The world is on the brink of going Star Wars crazy again! With the upcoming release of Episode VII in 2015 and the NEW animated series Rebels due out later this year, there is plenty of new stories from that galaxy far, far away coming out way! Though there is a freeze on what is happening in the Expanded Universe in terms of books and new content, that doesn’t mean that Disney and Lucasfilm aren’t moving full steam ahead with growing their newly acquired playground! In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Star Wars Rebels showrunner Simon Kinberg talked more about the differences from The Clone Wars, more on the Inquisitor, and the overall feeling and tone of the new series!
Rebels vs The Clone Wars
[box_light]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.[/box_light]
On the Inquisitor
[box_light]You’ve created a new villain, the Inquisitor, what makes him special?
That was probably the most daunting part of this process. George obviously created the best villain of our time. So we spent a lot of time brainstorming and working with the artists to come up with the Inquisitor. You’ve seen that image of him. We wanted somebody terrifying, a nightmare character for a kid but not somebody too foreign, too creature-ly. We didn’t want him to have a helmet for obvious reasons — the comparison [to Darth Vader]. We talked about a character who was cold and calculating and could tap into people’s emotional weaknesses as much as their physical weaknesses, and had a specific relationship to Jedi and the ways of the force. He would be somebody that the remaining Jedi would be especially scared of.[/box_light]
Head on over to EW for the rest of the interview! Star Wars Rebels is due out this fall! It will premiere on the Disney Channel and then the regular series will run weekly on Disney XD!
May the Force be with you!
~CynicNerd
