"Star Wars Rebels" season 2 began tying the series with the larger "Star Wars" franchise by introducing characters from "Star Wars: Clone Wars" like Ahsoka Tano and the clone soldiers. It also brought in characters from the older films such as Princess Leia Organa and Darth Vader. Season 3 is now set to tie into the future films.
Speaking to Movie Fone, producer Simon Kinberg explained that the second season attempted to bring the series closer to the larger universe of the franchise by re-introducing familiar characters. Season 3 will do this a little further by introducing characters or events that will tie into future films such as "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" or even "Star Wars Episode VIII."
"What's lovely is, obviously, we've brought in characters from 'Clone Wars' in the second season, and we keep sort of bringing characters from the original movies and sort of deepening the relationships between our core characters, the Ghost crew," explained producer Lawrence Kasdan. "So it's trying to balance the two different things, like the original cast from the first season with 'Clone Wars,' with characters from the original movies, and maybe even feeding into future movies."
As stated in a report from Screen Rant this means characters from season 3 could later be shown in "Rogue One" given that the movie takes place just a few months or years after "Star Wars Rebels" and sees the rebels finally stealing the Death Star plans.
However, there is a chance of a season 3 character being brought into "Star Wars Episode VIII." This will be trickier, however, as "Episode VIII" takes place roughly three decades after "Star Wars Rebels" and the first "Star Wars: A New Hope" film. This means any character introduced in season 3 will be 30 years older in "Episode VIII."
"Star Wars Rebels" season 3 will debut this July 16, showcasing only the premiere episode, but the proper premiere will be in the Fall given that previous seasons launched in the Fall.
