What's up rebels fans? Andi Gutierrez at Lucasfilm headquarters.
This week we were treated with not one but two brand new episodes of Rebels
and because I love you and my job
I'm gonna take you behind the scenes of both episodes at once.
Rebels Recon starts right now!
After getting word about a new TIE Defender being tested on Lothal
Ezra volunteers to head to his homeworld despite its complete Imperial occupation.
They've burned it
They've burned it all away.
With help from an old friend the Rebels plan an attack
on the TIE Defender factory by stealing the ships flight data recorder.
Okay, I found it just give me a few minutes to remove it from the panel.
However when Thron shows up, Ezra and Sabine end up stealing the entire ship.
Only to have the Empire crash it. Stranding them all by themselves
Or so they think.
I don't understand. Why did you help us?
Dume
This week we finally saw out heroes finally returned to Lothal.
I sat down with cast and crew to talk about how the planet has changed since we last saw it,
how dangerous and powerful the new TIE Defender is,
and what it was like bringing the Loth-wolves to life. Enjoy!
In this episode our heroes finally return to Lothal for good.
What do you think this means to Ezra?
I think it means a lot to him because he's on home territory.
This is something that he's been talking about since the beginning,
is helping the people of Lothal.
This season gets so interesting with what Lothal, the planet, is actually capable of.
How the Force kind of lives through Lothal
and the presence of it.
It gets even bigger and it's cool because we're constantly bouncing around
and now to be one place for an extended period of time.
It's gonna be pretty fun.
We're back on Lothal in The Occupation
but the planet's very different from how we left it.
How has the Imperial occupation changed since season one?
Now Lothal is under Martial law.
Most importantly because it is really sort of a wartime factory.
Every resource, every bit of personnel, all of the civilian population is being
constricted to work in Thrawn's factories to build the TIE Defender.
A lot of the population, I think,
now thought, "Well, the Empire is giving us safety and security...
...through militarized police force and building these weapons."
Now they've seen the other side of that.
Which is that none of that has any interests in actually benefiting them
or protecting them because they live a life of fear.
And you're never free when you live a life in fear.
For Ezra, it's difficult because this is his home
but it's also helping him to focus on what's most important.
Which are these people that live here and what can he do for them?
It was really fun watching the reactions to the trailer
Where people assumed that the planet that they were seeing wasn't Lothal because it looked so different.
That is the matte painting that we have always used to Lothal.
It's just been updated to have way more cloud cover and sort of fires and everything.
It was meant to be completely just ravaged and devastated and burnt.
Our heroes finally returned to Lothal for good.
What does this mean to Hera?
To come back home and defend that land.
I think is important to Ezra
and it's grown to be important to Kanan as well
and I think Hera respects that.
And it sort of feels like there's so much that's incomplete in this world for them.
That feels like a kind of completion.
It's satisfying for her and I think she really hopes she can save it.
Lothal represents some pretty important things for Zeb, I think.
His time on Lothal and meeting Ezra and the crew
gave him a sense of normalcy and sort of
gave him that sense of family that he had abandoned.
I don't think he ever thought he'd feel that again.
And so I think he feels a connection to Lothal in a pretty profound way.
We see the upgraded and even more dangerous TIE Defender in Flight of the Defender.
Yes!
What makes the TIE Defender Elite the ultimate star fighter?
The speed at which it can move.
You get to see the TIE Defender moving like super fast.
And everyone realizing like, "oh my god, this thing could really turn the tide."
It's a combination of speed and shields.
So you can't just hit it once and blow its wing off.
It can take several hits.
It's the even more advanced version.
Which would really wreak havoc for the Rebellion
because they're banking on the fact that they have a fewer number of ships but they last longer.
If the Empire had invested more in the Defender than they did in the Death Star program do you
Do you think that the Original Trilogy would have gone differently?
I do!
I think it really would have turned the course of everything because they would have had a
ship that could actually go in hyperspace,
still be as good a fighter as what it was,
and I think they personally would have torn the Alliance apart.
It's a testament to Thrawn's intelligence.
Thrawn is really about winning the war.
He doesn't want to necessarily destroy his enemy as if you can get them to surrender.
The Death Star is a tempting thing to destroy worlds.
The fear that can inspire to the Emperor and Tarkin and Krennic
is a much more persuasive argument than building what they see his fighters.
It took quite a lucky shot to take down the Death Star in the beginning.
No one was really counting on there being a Luke Skywalker.
So you never know how Thrawn would have dealt with using the Death Star.
It's hard to say that the fact of the matter is that a weapon in Thrawn's hands is dangerous.
It almost doesn't matter what it is.
What went into creating the design of the Loth-wolves?
First of all, Dave loves wolves.
We that are all very well aware of how much love Dave has for wolves.
So when we found out that wolves were gonna be on the show it was a huge deal everywhere.
Because it was like, "oh my god, we got to make this wolf and it's got to be great."
Wolves and animals are traditionally very challenging to do in animation correctly.
So in production all of us were very nervous when Filoni brought this up.
We had to make sure that the wolves looked realistic but still stylized in our Rebel style.
They're pretty specific.
Even a Loth-cat doesn't necessarily look exactly like a cat.
Throughout the movies a wampa isn't exactly a polar bear or a gorilla
but you can sort of see what the analogy might be.
It's sort of always been that way with Star Wars creatures.
Wolves we're a little bit more specific than you would typically see.
It's this thing that has been dropped right into our show
that I think single-handedly added a new pivot point for the direction of the characters
as well as the look and complexity of the show as well.
Because we had to figure out, "well how do you interact with the fur on the wolf."
Hair is really complex because it depends on the animation.
Because of our timeline, it's very difficult.
We had four hundred and sixteen different controls
for the fur on the wolf to be able to move each individual little tuft and everything.
That was sort of the beginning of it. Now we did walk cycles and run cycles.
What we finally came up with, I think, really works well.
I'm actually really happy with how we finally came up with something.
Their long play, as far as what they are,
they were a very difficult thing to do because I think that things
like these wolves can be challenging for some viewers.
The wolves are definitely tied into something mystical.
So there's a lot there I hope to unpack and discover.
By some people wolves are seen as a terrible thing and something to be feared.
By others a positive thing and something that brings balance to the environment.
They are almost a nature of the Force to me of a good and an evil and a balance within them.
[R3-A3 beeps]
Hey R3! How's it going buddy? Welcome!
[Chopper beeps and groans]
Come on, what are you having?
[Chopper beeps]
[R3-A3 noises]
You?!
Not you again!
Out!
The Lucasfilm story group's Pablo Hidalgo loves a fine cup of coffee,
just about as much as he loves Star Wars.
So what happens when I interrupt his favorite moment of the day to talk about his favorite thing in the world?
Let's find out!
Hey, Pablo! I hope I'm not interrupting craft time?
Yeah, I could take a break.
Okay, cool. We've got a lot of questions about Death Troopers this week.
Oh, okay.
So first off Amanda Bakken says...
Well, the main reason is because they have information that they need to convey
that we wanted the audience to understand and that's the easiest way to do that.
But we tend to think that Death Troopers, though they may talk to each other in that garbled sound,
when they need to talk to people who aren't Death Troopers
they could speak basic just like you and me.
Okay, cool. Next question comes from Adam Kruszynski, he asks...
Given that Sabine threw those grenades and her talent in creating weaponry,
I think they're probably more than just simple smoke grenades.
They probably had something in them that she's cooked up
that helps fuddle their sensors.
Alright, thanks Pablo.
Mhmmm...
Have questions about The Occupation or Flight of the Defender?
Tweet them to @StarWars using the hashtag #RebelsRecon
and we will answer what we can online.
And now because we love doubling up on episodes this season,
here's your first look at next week's double feature;
Kindred and Crawler Commanders. Enjoy!
As you must know, I am Governor Pryce.
I assume you are Thrawn's assassin, Rukh?
I smell it.
You smell what?
I smell Lasat.
And he's not alone.
Thanks for watching Rebels Recon!
We'll be back next week with a brand new episode
but if you need more Rebels info right now.
Check out the episode guides for The Occupation and Flight of the Defender on StarWars.com
Thanks again and may the Force be with you!