In last night's epic finale to
Star Wars Rebels we saw Ezra Bridger sacrifice himself to save his friends, just like his master Kanan, and take Grand Admiral Thrawn down with him. The two were catapulted into hyperspace aboard an Imperial Star Destroyer. The actual ending showed Sabine and Ahsoka, post-
Return of the Jedi, just before they set forth on an adventure to find their missing friend.
As far as the show itself was concerned, Ezra and Thrawn's fates were totally ambiguous; that is until Dave Filoni chimed in on a recent episode of the
Star Wars Show. Filoni, the show's executive producer and writer, explained why he opted to end Rebels as he did:
I felt a lot about that… It’s one of those things that you go “oh boy I love the idea of an end credits scenes” but as tempting as that is but I go “well if I cover that, then I want to do it right” and I don’t want to commit to things right now because things might change. So I have a lot of theories about it and what I think happens and where they are. I’ll say this much, they’re not dead. Both of them survive, both Ezra and Thrawn I would say survive it.
There you go. Confirmation that both Thrawn and Ezra survived the Rebels finale.
In a seperate interview with Entertainment Weekly Filoni elaborated further his thoughts on the finale. Stating how he believes the finale planted many seeds from which a new story can grow:
I’ve always felt the best stories end and then other stories begin, and there’s no better way to take two of my favorite characters and have them ride off into the sunset, like I’ve seen so many cowboys over the years, or Indiana Jones. One thing ends and another begins, and the story continues. That’s a saga.
So perhaps the next animated Star Wars show will focus on this mystery, maybe even a live-action film. Would you like to see a post-Return of the Jedi animated show or movie? Would you like it to centre around the plot-threads set up by the finale? And would you like Sabine and Ahsoka to appear in it?