Star Wars Rebels Showrunner Simon Kinberg Discusses The Look And Feel Of The Series

Entertainment Weekly spoke to Simon Kinberg, an executive producer on Disney XD's Star Wars Rebels, and asked him several questions about the show. Among the things Kinberg discussed were the possibility of the Emperor and Vader showing up, the differences between Rebels and its spiritual predecessor The Clone Wars, and the ways that the series will depict the formation of the Rebellion. Here's part of the Q&A:

What about story-telling differences? How dark can you go on Disney XD?
We haven’t talked in those terms. But the world we’re creating is an Imperial world. You’re seeing the impact of the Empire, of stormtroopers around the galaxy, abusing and oppressing people. Thematically and politically, it goes to some dark places. But for the tone of the show we took our cues from the original movies, which had fun and adventure and swashbuckling with emotion and grounded human characters. We took all our cues from the original films. Obviously there are slight tonal differences between New Hope, Empire and Jedi. But I think the closest intended voice of the show is A New Hope. So there are places where we get into darker backstories, there are places we see how cruel and malevolent the Empire can be, but for the most part it’s a fun and character-driven story. Again taking our cues from the original films, it’s less maybe political than the prequels and more personal. It starts with a few character introductions that will precede the show. I wrote the first two episodes, they’re like a one-hour story across two episodes where we introduce the main characters in the show.

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