We saw Sabine’s official reveal this morning, and although we’re still waiting for Hera’s, Hasbro confirmed with Newsarama’s Lucas Siegel that action figures of both Rebels ladies are coming, and will be unveiled at SDCC.
There’s been some blowback to the concerns over the lack of women showed in the first wave of Hasbro Rebels toys. But together with the ‘for boys’ nature of Disney XD and the apparent ‘ladies last’ spacing of the character reveals, it’s really felt like the female characters – and thus female fans – are there as an afterthought. (Is it really still not a given that women and girls like action?)
Yes, we know ‘this is how it is.’ Yes, we know that ‘it’s all here to sell toys.’ Yes, we know that’s ‘what advertisers want.’ And that’s exactly why we’re fighting so hard over this. This is our first major rollout since Disney took the wheel, and this is an uphill battle.
The Hollywood Reporter has our first official reveal of Sabine, the ‘pink Mando’ we first saw at Toy Fair. She’s voiced by Tiya Sircar – the first Rebels voice not to be named in THR’s early report. In addition to knowing quite a bit about weapons and explosives, Sabine is also a graffiti artist.
IGN got the scoop on Rebels’ Zeb. Voiced by Steve Blum, he’s “a tough, seasoned and very intelligent member of the Rebels crew.” His species is new, though based on some very old Chewbacca concept art.
Toy Fair.Jedi Temple Archives reports (a bit hyperbolically) that Lucasfilm has told Hasbro that the Expanded Universe is off limits, save for a few figures that were already in the pipeline.
I think this makes sense. We’ve never gotten all that much EU from Hasbro to begin with, and at this point any EU figure is going to be pounced on by fans as some sort of “proof” for Episode VII. They’re cutting back on prequel-era figures as well, to focus on the OT – with a heavy focus on Return of the Jedi as we approach the new films – and Rebels.
Rebels. Is Brent Spiner voicing a character? This tweet from Gallifrey One, a con held in Los Angeles this weekend, leads us to believe so… The actor, who played Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation, has worked with Rebels’ Greg Weisman before – they were on a Young Justice panel at the con. (He voiced The Joker on the show.) He was also one of several TNG actors who did voices on Weisman’s Gargoyles. And we’ve had Trek crossover before: George Takei voiced General Lok Durd on The Clone Wars.
Episode VII.Tom Hiddleston and Alex Pettyfer talk their Star Wars chances. (Both unlikely, if for very different reasons) while an Irish unknown, Daryl McCormack, talks about getting far on in the audition process.
Once again, we’re getting Rebels news via toys, but at least we’re seeing a few different varieties of toys. Toy Fair 2014 is going on in New York, and Newsarama has a good pic-heavy report on the Rebels stuff, while Yakface has the official pics.
First up, we see a likely candidate for the show’s second female character: A pink-armored (possibly red or orange?) Mandalorian. We’ve been assuming the first woman is green Twi’lek Hera, we’ve seen only in LEGO form thus far, but she doesn’t seem to be making any Hasbro appearances. (We know there are two women in the ensemble, though surely there will be more to come.) The alien Zeb, another unannounced LEGO reveal who seems to be based on early McQuarrie concepts for Chewbacca, also figures heavily.
(It does seems pretty weird that there’s a Zeb toy but not any of Hera and barely one of the Mando. Zeb isn’t officially announced, so that isn’t it… Hasbro, you have to make toys of women to sell toys of women, c’mon.)
Also revealed? Agent Kallus (of course,) an Imperial (of course.) And although not on display, a Rebels-branded Threepio and Artoo were shown at the Hasbro presentation, where it was announced they’ll figure into the show somehow.
There’s also plenty on the Inquisitor, Kanan, and Ezra, including some of their gear and spaceships.
TV Guide introduces us to one of the show’s main characters – Ezra, a teenage force-user. “To survive, instinctively every now and then when he’s in a jam he uses the Force,” exec producer Dave Filoni says. “He doesn’t call it that. He doesn’t know that’s what he’s doing. He thinks he’s got some abilities that are a little strange every now and then, but they help him out. It’s instinctive, it’s reactionary.”
The article also reveals that Disney XD will be premiering two new trailers for the show on Monday during Kickin’ It (6/5c) and Lab Rats (6:30/5:30c.) UPDATE: RebelForce Radio says the spots, “Spark” and “Ignite,” will be online Monday morning.
IGN has Eric Goldman’s interview with Greg Weisman today, where he talks about Rebels, visiting Lucasfilm, and working with Simon Kinberg and Dave Filoni.
He praises the yet-unnamed writing staff and “phenomenal cast,” praises Leland Chee and Pablo Hidalgo and even the dreaded c-word:
Describing the approach to Rebels and the widespread potential audience, Weisman said, “We’re all very dedicated, and we know this show is going to be canon, so we take that responsibility very seriously. We know that on the one hand there’s an audience who’s going to be watching this that knows everything there is to know about Lucasfilm canon and knows beyond that tons of stuff from the Expanded Universe, which may or may not turn out to be canon once Lucasfilm decides what is official and what’s not. So we want the show to work for that group, the most extreme fanboys out there.”
On the show itself, the Rebel Alliance “doesn’t exist when we come in,” he says, continuing:
This is about how the Rebel Alliance came to be. So once the Rebel Alliance is, that’s pretty much where the show ends. I don’t know how many seasons that is. It’s not like we’ve nailed that down like, ‘Oh, we’re going to exactly X amount of seasons.’ But if all goes well, that’s the goal: we go from the origins of the Rebel Alliance to the point where the Rebel Alliance is, which would lead in essence directly into A New Hope. That’s the goal, to fill in that gap between those four or five years.”
As for the cast, they’re taking a different approach from how far-flung The Clone Wars came to be. Weisman says they have one “focus” character and five others to make a core cast of six. (Presumably this includes Kanan and Chopper, but let’s hope two of them are the women he talked about in an earlier interview.) Though it will focus on those six, the cast will expand, and “the show gets bigger and bigger in scope.”
We can also expect “some incredible guest stars,” both familaiar and unfamiliar names.
So much for there not being a Jedi in Rebels: USA Today (warning: video autoplay) introduces us to our third official Rebels character, Kanan. Voiced by Freddie Prinze Jr., Dave Filoni describes the character as a “cowboy Jedi.”
Prinze’s name first came up for Rebels in the Hollywood Reporter last September, along with the oft-rumored David Oyelowo, newcomer Taylor Gray and voice acting vets Vanessa Marshall and Steven Jay Blum. Could one of them be voicing our next character reveal?
