StarWars.Com has posted the second part of their exclusive interview with Dave Filoni today, where he talks about some great stuff regarding the first season of “Star Wars Rebels” including the Force, Hera as the leader of the group, the Jedi temple on Lothal, and answers a question a lot of fans wonder about regarding Kanan, Ezra, and the line Yoda tells Luke in “Return of the Jedi,” “When gone am I, the last of the Jedi will you be.” You can check out a portion of the interview below:
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StarWars.com: I’d like to run through various beats from this season, and have you give some insights on how they came to be. To start, what can you tell us about Fort Anaxes and Ezra’s conjuring of the giant, mama fyrnock?

Dave Filoni: The fort came about because we had the asset left over from Clone Wars, and we never finished shooting it. It was like having a big backlot set built that was never used. So we just kind of trashed it and used it to shoot Rebels.

We always knew there was going to be a manifestation of this connection to these creatures, and that Ezra was going to summon a bigger creature, a mama version. But I really wanted to push the tension into this almost Akira-like moment, where he seems not himself, and is in a possessed state. It’s an important moment which demonstrates his connection to the Living Force. Ezra is open to the idea that life is connected in a way that he doesn’t understand yet.

You have to be careful with that connection. What he’s doing in that moment is active. He is guiding and directing the Force which in this case comes out of his fear and anger at the Inquisitor. The result is he brings up something that he doesn’t have control over. That’s why Kanan has the discussion with Ezra afterward and he brings up the dark side. You see where Kanan has maybe made a misstep. Ezra is advancing faster than Kanan would have thought possible because Kanan doesn’t have past experience teaching to compare it to having never become a Jedi Knight himself.

StarWars.com: Hera seems to be the one member of the Ghost crew that has it together. She keeps things straight and is ready to lead. Was that always the plan for her?

Dave Filoni: Hera was always the leader of the group. The idea being that, people would assume Kanan was the leader, and in Hera’s world it was easier to just let people assume Kanan was in charge. It was another layer of secrecy to just let her be in charge and let Kanan be the field general, while she’s the brains. She has flaws, and there are definitely things that bother her. Her character isn’t so straightforward, as we find out in Season Two. But she’s the best at putting these things aside, because she understands the greater good is to service the cause of the rebel movement. She probably is the strongest with the strongest will.

Without her, Kanan never would have started back on the path to his enlightenment. It’s probably the thing that Kanan admires about Hera the most: she has hope. She has none of the skills he has and none of the power. Kanan has every reason to be the leader and to have hope, and yet he lost it. And Hera with grit, integrity and tenacity, has maintained her sense of hope and belief that they can win despite everything against her. That’s what he likes most about her character and what she brings to their group.

StarWars.com: I have a bit of a continuity challenge for you. In Return of the Jedi, Yoda tells Luke, “When gone am I, the last of the Jedi will you be.” But now he knows that Kanan and Ezra are out there. We obviously don’t know at this point what will happen to them, but is that something you’re aware of?

Dave Filoni: I don’t see it as a challenge at all. It’s what the Sith call an absolute. When Obi-Wan says to Luke, “Your father was the greatest starfighter pilot in the galaxy,” is that true? Or is that something you tell a kid because you want him to believe his father was great? It doesn’t have to be empirical or absolutely true. Saying Luke is “the last,” is that a singular thing, or is he the last of a group? I don’t know.

It definitely is something that comes up, and we discuss that moment all the time for what it could mean. It is possible to interpret it as, Luke is the last person that’s following the path as laid out by the Jedi Order, which we knew. The way of the Jedi is not the only way to use the light side of the Force. Luke is taught by Obi-Wan and Yoda, who very much followed the dogma of the day. So, he is the last of that line for sure. That’s absolutely true. But you don’t have to be a Jedi to use the Force. You don’t have to be a Sith to use the dark side.

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Be sure to check out the full interview with Dave Filoni over at StarWars.com