The Star Wars franchise is going strong on the small screen as well as the big screen nowadays. Disney XD's Star Wars Rebels have given fans of the galaxy far, far away a closer look at all the planets, people, and plots that have only been touched upon by the movies. As it happens, Season 4 of Star Wars Rebels will fill in some major blanks for the latest movie, Rogue One. Showrunner Dave Filoni has shared this tease of what's to come in Rebels Season 4:
You will see Mon Mothma again. You'll see Saw Gerrera again. You'll get much more of an insight into seeing how that relationship breaks down and breaks apart.
In Rogue One, we learned that the Rebel Alliance wasn't quite the unified group it seemed in A New Hope. Saw Gerrera had split off from the main group of rebels to follow a more violent and volatile path. Mon Mothma revealed that Saw's actions made the rebellion more difficult for the rest of the Alliance, and once he made his big entrance, it was easy to see why. Saw had become an extremist who - not unlike Darth Vader - was more machine than man. He and Mon Mothma may have once been allies, but something happened to come between them and their factions. According to Dave Filoni during an episode of Rebels Recon, Rebels will be where we find out just what that something was.
We actually already did get both Saw Gerrera and Mon Mothma in Star Wars Rebels Season 3, but neither were quite in the same place where they would be by the time the Rogue One action picks up. When Saw appeared on the show, he was already showing some extreme tendencies that put him at odds with the Ghost crew, but he still had all his body parts, did not require a breathing mask, and showed no inclination to use a tentacle monster to interrogate anybody. Whatever broke him into the man he was in Rogue One hadn't yet happened in Rebels Season 3.
For her part, Mon Mothma had recently departed her seat in the Senate to take up with the Rebellion full-time when she made her Rebels debut. She and Saw haven't shared any scenes on Rebels yet, but it's already easy to see why they wouldn't exactly become fast friends. Evidently, they'll meet, clash, and probably split during their time on screen on Rebels.
Given that Rogue One ended right where A New Hope began, and given that Rebels is chronologically only about two years out from A New Hope by this point, a lot of pieces are going to need to start falling into place sooner rather than later. Saw needs to be broken. X-Wings need to appear. Something needs to happen about those two Jedi who definitely weren't running around with their lightsabers during the original trilogy. We probably won't get too many more merry adventures aboard the Ghost as the timeline approaches Rogue One/A New Hope, and I'm guessing that the Saw Gerrera/Mon Mothma conflict will be only the beginning.
Interestingly, both Forest Whitaker and Genevieve O'Reilly reprised their Rogue One roles for Star Wars Rebels. Hopefully they'll be able to lend their voices to the series again for Season 4. We'll have to wait and see.
Star Wars Rebels just concluded Season 3, and we have a while to wait before we got a look at Season 4. Check out our midseason TV premiere guide and our summer TV premiere schedule to see all your options for what to watch while you wait for more action from a long time ago in that galaxy far, far away.
