Star Wars: Rebels Producer On The Series New Villain, The Inquisitor

By Rudie Obias | Published

This article is more than 2 years old


In less than a year, Lucasfilm’s new animated TV series Star Wars: Rebels will make its debut on the Disney Channel. While we know that the new series is ostensibly a prequel to A New Hope, the series’ writers and producers will be exploring new ground with stories and characters that takes place “in a galaxy far, far away.” Lucasfilm has slowly been teasing out more material from the show, and now we’ve got a new video featuring executive producer Simon Kinberg dishing on the show’s main bad guy, the Inquisitor.

I got a first look at the Inquisitor at New York Comic-Con a few months ago. The reaction to the new Imperial villain from the Javits Center crowd was filled with excitement and glee when Lucasfilm’s Pablo Hidalgo introduced him. The Inquisitor is not a Sith Lord, but rather one of Darth Vader’s henchmen in Rebels. The Inquisitor is tasked with hunting down members of the budding Rebel Alliance while keeping the peace with a new variation of the double-edged lightsaber.

Simon Kinberg says Rebels will stay true to the Star Wars saga that has come before, but will introduce new characters and stories that take place within its universe. While it’s unclear if the new animated series will feature any pre-existing characters from the Star Wars universe, it’s rumored that a young Lando Calrissian, voiced by Billy Dee Williams, might appear on Rebels. (Perhaps in the Millennium Falcon, before Han won it off him?)

Star Wars: Rebels takes place between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, a few years before the start of Episode IV. The Galactic Empire is taking over planets in the outer rim and a band of teenage renegades start to sabotage the Imperial stranglehold on the planet Lothal. They do anything they can to undermine the new Emperor’s power and authority, and form the very early seed of what will become the Rebel Alliance.

Lucasfilm recently released the first behind-the-scenes video for Rebels. The video features executive producer Greg Weisman talking about how the series fits into the existing Star Wars saga. Weisman was a writer and producer on shows like Gargoyles, Young Justice, and The Spectacular Spider-Man, so he’ll bring a good pedigree to Star Wars: Rebels.

As for Rebels executive producer Kinberg, he’s also a creative consultant on Star Wars: Episode VII. He will also be penning a new standalone Star Wars movie sometime down the line, with the possibility of writing (or co-writing) Episodes VIII and IX as well. Kinberg also produced Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium and wrote the screenplay for X-Men: Days of Future Past.

At the moment, David Oyelowo, Freddie Prinze Jr., Vanessa Marshall, Taylor Gray, and Steven Jay Blum are all expected to lend their voices to the animated series. Dave Filoni (Star Wars: The Clone Wars) also serves as Rebels‘ producer.

Star Wars: Rebels will air sometime in October 2014, first on the Disney Channel, then on Disney XD.