It’s been more than 35 years since Return of the Jedi hit theaters, and while the many movies and TV shows that have been released since then have had their own stories to tell, they occasionally surprise us with something that sheds new light on the events of the original trilogy. Hell, Rogue One basically only existed to explain why the exhaust shaft Luke used to blow up the Death Star was there.
Star Wars: Rebels was no different, because while the adventures of Kanan, Ezra, and the rest of the gang revolved around the struggle to free Lothal from the grip of the Empire, it also revealed some pretty staggering things about the people, places, and events we’re familiar with from the Imperial era.
Let’s look at 7 of the most interesting revelations made by Rebels, starting with the fact that…
#7: Obi-Wan Kenobi was definitely still a powerful warrior in his later years.
Though he was one of the greatest Jedi Masters in his youth, Obi-Wan Kenobi was widely believed to have lost more than a step or two by the time he saved Luke from the Sand People in Episode IV. While he did confront his former apprentice Darth Vader, most saw it as a fight he knew he couldn’t win, but had to have so that Luke and Leia, the last hopes of the Jedi, could escape.
While there has been quite a lot of debate over whether or not old Obi-Wan COULD have beaten Vader if there were no other considerations, the general consensus has long been that he wasn’t up to it anymore. While we may never get an answer to that question, one thing Rebels made clear was that anyone who believed Obi-Wan had lost his mojo by that time was sorely mistaken.
Darth Maul, Kenobi’s oldest and most hated enemy, had spent years trying to hunt him down by the time he reappears in Rebels, and Maul proved in battle against the Inquisitors, Kanan, and Ahsoka Tano that he was still as dangerous then as he ever was. With Ezra’s unwitting help, Maul finally tracked Kenobi down toward the end of season 3, confronting him in the Tatooine desert.
Maul had figured out Obi-Wan was there protecting something (or someone), and left Obi-Wan no choice but to fight. Obi-Wan ended the duel in three seconds flat, mortally wounding Maul with a lightsaber slash to the chest. Not bad for a supposedly washed up has-been.
#6: We saw our first clone trooper almost 20 years before Attack of the Clones.
Despite the fact that nearly every clone trooper turned on the Jedi when Order 66 came down, Captain Rex and his small group of clones had managed to stay loyal due to having the control chips embedded in them removed years earlier. Rex and his team eventually joined the Rebellion, and as we found out in the Rebels finale, went on to fight in the Battle of Endor.
What Rebels DIDN’T tell us, but sharp-eyed viewers of Return of the Jedi will notice, is that we actually saw Captain Rex IN Return of the Jedi, though we didn’t realize it at the time. Don’t believe me? Check this out:
Rex’s appearance in Rebels was obviously designed to match this guy since they knew where Rex’s path was going to take him all along. Little did we (or George Lucas) know that this unassuming background character was our first glimpse at a real, live clone trooper!
#5: Ahsoka Tano may have known Luke Skywalker.
It’s almost certain that Ahsoka Tano and Luke Skywalker crossed paths at some point after the Battle of Endor. First, the obvious reason: Ahsoka was Anakin’s apprentice, and after realizing he had fallen to the Dark Side and confronting him, Ahsoka would have emerged from wherever she was during the final battle on Lothal to discover that Anakin’s son (whom she had no previous knowledge of) had become a Jedi and defeated the Sith during her absence.
Ahsoka would naturally want to meet Luke for herself, and in all likelihood, gauge the possibility that he would follow the same path as his father. Upon finding out who she was, it would make sense that Luke would look to her as a mentor of sorts since she had years of experience and wisdom, had fought alongside his father in the Clone Wars, and most importantly, was the last known person with legitimate training from the Jedi Temple. There were many things she could teach him that he could, in turn, pass on to his own Jedi trainees.
Ahsoka’s appearance at the end of Rebels, wearing a robe and carrying a staff, is also significant, according to show creator Dave Filoni. He wouldn’t go into WHY it was important, but that robe looks an awful lot like the one Luke was wearing when Rey found him at the end of Force Awakens. Could it be the same robe, or possibly the new look the Jedi adopted during Luke’s years as Grand Master? That’s unclear at this time, but it seems like a lock that Luke and Ahsoka had at least some kind of contact in the post-Imperial years.
#4: Jacen Syndulla may have become one of Luke’s Jedi trainees.
While we were all sad to lose Kanan, Hera still got her happy ending when it was revealed that she gave birth to a child some time after the liberation of Lothal. We saw the boy, named Jacen Syndulla, sitting in the co-pilot seat of the Ghost with her mother in the post-Imperial years, at which point we found out that Kanan Jarrus was his father.
If the Skywalkers are any indication of how this works, there’s a good chance that being the son of a Jedi means that Jacen is Force-sensitive as well. Once Luke started recruiting for the New Jedi Order, it’s not a stretch to imagine that his mother’s connection with the leaders of the Rebel Alliance would eventually lead young Jacen under Luke’s tutelage.
Of course, the dark possibility we would have to consider is that, if Jacen did go train with Luke, there’s a chance he also wound up becoming one of the Knights of Ren. We found out that Ben Solo took a handful of Luke’s students with him when he left, so if Jacen was a Jedi trainee, odds are good that he’s either a Knight of Ren or dead by the time the sequel trilogy starts.
#3: Luke may have been the real Chosen One all along.
Qui-Gon was convinced that Anakin Skywalker was the Chosen One the prophecies spoke of, so much so that he was willing to defy the Jedi Council’s wishes just to train him. Anakin was treated as the Chosen One for his entire time with the Jedi, and with his midichlorian count being what it was, not to mention the obvious talent he displayed, it was hard to argue with the idea that Anakin was what Qui-Gon claimed him to be.
Obviously, things went off the reservation when Anakin turned to the Dark Side, wiping out the Jedi and leading to his heart-wrenching confrontation with Obi-Wan on Mustafar. He did end up coming through many years later when he killed the Emperor, but it seemed like a pretty roundabout path for the Chosen One to take…unless he was never really the Chosen One to begin with.
After Obi-Wan defeated Maul in their final encounter, Maul asked Obi-Wan if the person he was protecting was the Chosen One, and Obi-Wan responded, “He is.” While that could just have been Obi-Wan’s unabashedly subjective point of view based on how Anakin turned out, it could have actually been the truth. Nobody else could have brought the good back out of Anakin and caused him to turn on his master, so it got the job done even if Luke didn’t personally kill the Sith. So Luke might have been the Chosen One…from a certain point of view.
#2: Ezra may be the “other” Yoda spoke of to Obi-Wan in Empire Strikes Back.
The possibility that Luke is the real Chosen One isn’t the only misconception people might have had about the Skywalker family. When Luke rushes off to save his friends on Cloud City instead of finishing his training, Obi-Wan said the boy was their last hope, but Yoda responded, “No…there is another.” Obi-Wan later told Luke that Yoda meant his twin sister Leia, but what if even Obi-Wan was wrong about that, and Yoda was actually referring to Ezra Bridger?
A lot of fans were surprised that Ezra didn’t die in the finale, but Dave Filoni himself said he did indeed survive his confrontation with Thrawn and is still out there somewhere. Ezra, who is only two days older than Luke and Leia, already had years of experience fighting the Dark Side by the time the original trilogy began. After confronting the Inquisitors on multiple occasions, facing Darth Vader twice, repeatedly matching wits with Maul, and even defying the Emperor himself, is it so farfetched to believe Ezra might be a better alternative than Leia?
It’s no secret that Leia never exactly showed the same flair for using the Force that her brother did. In fact, pulling herself back into the ship in Episode VIII is literally the only time we see her using it to do anything other than sense what’s happening to Han and Luke. The idea of her training to become a Jedi (or even having the patience and discipline for it) and facing down the Emperor and Vader seems farfetched, but what if Yoda not only knew of, but had actually helped guide another surviving young Jedi?
Yoda had spoken with Ezra twice, and had clearly told Obi-Wan about him since Obi-Wan knew who Ezra was when he showed up on Tatooine. Why else would Yoda show such interest in Ezra unless he saw something in him? For all we know, he may have continued to communicate with Ezra and guide him even after Ezra blasted off to wherever he wound up. If this is true, then it’s possible that…
#1: Neither Luke nor Rey may be the true Last Jedi.
After all the time fans sat around trying to figure out how Ezra was going to get killed, and whether Ahsoka was even still alive, we found out that both not only survived the end of Rebels, but were still alive following the events of Return of the Jedi. The last thing we saw was Ahsoka and Sabine Wren going in search of Ezra, who had not been seen since he and Thrawn blasted off from Lothal with the Purgills.
There’s obviously still a HUGE chunk of history between Return of the Jedi and the Force Awakens that needs to be filled in, but until we see anything definitively showing us otherwise, it’s entirely possible that Ahsoka and Ezra are still alive in the era of the First Order. If they are, they may have formed their own splinter Jedi faction, completely separate from Luke’s New Jedi Order.