Dave Filoni recently had the chance to talk with Empire Online about “Star Wars Rebels” in a new interview, where he was asked some pretty specific questions about the series. Such as will any story threads from “The Clone Wars” be tied up, and a question almost every fan wants to know, will Darth Vader and Palpatine be in Rebels. Here’s Dave’s answers to those questions:
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You obviously worked on The Clone Wars as well, so are there going to be tie-ins to that? Are you going to maybe answer questions that were left hanging?

Well, it’s important that Rebels be its own thing. I’m in an interesting position as someone that created Star Wars: The Clone Wars and now this show, and yet Simon Kinberg and Greg Wiesman who are on this show weren’t with me on that show. So I always feel like it’s a little bit selfish of me to go, ‘Oh lets do this because it relates to my other show,’ you know? I try to be fair because it’s their first Star Wars experience and I want it to be a good one, and luckily we collaborate really well as a group, the three of us, and we’re having a great time.

But I will say that we created a monster in Clone Wars and there is a generation of kids now that love those characters, it’s their Star Wars, so you can imagine that when we’re in the story room I am pitching connections here and there. And to be honest Simon and Greg have watched Clone Wars and they are excited by it. Simon’s kids watched Clone Wars so they even pitched me a few ideas on what could happen! At a certain point you don’t even feel like you make this stuff once you release it to the world and people watch it. Star Wars is such a universal thing. It’s possible, I’ll just say that. I think people would be disappointed if there wasn’t some connection, but at the same time I want the Star Wars Rebels characters to shine in their own right, and I want them to capture a new generation of fans as each, you know, moment in Star Wars storytelling does. They need their own space as well.

Will Darth Vader and Palpatine appear at all?
I can’t say specifically. All I can say is that this time period, between episodes III and IV, is a dominant time period for the Emperor – and Darth Vader, for that matter. They control the galaxy through fear and our Rebels are insignificant to them. But it is to their own undoing that they don’t recognize the spirit of individuals and what that spirit could add up to in the fight against the Empire.

So there’s a presence of power, of physical fear and power, which the Empire represents. You know I always think about the Emperor because in A New Hope they talked about the Emperor but you never saw him. And then in Empire you got a glimpse of him in a hologram but you didn’t really know who he was, so finally when he reveals himself I almost thought as a kid, ‘Wow, he’s just an old guy with a cane!’ I remember that when he confronts Luke Skywalker he doesn’t actually use his cane anymore and walks across, and you realize that he’s very manipulative and very evil and he’s the master string puller, web weaver.

That’s the Emperor that I want to have, and Simon and Greg do also, in Rebels. We want to have an Emperor that’s behind the scenes and so lofty in his power that it would take a lot to bring that spider out and down into the web that he’s woven. Our Rebels are little flies and they hit the web string and it plucks it, so first you get a certain level of Imperial officer after you. Then if you cause a bigger vibration then you get a bigger level; maybe an Inquisitor shows up. You’ve got to really start to undo the web before you get to Vader and ultimately the Emperor, and, you know, good luck to our guys if they draw that kind of attention.

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So while Dave didn’t confirm that story threads from “The Clone Wars” will be covered and that Darth Vader and Palpatine will be in the show, he didn’t deny it either, and still makes believe that those things will show up in the series eventually.

Be sure to check out the full interview with Dave Filoni over at Empire Online.