Hero Complex: Fans were really disappointed by the cancellation of “Clone Wars.” Will there be any wrapping up of storylines in “Rebels” or are you wiping the story slate clean?

Dave Filoni: The good news is there are several episodes of “Clone Wars” the fans have yet to see. I’ve finalized the remaining episodes and I think they will really please the diehard “Clone Wars” fans, especially the story arc with Master Yoda — that one is critical to the bigger picture. “Star Wars Rebels” will be its own series with its own characters. That’s not to say characters from other “Star Wars” media couldn’t make an appearance in the series, but “Rebels” will be distinctive for its own new characters and relationships.

HC: You’ve talked about how closely George Lucas was involved in the creative process on “Clone Wars.” How has that changed now that he’s sold Lucasfilm to Disney?

DF: George is a one-of-a-kind creator; I did my best over the years I worked with him to digest as much knowledge about how to make a “Star Wars” film as I possibly could. Each episode of “The Clone Wars” was like a test, and I think as we went along my crew and I got better at passing the test. Now there is a group of us that work on things; we all know that one person could never replace George; rather we have a creative council that discusses the ways of the Force.

HC: “Clone Wars” told a story on a very broad canvas with a large number of characters acting as the leads. Will that approach continue with “Rebels” or will there be a core group featured in every episode?

DF: “Rebels” will be different from “The Clone Wars” in a couple ways, and one is the decision to stick with one story and one main group of characters. We wanted fans to get to know the new characters and what they are fighting for. Each episode has its own unique story, while still fitting into the much larger picture of what is going on in the “Star Wars” universe. “Rebels” will tell the story of a group of characters, in this way it is more like the original trilogy which followed Han, Luke and Leia, where the prequels showed us the grand scale and political as well as personal.

HC: Are you operating completely independently from the feature film group or is there some measure of coordination?

DF: There is a large effort at Lucasfilm to make all the stories we are creating relate to one another and find continuity with one another. It’s one of the really exciting developments in this new era.

HC: Is the writing staff for “Rebels” coming from the live action TV drama world?

DF: We have an incredibly talented group of writers working on “Rebels”; some are names you might recognize from working previously on “Star Wars,” and I think we have a nice mix of live action and animation writers. Just looking at the executive producing level, between Simon Kinberg and Greg Wiesman we have two incredibly experienced writers from both live action and animation. Throw in my experience writing and directing with George and I think fans will be really excited when they see the results.

Video of the panel!

Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV

We also reached out to Lucasfilm for comment on the rumor. Lucasfilm Publicist Tracy Cannobbio responded with the following;

“I wanted to get back to you on your inquiry regarding John Williams. He is not composing music for Star Wars Rebels. Of course, as was announced at Star Wars Celebration Europe, Mr. Williams is going to score Star Wars: Episode VII.

The extremely busy Kinberg just signed a new deal with 20th Century Fox where he will help link the X-Men and Fantastic Four movies into a bigger shared universe, following X-Men: Days of Future Past (which Kinberg wrote). Kinberg is also writing one of the new standalone live-action Star Wars films, along with his work on Rebels, which he is executive producing alongside Greg Weisman and Dave Filoni. Kinberg also wrote the script for the one-hour debut of Rebels.

How will this look or feel different from Clone Wars?

It will look quite different. The intention of what I’ve seen so afar, and we’re pretty far down the line, the intention is for it to feel quite different from Clone Wars. The place we went back to as to a visual template was Ralph McQuarrie, who was one of the original concept artists for the original Star Wars films. His art is softer, a little more figurative, more of a feel of being drawn, less computer generated.

The first few movies had a bit of a hand-made quality. We wanted the show to have that. There’s also in the archives where [creator George] Lucas keeps all the original art and props, there’s tons of art that’s McQuarrie’s musing on the Star Wars universe that was never used in the films. There’s places where we’ve quite literally taken world-creation or vehicles or creatures from his original art that was never used in the films and made that part of show.

That’s fantastic. What about story-telling differences? How dark can you go on Disney XD?

We haven’t talked in those terms. But the world we’re creating is an Imperial world. You’re seeing the impact of the Empire, of stormtroopers around the galaxy, abusing and oppressing people. Thematically and politically, it goes to some dark places. But for the tone of the show we took our cues from the original movies, which had fun and adventure and swashbuckling with emotion and grounded human characters. We took all our cues from the original films.

Obviously there are slight tonal differences between New Hope, Empire and Jedi. But I think the closest intended voice of the show is A New Hope. So there are places where we get into darker backstories, there are places we see how cruel and malevolent the Empire can be, but for the most part it’s a fun and character-driven story.

Again taking our cues from the original films, it’s less maybe political than the prequels and more personal. It starts with a few character introductions that will precede the show. I wrote the first two episodes, they’re like a one-hour story across two episodes where we introduce the main characters in the show.

but I'm definitely expecting the series to be more, "Hey guys, remember when you liked Star Wars?" and less about pushing the mythology forward in any substantial way a la Clone Wars.

The new series is expected return to the fast-paced storytelling and punchy dialogue fans loved about the original trilogy of films. Gone will be the intergalactic politics and trade embargoes that many fans complained about in the prequel films.

"In 'Rebels,' you'll be in scenarios where you hear things have taken place that are furthering the story, but you won't be watching those politics unfold," Filoni said. "It's on a more human level."

Also, don't expect to see the kind of lightning-quick lightsaber battles that defined "Clone Wars" and the prequel films. The mystical powers of the Force will be taking a back seat in the new series.

"I think that we all agree what we liked about the Force in the original films was it was a less-is-more scenario," Filoni says.

Further, Filoni says the new series goes back to some of illustrator Ralph McQuarrie's concept paintings for the original "Star Wars" film for a lot of its look, something he had originally planned to do with "Clone Wars," but never quite achieved. With the change in leadership at Lucasfilm, however, not everything will be a throwback to the '70s. The influence of the new leadership under Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy will also be apparent.

"I know that Kathy is a very big fan of [Japanese animator Hayao] Miyazaki, so I told [art director] Kilian Plunkett to look at his designs and what makes them so iconic and memorable," Filoni said. That, combined with McQuarrie's original "Star Wars" designs, is the look of the new "Rebels."

"The biggest thing is you want older fans to watch and say, 'Wow that looks like "Star Wars,"' and I want the younger fans who have never experienced it before to experience it the way I experienced 'A New Hope,'" Filoni said.

For me, if I go back and look at the original Star Wars, I wouldn't call it dark. I think it has dark moments. I think Empire gets there, I think Jedi has some dark moments. But my intention with the storytelling is to be in that realm.

I'll easily say, we are not going to be as dark as finding Darth Maul as a shell of his former self, on a junk planet, screaming, you know? That was dark even for Star Wars.

I think the other thing too is I just want this to be Star Wars in the most classic sense -- a serialized television show. I want it to have its epic moments and its mythic moments. I want it to get to places where you know the villains are really villains. But for me at least to kind of map out this show,

I think we'll start in a place, not unlike what we did in Clone Wars, which was that it was a bit more fun in the beginning. I think the bad guys still have their tone, but I think, since we're coming at it with a boy in the beginning, that it is a little bit lighter in tone. But then as the world kind of rises up around them and things get more serious, I think it allows us to bring everybody into that world, just like Luke did.

Things get more and more progressively intense. But it's always with an eye on, how can we keep the flavor of Star Wars or Indiana Jones? It's going to be a very balanced show.

...at the same time, like I said, there will be so many stories coming out about Star Wars. This one has a young kid at the center of it, which ultimately, I mean, I was a young kid when I fell in love with Star Wars.

I think Ezra's surprising. I always understand the fear, but luckily Ezra isn't walking around giving people nicknames and calling people "Skyguy." I always thought that was the hardest thing about Ahsoka in the beginning. She was very lofty in her ideas and very forthright in her opinions.

The fans were never going to.… "You do not get to come in here and tell Anakin Skywalker what to do!” This kid is starting out a little bit on fairer ground. You don't know Kanan any better than you know him. So he can kind of fight for his own space against Hera, Kanan and everybody else. Taylor [Gray] does a great job.

With these characters it's all about likability. I think that he wins you over pretty quickly, which I'm very pleased with. But yeah, of course, like anybody, it's concerning, "Ah, if we do this…” But I want the point of view. We all agreed for him to be a young kid.

You're playing with fire. There are times. But it gives you a chance to have a character that grows in ways that are just more dynamic I think than some older characters. And he forces the older characters to grow as well.

Ahsoka had a dynamic growth from beginning to end. I think Ezra's will be just as dynamic, if not more, at the end of the day. Plus, I'd like to think some people will go, "Well, they did it before, and I ended up liking the characters, so they could do it again."

SIMON KINBERG: I am the co-creator of Star Wars Rebels, the executive producer of the show, and I’ve written a bunch of episodes. So when it airs, it will be in a sort of “Movie-of-the-Week” format where two episodes air back-to-back, and I wrote those two episodes. And then I wrote the season finale that we’re just working on now.

Is it 13 episodes?

KINBERG: It’s 16 episodes. And so I wrote the season finale. And then as the executive producer, I will read all the scripts. I will sometimes run a pen through them and rewrite stuff in the scripts that lots of other really talented writers have worked on.

I will watch cuts of the show, I will give notes on whatever I think about performance or score or animation, but they have such an amazing team of people, many of whom are Clone Wars alums like Dave Filoni, who’s as much of a creative voice on the show as anybody.

So they put a great team together. They really know what they’re doing. And I will come in, and look at stuff, and give input, and occasionally write episodes. So the first season I’m responsible for writing three episodes—the first two and the last one.