'Star Wars Rebels' Characters Could Connect With Future 'Star Wars' Movies

Plenty of characters who originated in the live-action Star Wars movies have gone on to appear in animated series like The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels. However, we've yet to see an animated character making the jump to live-action. That changes this winter when The Clone Wars supporting character Saw Gerrera gets played by Forest Whitaker in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. And it sounds like this is something that could happen more often in the future.

Star Wars Rebels writer and executive producer Simon Kinberg recently spoke with Moviefone about the connectivity of the various Star Wars media out there, borrowing characters from the movies for animated shows, and the possibility of seeing that process go the opposite way in future Star Wars movies. Find out what Simon Kinberg had to say about Star Wars Rebels characters in Star Wars movies after the jump.

First of all, Kinberg noted to Moviefone how much he likes having every facet of the Star Wars universe interconnected:

I think part of the fun of the way they're building the universe is that it is interconnected between the different movies and even beyond the movies ... It's something that was true in comic books going back, the way that you'd have interconnections between characters and stories. Even sometimes from DC to Marvel. I like the way that those stories are told in the larger tapestry. And, also, getting to work with other artists and filmmakers and writers, and use their talents — I like not being by myself in a room when I work. I like having other collaborators. You're with some of the world's best.

The collaboration has allowed plenty of crossover from the movies into the animated series, and from one animated series to another. But Kinberg says they're trying to be careful with the balance of bringing in familiar characters while still letting the primary new characters evolve:

What's lovely is, obviously, we've brought in characters from 'Clone Wars' in the second season, and we keep sort of bringing characters from the original movies and sort of deepening the relationships between our core characters, the Ghost crew. So it's trying to balance the two different things, like the original cast from the first season with 'Clone Wars,' with characters from the original movies, and maybe even feeding into future movies.

It's the last part that is interesting, because it implies that there might finally be something from Star Wars Rebels that informs some of the upcoming feature films. However, my bet would be that much like the inclusion of Saw Gerrera in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, we won't see any of the major characters from Star Wars Rebels become live-action characters. More likely we might see some supporting characters popping up here and there.