General Star Wars Animated Series

After Return of the Jedi, Luke just got finished burning Vader's body when Shaak Ti contacts the Rebel Alliance, informing them that she had already restored the Republic years ago while the Rebels were dicking around with the already defunct Empire.

But hey, thanks for keeping those assholes busy.

I wonder what the official explanation will be for Ezra and Kanan not getting involved in the events of the OT. Unless the show has a big tone shift and kills them off Kanan should have been able to train Luke after Obi-Wan died.

Shaak Ti's second cut death scene (the one at the Jedi Temple) was one of Jedi deaths Yoda saw in the last arc of TCW, so I think it's safe to say that that one was reintroduced into canon. We just don't get to actually see it.

The answer is relatively simple - with the galaxy being so large and the civil war thus so vast, the film simply couldn't portray the exploits of the Rebels crew without derailing from the story at hand. Ezra and Kanan were simply fighting for the Rebellion somewhere else on the far side of the galaxy, and then by the point, they would still be no match for Vader as their past experiences had proven.

The Rebellion is still one organization but somehow Luke doesn't know about Kanan or Ezra. There's no reason for them to be kept a secret from him. He might not have met them but someone would have told him there were other Jedi around.

Which is actually a really easy explanation, since Tatooine, Hoth, Bespin, Dagobah, and Endor are all relatively close to each other, and are right on the edge of the galaxy. The only places they go in the OT that aren't on that side of the galaxy are Alderaan and Yavin.

For that matter, the prequels don't stray too far from that side either. The major PT planets (that is, the ones that aren't just cameos during Order 66) are Naboo, Coruscant, Kamino, Geonosis, Utapau, Kashyyyk, and Mustafar. Of those, only Coruscant and Kashyyyk aren't in the same general area as the Outer Rim OT planets.

Also, there's the whole "last of the Jedi will you be" thing from Yoda - who explicitly knows about Kanan and Ezra's existence.

I think it's well within the realm of possibility that Kanan might indeed die (though I'm not looking forward to it); despite the lower age demographic this is still part of a franchise that makes quite a habit of the Mentor Occupational Hazard. But I can't imagine they'll kill Ezra, and yet I don't think they can pull an Ahsoka-type leave-everything-behind ending again, at least not without making it more of a downer than I really expect. So it's a it of a mystery right now.

While parts of that vision are directly from ROTS, parts of it aren't - there's a large battle between Jedi, some of whom we know had other fates, and clones that's more symbolic than anything else. So it's not entirely clear.

edited 28th Jun '15 10:51:05 PM by nrjxll

There are four things in that vision. The clash between the Jedi and clones is clearly a metaphor, but the others are directly pulled from Episode III. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that Shaak Ti's death in the Jedi Temple is canon until proven otherwise.

I could see Kanan, Ezra or both (on the slim chance they both survive) leaving the order behind assuming there's no way they can continue it (this assumes Ahsoka doesn't make it) or thinking they can do more without being Jedi.

Or maybe they isolate themselves from the rest of the Rebellion to focus on something specific, like preserving whatever the Empire was out to acquire on Lothal.

If I recall, Yoda mentions that Ezra may be a Jedi yet. Key word is maybe. For all I know, Kanan and Ezra decided to take an extended vacation away from Jedi arts and training (or join whatever Ahsoka's new path is) till Return of the Jedi. That or Yoda never considers Padawans to be Jedi yet.

edited 29th Jun '15 12:09:43 AM by Shadao

My two thoughts are:

- At one point they could've been so busy with things - the Empire being after your head is bound to give you some problems time after time - that they had to stop visiting Yoda, who must be forgiven for assuming that less-experienced and trained Jedi as them wouldn't last very long under manhunts led by Vader.

-Even if they were to survive to become proficient Jedi, they would still be no match for Vader and Palpatine. Thus, Luke could be considered the "last of the Jedi" in the sense that he's the last Jedi in his youthful prime fit enough to stand a chance against some of the two most powerful Sith ever to live - by Returnof The Jedi, its readily apparent that Yoda's death also symbolizes the passing of the last of the generation of the great masters of the Clone Wars, and with him and Obi-Wan gone, the future of the Jedi is effectively passed onto Luke.

So basically Shaak Ti has to be depicted dying at some point in time - like Obi-Wan and Yoda, her increasing age will prevent her from pulling off the same feats as Ahsoka and the younger but less-trained Jedi - it's just really a question of exactly how; I'm really against the notion of Dropped a Bridge on Him by backstabbing her with her own light-saber as Revenge Of The Sith seemed fond of. With her sharing a homeworld and common cultural heritage as Ahsoka, one could easily see her as The Obi-Wan for the latter Togrutan - a Heroic Sacrifice as to prevent Ahsoka and the heroes from risking their lives rescuing her can be expected.

edited 29th Jun '15 1:51:59 AM by FluffyMcChicken

Is it ever made clear that the Rebels in general know about Luke's force sensitivity and his Jedi father? Because if not, or if Mon Mothma doesn't know about Ezra or Kanan or Ahsoka, then it's entirely possible that Ezra, Kanan, or both were on missions for the Rebellion elsewhere and nobody knew that Luke could use training from them.

I like the idea that there are other surviving Jedi, or those trained by Jedi survivors, but they just aren't on the galactic radar.

How about the fact that he openly carries a lightsaber, and "I used the Force!" was probably said every time he told the story of how he blew up the Death Star?

I, uh, found the full episode here - for now until it gets taken down.

I must say, that second where Vader grabs Kanan by the arm and hoists him up into air really is jarring in how the Vader of the comics would have used the clear opportunity to slice off his arm and finished him off.

I thought the fight with Vader was oddly slow. I could see Kanan being too rattled to fight all that well, but I thought Vader would have tried more than to overwhelm him with brute force.

On the other hand, Vader was definitely using Kanan to get to the core of the rebellion, so maybe tearing him apart wasn't conducive to the plan.

Exactly; all of Vaders actions have a reason here. He couldn't just slaughter all of the rebels, they had to lead him to the rest of the group.

Even his attacking in just his own ship makes some sense. If the Rebel group saw an Imperial fleet coming towards them ,they would book it like crazy. But a single fighter? Just kill him, how hard can it be? And then, when Vader had thoroughly crippled the flagship, he called in the rest of the fleet.

I know it wouldn't be as badass, but I honestly thought Vader would at least bother to bring some escorts as in A New Hope instead of trying to Leeroy Jenkins it solo.

You'd think that the rebel fleet would also have more than one fighter squadron though. Have X-Wings and Y-Wings appeared in the series yet?

edited 29th Jun '15 7:11:39 PM by FluffyMcChicken

They probably won't. One of the past interviews with Dave Filoni established that the creators' interpretation of why we saw A-Wings and B-Wings for the first time in Return of the Jedi (in contrast to the old EU's interpretation that they were newer designs) was that different rebel cells used different types of fighters and Endor was the one time they were all assembled together. So the intention here is that we'll mostly see A-Wings and B-Wings in this series. Which I tend to view as a good thing, as the B-Wing in particular had very little screentime in the films (the miniature was apparently a pain to work with).

In this particular case, though, I think it's more just that this is the very beginning of an organized military rebellion against the Empire. It's not even formally the "Rebel Alliance" yet.

I'm confident that we'll see X-Wings and Y-Wings at some point in time as both a Continuity Nod and a Fandom Nod just to cement the fact that this series takes place in the same galaxy audiences so fondly recall. I'm thinking of something along the lines of the titular Rebels linking up somewhere along the line with another friendly fleet, perhaps in another hour-long special, and having a thunderous entry of X-Wings as The Cavalry in the middle of a battle complete with the traditional "Rebel Theme" blasting in the background.

By the way, nobody can complain about not seeing the episode now that I've posted it several posts above already.

EDIT: Wow, they managed to take the video down several hours after I managed to view it. Good thing all those You Tube downloading sites come in handy.

edited 29th Jun '15 9:24:31 PM by FluffyMcChicken

That or they could introduce the Origins of the X wing into the new continuity.

I just started and finished this show over the past couple of days.

Please don't tell me this uses Disney's dumb "We only release a new episode ever couple of months" schedule.

Not all that bad, thankfully. They're doing the premiere now, but the actual season happens in the fall. I think they did the same thing for the first season.

The gap might have been shorter, but yes. "The Siege of Lothal" wasn't the formal season premiere - more of a TV movie event.

edited 30th Jun '15 9:00:36 PM by nrjxll

Spark of Rebellion premiered only 10 days before the official first episode did, however there were a lot of breaks between episodes in the second half of the first season. It was on hiatus for a month after the mid-season finale, then immediately after coming back they took a week off twice after consecutive episodes, then they inserted a three-weeks long break before the second episode of the three-part finale.
Edit
Fixed thanks

edited 1st Jul '15 8:35:45 AM by Werebazs

Spark of Rebellion?

And that's how new episodes of any show work. There's not actually enough episodes in a season for a show to end in spring unless there's weeks of reruns between new episodes in the second half. If a show tries to get around this, it usually means waiting until March to start again after the Christmas break.