SFX 252 PREVIEW Star Wars Rebels Bridges The Gap

New Star Wars TV show ready to whet appetites

Star Wars Rebels is the first trip to a galaxy far, far away since Disney got its hands on Lucasfilm, and it's here to fill the big gap in Star Wars history – the time period between Anakin Skywalker going bad and Luke Skywalker's decision to turn his back on a career as a moisture farmer.

Rebels is set five years before A New Hope , and follows the grassroots of the Rebel Alliance. “We loved this idea of the origin of the Rebel Alliance,” says executive producer Simon Kinberg – “to start really intimate and small, and to know that it is going to expand out into something as massive as what we see in the original trilogy.”

So how much of the movies we know will make it into the time between? “Timeline-wise, everyone is in play,” confirms Kinberg. “We've already revealed Obi-Wan and R2 and C-3PO [will appear], and you'll see that we bring some of the other characters into the show.”

“It's filled with Easter eggs,” Kinberg admits.

It's not all about the cameos and shout-outs, though. “This is really the story of these five people on this ship and their adventures, mostly as a family.” It's a Firefly -like crew. “The most fledgeling, ragtag group of individuals.”

“I just love the notion of the little guy eventually taking down the big establishment, and that to me as a storyteller is a cool place to start.

“You're seeing not just the arc for individual characters, but the arc of this whole movement.”

Find out more about Star Wars Rebels in the new SFX , on sale from Wednesday 20 August. Rebels will launch on Disney XD in the autumn for UK audiences.