For fans of the animated side of “Star Wars”, the series finale for ‘Star Wars Rebels’ was an emotional rollercoaster. However, one of the most touching and shocking moments came at the very end of the episode. In fact, it was so shocking that it was created without the knowledge of almost the entire cast.
Spoilers below for those who have yet to see the series and plan to. Honestly, if you aren’t there however you should finish binging this as the reveal is essential to the story arc of significant characters and was a huge payoff for fans.
Showrunner Dave Filoni was talking about the shocking son of Hera and Kanan named Jacen who was introduced in the series finale. What is fun about this reveal is that they sprinkled out clues throughout the final season which I’m pretty sure almost all of us missed:
“There are little clues that I would talk to the animation supervisor, and I would say, ‘We’ll do this and just have her put her hand here on her stomach at this certain moment,’ or just little tiny things. But I kept it pretty secretive. I did this this thing where I didn’t give any characters dialogue in the epilogue except for Sabine. So Tiya [Sircar] knew all those things and had to remain quiet about it, which was quite a bit of pressure for her because the actors know that if they don’t need to know something, I just don’t tell them. If it’s important for the character, they absolutely know. But I don’t give them much more than they need to know or kind of the space around them. So it was a surprise, and it pretty worked out.”
There was a lot going on at the end of the series which would make any subtle clues easy to miss. However, Filoni shared that it wasn’t just the audience who had been kept in the dark about the child as:
“I just talked to Kilian Plunkett, who’s been working with me for years now, and I said, well, maybe just picture what their kid would look like, and I think he was suggesting that he was perhaps a little green-shaded, and I said that’s fine as long as he doesn’t look like he’s sick flying in the ship. We came at it pretty easily as far as a look. I wanted to make sure that you knew whose kid it was, so there were little clues in the costume if you didn’t think the likeness was there. Yeah, it was fun. A lot of the crew didn’t know it until they saw it! We designed it all in secrecy and animated it all in secrecy, even amongst the crew, so it was a pretty fun moment when we all watched it together up at Skywalker Ranch, and everybody turned around and looked and me and was like ‘What?!’
Not only was it a great surprise for fans but Lucasfilm has “taken a keen interest in the character” and may appear in a future film or animated series.
Did you enjoy how ‘Star Wars Rebels’ enjoyed Jacen to a galaxy far, far away? Do you feel that this potential future Jedi will return down the line? Share your thoughts below!
Source: Cinema Blend