Why Saw Gerrera was such a pariah in the eyes of the legitimate Rebel Alliance in Rogue One will be revealed on Star Wars Rebels. And this really makes the tone of Rebels feel like it’s not for kids anymore.
On Wednesday, Lucasfilm released a new clip for the next two episodes of Rebels — “In the Name of the Rebellion: Parts One and Two” — and in it, things get pretty tense between Mon Mothma and Saw Gerrera.
What’s interesting about this is that despite Saw acting like a crazy person and cackling like mad, even a casual viewer might find themselves siding with him more than Mon Mothma. Bizarrely, Mon Mothma says she still believes there might be a “peaceful solution” that could be found within the Imperial Senate. In a way, this makes some semblance of sense, but then again, it also feels like this exists because of pre-existing canon. The exact moment when the Rebellion is born is somewhat confusing. On the one hand, the seeds of the Rebellion are sown in the deleted scenes of Revenge of the Sith in which Mon Mothma, Bail Organa, Padme Amidala and others meet to discuss how awful Palpatine has become.
On the other hand, the Rebellion doesn’t really come out into the open until just after Rogue One, when a huge part of the Rebel fleet shows up on Scarif to run interference for Jyn Erso and her renegade squadron. In other words, the Rebellion didn’t become codified until members inside of of it, decided to rebel.
On the one hand, a lot of this political stuff is confusing and perhaps a little silly. If the Rebel Alliance had all these nifty spaceships and help from politicians, why did good politicians need to keep up appearances for as long as they did? In other words, Leia acting like she’s a diplomat at the beginning of A New Hope is just about as thin of a cover as it seems. In Rogue One, the stagnation of the Rebellion wasn’t something that only Saw criticized, most of the other political leaders also opted to not officially sanction any military action to fight the Empire. In this way, one could argue that the Rebellion wouldn’t have found its footing if the Empire hadn’t created the Death Star.
Because this current season of Rebels will also be its last, the show will presumably connect any canonical loose ends between the series and the existing films. Which means the reappearance of Saw is probably just the first of many references this season to both Rogue One and A New Hope.
Star Wars: Rebels will air the special one-hour, two-part episode “In the Name of the Rebellion” five times throughout the day on October 23 on Disney XD. The episode will be available for digital download on iTunes the following day.
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