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‘Star Wars Rebels’: Dave Filoni Discusses Darth Vader And Ahsoka Tano

By Dustin Wicksell
Published on: 08:21 PST, Jun 22, 2015

Star Wars Rebels returned for its second season this weekend on Disney XD, and executive producer Dave Filoni has spoken out about the return of fan favorites Darth Vader and Ahsoka Tano.

Rebels‘ Season 2 premiere, “The Siege Of Lothal,” saw Darth Vader seeking revenge against the main cast for their actions against the Empire in the first season. As Flickering Myth reports, the involvement of such an iconic Star Wars character was carefully considered, a fact that Dave Filoni, one of the show’s executive producers, pointed out.

“I think you don’t want to overuse a character like that, and you don’t want to have characters like Darth Vader in a situation where he’s going to lose relentlessly. As we were figuring out the story of the rebels in Season One, we didn’t want to put Vader in that position. So we waited until their skills kind of grew and as a group they became more formidable. We thought, ‘Okay, after Season One they’ve caused a lot of trouble, let’s send in the heavy artillery and kind of smack them down a little bit. Put them back in their place with Darth Vader.’ ”

Speaking with MTV, Filoni noted that Vader won’t become the main antagonist of Star Wars Rebels in the second season, instead dispatching two Inquisitors to combat the crew of the Ghost. Fans, however, have much more to be excited about, as Ahsoka Tano, a character central to The Clone Wars, is set to play a major role in this season of Rebels, after revealing herself at the end of the last.

“She’s very much a warrior, but she’s also sort of a mentor and in some ways spiritual leader of the group, [but] she’s not directly tied to our rebels all the time,” Filoni pointed out. “One character that I used as a reference point for the writers was if you look at the way Gandalf kind of operates in The Hobbit, he’s in and out of the story because he’s working on many levels and doing many other things all the time. I really see Ahsoka that way, where she’s maneuvering a lot of pieces on the board and putting people in positions, but then it’s really up to them to make something of the situation.”

The second half of 2015 is shaping up to be an exciting time for Star Wars fans, as the franchise cruises toward the release of Episode VII: The Force Awakens, as the Inquisitr previously reported. With Star Wars Rebels off to a strong start for its second season, however, fans have much more to look forward to than just the film.

[Image: Disney/ Lucasfilm via Twitter]

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