Where will the story end?  What happens to the crew of The Ghost?  As Star Wars Rebels inches closer to A New Hope certain questions keep tugging away at fans about the direction of the show.  And with the season 2 finale of Star Wars Rebels leaving us with even more questions than ever before, there is really only one source to seek answers.  Before seeing the season finale of Star Wars Rebels at a special premiere showing of the season 2 finale, my daughter and I had the chance to talk to Dave Filoni about all things Rebels.

Disney XD and Disney Channel are well known for limiting how long their series’ run. Is there any such concern about Star Wars Rebels or is more open-ended? 

It’s not really a concern because we’re all pretty aware of the story that we’re telling.  On Clone Wars we used to be a bit more open-ended and we thought we would just go and go and go “until.” And I think the lesson there was we went “until” and then it stopped and we didn’t really get to finish a lot of the stories that we wanted to finish.  I definitely thought of Rebels as one complete story and I think we’ll be able to tell that story in a successful way.

I think the biggest question fans of the show have is what happens to these characters? They are so prominent in the formation of the Rebellion but are completely missing in the movies. Has that been something you’ve already figured out? Is there a definitive end in mind for these character arcs they’re going on?

There definitely is.  It’s something we’ve kind of pecked at since the opening season.  But as you discover more about the characters they evolve along the way and we really start to nail down where they go and where they are because we get ever closer on the timeline to A New Hope. We interpret things a lot of ways as far as where the characters need to be and it is a challenge but we’ve just known that as we set out to tell the story of Ezra Bridger it had to have a purpose and a meaning that was special, unique, that was different than Luke Skywalker.  All those things kind of have been in the balance since the very beginning and I like how it’s developed and as you’ll see tonight it’s going to develop in a big way.

Will we ever see Luke Skywalker?

That would be a tough one because you want as few people as possible to know about Luke.  He’s kind of out of bounds. We try not to do things that affect the original trilogy.  It can’t be a sightseeing tour.  We brought Vader in with Ahsoka but it’s gotta be told through Ezra’s perspective and if they’re in that story with Ezra then there has to be something about that conflict between them that Ezra’s witnessing that’s important for him.  It’s hard to imagine a way Luke would really help the story of Ezra or vice versa because that story was told so completely.

If this show eventually ends, do you have other Star Wars projects in mind you’d like to do? Could we see other series set to fill in the gaps between other movies or even the early formation of the Jedi Order?

Constantly!  Constantly!  It’s really just a question of time and how are we going to execute it, but there’s a couple things I already know I’d like to do.  You just look at your calendar and the years fly by. I spent the first eight years at Lucasfilm on Clone Wars.  It’s been a real exciting thing to develop this show.  I think there’s really no limit to what Lucasfilm animation can do storywise.  I think we’re capable of not just CG animation but a whole host of different techniques and styles.  We’re very open to that at work and we discuss it. I think what we really needed from the new Disney alignment was to have a success and get a show going and have everybody there see what a Star Wars show can do for Walt Disney.  [Disney] XD has been a great partner in that way and it’s been an exciting thing to tell the stories we’ve told and have them there on their network so we’ll see what the future holds.

The future for Ezra and the crew seems to be growing darker, but the hope for the show and the future of the Star Wars franchise is safe with visionaries like Dave Filoni.

• Read the first part of the Disney Nerds exclusive interview with Dave Filoni