys Chopper Base, as well as doing a number on the recently united rebel fleet, Kallus's cover eventually being blown, Sabine somehow losing the Darksaber to Saxon but fights a final battle with him while using Ezra's lightsaber, a number of Mandalorian Fang Fighters joining the rebel fleet, and that Obi-Wan and Maul will fight, with Ezra and Chopper in pursuit of the latter. In comparison to the other trailers, though, this has shown the least spoilers and Word of God is that a lot was left out of the trailer.
  • And now the midseason trailer for Season 4 qualifies due to a significant number of its scenes lacking Kanan's presence.
  • As if the above wasn't bad enough, Disney XD's YouTube channel posted a clip from "Jedi Night" titled "The Death of Caleb Dume" the same day the episode aired. Gee, thanks a lot, Disney XD.
• Trojan Prisoner: In "Spark of Rebellion", the crew of the Ghost attempt to infiltrate an Imperial Cruiser, by claiming that Zeb is a captured Wookie. A rare, hairless Wookie.
• Two Girls to a Team: Hera and Sabine are the only women on the team, though given the team's size, that comes to 40%, not counting the droid.
  • Ahsoka joins in with the Ghost crew's antics every once in a while in Season Two, bringing it up to three. It ends up staying at two by the end of the season, though.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Depa Billaba, former Jedi High Councilor, posthumously. Star Wars: The Clone Wars had completely ignored her ^note although they were going to use her (to be a death for an arc's plot point) when Disney pulled the plug; before that, the Star Wars Expanded Universe had depicted her as getting incapacitated early in the war, with her seat going to Obi-Wan Kenobi, so making her Kanan's mentor right until Order 66 was rather surprising.
  • Obi-Wan Kenobi's holocron cameo in "Spark of Rebellion" wasn't expected.
  • Why hello there, Luminara Unduli.
    • Up until the SDCC 2014 trailer for the show, it had been presumed that she had died along with all the other Jedi with the advent of Order 66, especially considering that she was on Kashyyyk with Yoda, and that there was no indication that she had escaped from the other Clone Troopers. The fact that she was simply taken prisoner instead of simply being executed is also surprising.
    • This is played with in that Luminara is Dead All Along and her being "alive" was simply a trap set by the Grand Inquisitor.
  • Darth Vader was expected to show up at one point — that his appearance in the series was slated to happen less than a month after the series premiere threw people off-guard. Bonus unexpected points should be added by being voiced by James Earl Jones when Matt Sloan seems to be the go-to guy for Darth Vader voices in other official Star Wars media.
  • Yoda's appearance (or more accurately, his voice) in "Path of the Jedi" was also unexpected, as Yoda was isolating himself on Dagobah at the time. Similar to Darth Vader above, being voiced by Frank Oz was even more unexpected, as Tom Kane is usually the go-to-guy for a Yoda voice outside the films, including Lucasfilm Animation's previous project, The Clone Wars.
  • Lando makes his appearance in "Idiot's Array" when he ropes the Ghost crew into his schemes after winning Chopper in a game of Sabacc.
  • Tarkin shows up in "Call to Action" and things get serious real quick.
  • While the Clone Troopers were expected to show up eventually, many were surprised that Gregor - who only appeared once in the series and was left in a situation where he was hopelessly outnumbered and believed to have died - was among them.
  • In the second trailer, an "Old Master" offers to help Ezra. His identity? Darth Maul!
  • And then there's the Season 3 trailer, where possibly one of the most hyped characters ever appears: Grand Admiral Thrawn.
  • General Kalani appearing in "The Last Battle", as many assumed he (actually look-a-like, due to a crediting error in his unnamed appearances in the Crystal Crisis arc of The Clone Wars) died and was a one-shot villain.
  • Gar Saxon from Son of Dathomir apparently survived the Siege of Mandalore and became a major Imperial antagonist to Sabine.
  • The Season 4 trailer introduced Thrawn's Noghri bodyguard Rukh, also from Legends, who was assumed to have been Adapted Out due to his name being used as the Override Command for Thrawn's sparring droids from "Through Imperial Eyes".
• Unflinching Walk:
  • Kanan walks straight at the Stormtroopers' blaster fire just before he pulls out his lightsaber in the pilot.
  • The Grand Inquisitor does a menacing advance towards the heroes during "Rise of the Old Masters", until the doors start closing at a rapid speed, requiring him to run.
• The Unreveal:
  • A lot of characters comment on what a T-7 disruptor will do to an organic being, but they never specify exactly what happens, possibly as a Nothing Is Scarier situation. However, it does get touched upon in outside material such as Battlefront: Twilight Company, and it's exactly what you'd imagine would happen to flesh if it were to be fried.
  • We never get to find out if Jai was really Force-sensitive or not. Likewise, this can apply to Zare's story if you're unaware it continues as a book series.
  • After having her vision in "Shroud of Darkness", Ahsoka realizes that "there is another way" and runs down a hall. We never get to find out what she was talking about. There also are implications that there might have been an off-screen conversation between her and Yoda.
• Unreveal Angle:
  • In "Fire Across the Galaxy", Chopper calls Fulcrum as a last resort. The camera begins to rotate around Fulcrum's cloak... before cutting to the next scene right before we can see who's underneath.
  • Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious' appearance in "The Siege of Lothal" is this, as the camera angles never allow the audience to actually see him. The closest we get is seeing the bright reflection of his hologram's light against Vader's mask.
• Used Future: The series centers around a backwater planet and a rebel cell that's barely scraping by. As such, most of the machines are cobbled together (Chopper and Ezra's lightsaber being examples), the Ghost looks dirty and banged-up, and the buildings have graffiti and visible wear and tear.
• Villain Ball: At the end of "Twilight of the Apprentice", Maul helps Kanan and Ahsoka defeat the Inquisitors, and then boasts of his plans to them, while he is still outnumbered by them. If he had just waited, either to intervene in the fight, or to betray them, he might have succeeded.
  • In "Zero Hour", even though The Bendu's appearance meant Thrawn couldn't capture the Rebel leaders on the ground, they still would have been stopped by the second Interdictor cruiser and Kallus wouldn't have escaped, if Pryce hadn't suddenly grabbed the Villain Ball and been too angry to deal with a few Mandaorians, or to stop and think when Kallus goads her into ordering him thrown out the airlock, which gives him the chance to escape.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Up until they start carrying out pointlessly oppressive actions, the Empire's more authoritative rule has largely been seen as a step up from the Republic in the eyes of many citizens, and a key reason that a major Rebellion hasn't started since the Empire's formation.
• Voice of the Resistance
  • Senator-in-exile Gall Trayvis, who frequently interrupts the Imperial HoloNet News broadcasts with "news the Empire doesn't want you to hear." It remains to be seen, though, if he is real or merely a ploy to root out dissidents. It's revealed in "Vision of Hope" that he's an Imperial Agent.
  • Later, Ezra Bridger becomes this with his submission sent from one of Lothal's radio towers that the rebels have captured.
  Ezra: We have been called criminals, but we are not. We are rebels, fighting for the people. Fighting for you... ...Stand up together, because that's when we're strongest: as one!
• Weapon-Based Characterization:
  • The Inquisitors all use a double-bladed saber with a ring mechanism that allows the blades to spin.
  • Sabine's dual pistols.
  • Ezra's slingshot until he gets his gunsaber. After Darth Vader destroys it, he uses a lightaber and blaster separately.
  • The Honor Guard of Lasan's signature weapon, the bo-rifle. There's a warrior code in place that has the loser give up their bo-rifle when bested in combat.
  • Kallus' bo-rifle. In "The Siege of Lothal", he's seen with a non-standard issue blaster, suggesting he's fond of using non-standard issues.
  • Hera's Blurrg pistol.
• We Help the Helpless:
  • Ezra believes that this is the reason the rebels exist. The crew goes to great lengths to help the people on Lothal in addition to being a thorn in the Empire's side, and they leave the planet once they realize their presence will just make the situation worse.
  • After having just indirectly lost his parents because chose to stand up for this ideal, Ezra asks Leia why she fights, because she's a princess - she pretty much can do anything, and she doesn't have to use that to risk her life for others. She answers that it's exactly why she's fighting; she has to, for those who cannot. And she's well aware that this is why Ezra fights too.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • In "The Siege of Lothal", Admiral Konstantine accidentally captures Darth Vader's TIE Fighter in a tractor beam, and plans to lay the blame on the poor tractor beam officer who followed his orders. Later in the episode, Konstantine is alive and well, but we don't know if the man he used as a patsy is still alive or not.
  • Jai Kell and the rest of the Lothol insurgency mysteriously disappear from the story after Pryce is taken prisoner.
• What Measure Is a Mook?:
  • The heroes regularly gun down Stormtroopers. The only one who ever fires stun shots is Ezra, since his lightsaber's built-in blaster doesn't have a kill setting. However, in "Call to Action", it's reported that the crew's latest heist resulted in no casualties, even though Kanan clearly guns down one of the Stormtroopers; whether this is meant to suggest no civilian casualties or their Stormtroopers are surviving getting shot is hard to say. Or maybe a few Stormtroopers dying is just THAT insignificant to the Empire.
  • Kallus is implied to have been a Stormtrooper before joining ISB. It is also implied he joined specifically because Saw Gerrera and the Onderon rebels believed in this trope, and thus had no problem with gunning down wounded men, influential on the high ranks or not. So of course, this gives Kallus a motivation to fight rebels, as he's under the assumption they're all weak in morality.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?:
  • At the end of "Blood Sisters", Sabine blows up a ship with the droid captain still onboard - one who isn't particularly malicious, either. This is actually Played for Laughs.
  • Chopper receives this from Ketsu in the same episode (which is why it makes this particular example rather off-putting) and later Cham in "Homecoming", of whom the latter is clearly irritated that Hera is putting more attention to (or rather, towards the greater Rebellion) instead of her own father and homeworld.
  • AP-5 is treated like a doormat by his freighter captain.
• Wham Episode:
  • "Call to Action". Grint and Aresko are executed for their incompetence, Kanan is taken prisoner, and the Ghost crew sends out a message across several systems that inspires others to stand up against the Empire.
  • "Fire Across the Galaxy". Kanan is rescued, Ahsoka Tano is alive and leading the Rebels that rescue the heroes along with Bail Organa, Vader is on Lothal and the Grand Inquisitor is dead.
  • "The Siege Of Lothal" is easily the darkest and most shocking episode released yet. Maketh Tua tries to defect to the Rebels, but she is killed in a plot by Darth Vader and Kallus. Ezra's hideout is destroyed, and Tarkintown is razed by the Empire. Lothal's liberation becomes a lost cause for a long while. Much of Phoenix Squadron is destroyed. Ahsoka Tano and Darth Vader learn of each other's identities. Emperor Palpatine authorizes Darth Vader to send two Inquisitors to kill the Ghost crew and retrieve Ahsoka as a means to find and kill more Jedi.
  • "Legacy" resolved one of Ezra's major subplots throughout the series up to that point: that Ezra's parents have been killed by the Empire after he spent the entire series looking for them.
  • "Twilight of the Apprentice" provides several major changes to the status quo. Darth Maul escapes Malachor, but not before permanently blinding Kanan. The Seventh Sister and the Fifth Brother die in battle against Maul. Ahsoka stays behind, fighting Vader so that Kanan and Ezra have to time to escape, leaving her fate unknown. And at the very end of the episode, Ezra finally taps into the dark side, using it to open the Sith holocron.
  • "An Inside Man". Kallus is Fulcrum, and Thrawn has his suspicions.
  • "Through Imperial Eyes". The rebels attempt a rescue mission for Kallus, but he chooses to stay and continue his cover, with the only things coming out of the episode being that Thrawn is now certain of Kallus's betrayal and intends on putting his plan for him in action.
  • "Jedi Night". As the rebels rescue Hera, Pryce orders her troops to fire on the fuel tank they're standing on (which supplies fuel to the whole TIE Defender project); Kanan sacrifices himself to save the rest from the ensuing explosion.
  • "A World Between Worlds". The Jedi temple on Lothal is revealed to house a portal to a nexus between time and space itself, explaining why the Emperor has been so interested in the planet. Ezra enters the Nexus and rescues Ahsoka from being killed by Vader in their duel on Malachor, though Ahsoka returns to Malachor after the temple's destruction with her current fate still unclear. Ezra and Hera make their peace with Kanan's death... but Emperor Palpatine is personally taking the reigns of Big Bad for the show's final episodes.
• Wham Line:
  • In the final trailer for Season 2, Sabine drops a serious bombshell about who she is, particularly for those who have seen The Clone Wars.
    Sabine: I'm Clan Wren, House Vizsla.
  • An even bigger one happens in Shroud of Darkness, straight from Yoda himself:
    Yoda: Find... Malachor.
  • Also from Shroud of Darkness.
    The Sentinel: By the right of the Council, by the will of the Force, Kanan Jarrus, you may rise.
  • From the Season 2 finale:
    Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker: Ahsoka!
  • Why should Sabine trust Kallus will help her, Wedge, and Hobbie escape from Imperial custody, in "The Antilles Extraction"? It also implied that there was much more going on behind Kallus's actions than what he claims here:
    Kallus: Tell Garazeb Orrelios, 'we're even'.
  • Regarding The Reveal from Kallus in "An Inside Man":
    Kallus: Listen to me; I am Fulcrum!
    Ezra: Yeah, right.
    Kanan: You want us to believe that?
    Kallus: By the light of Lothal's moons.
  • Later on in the same episode:
    Thrawn: Patience, Governor. Acting out of emotion will not serve us here. We must wait and watch. And when we find our spy, and we will find them, we shall turn them from an obstacle to an asset. Wouldn't you agree, Agent Kallus?
    Kallus: *seemingly calm* Your strategy is without flaw, Grand Admiral. As always.
  • The end credits of the series finale finally reveal the voice of Chopper:
    And DAVE FILONI as C1-10P/CHOPPER
• Wham Shot:
  • "Fire Across the Galaxy" has two. First, the reveal of Fulcrum, naturally - Ahsoka Tano climbing down the ladder and facing the Ghost crew. The second is after Kallus informs Tarkin that there is unrest spreading over Lothal because word leaked of what happened at Mustafar. Tarkin replies not to worry as the Emperor has sent an alternative solution for the Lothal problem. Cue that familiar Vader Breath sound as the Imperial March starts up in all of its dark glory and Darth Vader proceeds to walk down the shuttle's ramp behind Tarkin.
  • From Shroud of Darkness, when the Sentinel takes off his mask to reveal that he is a pre-fallen Grand Inquisitor. Also accompanied by a Wham Line.
    The Sentinel: [The knighting] means that you are what I once was; a knight of the Jedi Order.
  • Maul leaping towards Kanan, and the screen going red as his blade slashes across Kanan's eyes.
  • Grand Admiral Thrawn stepping out of the shadows in the Season 3 trailer.
  • Also in the trailer for Season 3, Sabine holding the Darksaber.
  • In "A World Between Worlds" Ezra reaches through time and pulls Ahsoka off of Malachor just as Vader is about to strike her down.
• Wipe: Per standard of Star Wars scene transitions.
• Wolverine Publicity: R2-D2 and C-3PO appear in "Droids In Distress" even though any other two droids could serve the same purpose in the story.
  • Well, any of Bail Organa's droids, maybe. Their appearance wasn't just a random chance meeting: Senator Organa had heard rumors of a local rebel cell operating around Lothal, so he sent the droids to surreptitiously scope them out to see if they were worth recruiting into the larger rebel cell network he's setting up.
• The Worf Effect:
  • Zeb and Kallus get into a staff-to-staff duel. Kallus is ultimately victorious in spite of fighting an alien with greater physical strength using a weapon designed specifically for the latter's species (although Zeb remarks later that Kallus' has been modified to better suit him). This is partially thanks to Kallus playing on Zeb's past tragedy to unbalance him, though Kallus is legitimately skilled regardless.
  • Kanan's first duel with the Grand Inquisitor is pretty one-sided, due to the character's status as a Knight of Cerebus. He and Ezra are lucky to escape. While Kanan does get better in subsequent duels, he's still outclassed.
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • In the "Property of Ezra Bridger" promo short, we meet Baron Valen Rudor, the pilot of a crashed imperial TIE fighter. He fires on Ezra with his ship's guns after Ezra has stolen his helmet. An imperial naval officer, bringing anti-vehicle grade guns to bear on a teenager. Fortunately, Ezra has a Force-sense moment and handily dodges.
  • In the series proper, a Wookiee child is sent to the spice mines, and Kallus has no problem with killing Ezra for being a Jedi, even though Ezra is only a Force-sensitive just now getting clued in.
  • Kallus has participated in genocide, so there's a possibility that he may have killed children. However, it gets implied that he mainly fought adult soldiers.
  • The Grand Inquisitor is perfectly willing to murder Ezra if he refuses to join the Empire. Darth Vader explicitly says that his task is to hunt for "Children of the Force", pretty explicitly stating that the target's age is not an issue for the Empire.
    • The rest of the Inquisition has no problem with hurting kids too, since they abduct children and are more than welcome to bring harm to Ezra and Sabine.
• Wrecked Weapon: Kanan destroys the Grand Inquisitor's lightsaber in "Fire Across the Galaxy".
  • Two occurences in Twilight of the Apprentice. The Eighth Brother's lightsaber is damaged in battle and then wrecks itself when he tries to use it to fly away, bursting apart and sending him falling to his presumed death. Then, Ezra's blaster-saber is destroyed in his duel with Darth Vader.
  • Ezra starts slicing up blasters in Season 3. Kanan also did this occasionally prior to Season 3.
• Wrench Wench: Both of the two lead female characters fall into the category. Hera Syndulla, aside from being the Ace Pilot, maintain and repairs her own ships. Sabine Wren is also a talented vehicle mechanic, but her backstory is as a child prodigy genius in developing weapons technology.
• You Are Not Alone: Multiple characters are Sole Survivors and/or estranged from their loved ones which often appears in the case of abandonment.
  • After her Motive Rant about how she was abandoned by her family, Raul his friend Ezra, and Kanan kneel before Sabine and the Darksaber, telling her that they will always stand by her and the choices she makes.
• You Have Failed Me: Tarkin has two of his officers beheaded in his office for this reason, and as an example to the other Imperials on Lothal.
  Tarkin: From now on, failure will have consequences.
• You Have to Believe Me!: Ezra says as much to Kanan and Hera when he has a vision of his parents in "Legacy", though they accept it pretty quickly and catch him up with what they learned about the situation offscreen instead of denying his claims.
• You Kill It, You Bought It: It is the Lasat warrior way to give up your weapon when a superior foe bests you in combat. This is how Kallus got his bo-rifle.
• Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: The Imperials on Lothal actually refer to the local rebel cell as "insurgents" more than they call them "rebels". The "Rebel Alliance" hasn't officially formed yet so it isn't a common term in Season 1 (though the formal name is actually "The Alliance to Restore the Republic"). When he arrives, Tarkin calls them both terms interchangeably. Also his arrival marks a shift, as he's the first to inform the local Imperials that there are other "rebel cells" bubbling up around the galaxy on the local level, plus the larger scale actions by multiple rebel cells in the Season 1 finale. They gradually shift to calling them "rebels" as the scale of the threat they pose to the Empire increases.
• Zorro Mark: When she strikes, Sabine always leaves the phoenix-symbol (starbird) of the Rebels on walls of the scene, either as graffiti, or using her blasters. Beware, the graffiti ones might explode (she makes them out of combustible materials). Actually, the organized "Rebel Alliance" doesn't exist yet, but apparently this is a symbol that has been circulating around their pop culture as an anti-Empire symbol. In "Idiot's Array" she explains to Lando that she was "inspired" by a similar symbol used in the protest paintings of Garel's Janyor of Bith.
  • Thrawn ends up getting a hold of a photo of at least two of her artpieces, including the starbird. Considering he could practically know the entirety of your history and character just by looking at your work, this probably isn't such a good thing for Sabine and co.
  • Ketsu has done this at least once. Seeing one of her tags on Garel in "Blood Sisters" tips Sabine off that Ketsu may be near.

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"Remember, Ezra; without hope, we have nothing."

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