This 'Star Wars' character is on screen for the first time and fans can't cope
LONDON -- Ask any reader of Star Wars novels which book character they'd like to see on screen, and invariably you'll get one answer: Imperial Grand Admiral Thrawn.
Thrawn, a blue-skinned strategic genius who learns how to make war on alien races by studying their artworks, is the focus of Heir to the Empire -- the bestselling 1991 novel by Timothy Zahn that restarted the franchise post-Return of the Jedi.
Thrawn was erased from official canon, and shunted over into the universe-next-door of Star Wars novels and comics now branded as "Legends," back in 2014.
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Now, after years of false rumors -- that he was going to be in The Force Awakens, that he was going to be played by Benedict Cumberbatch -- Thrawn is finally showing up on screen. He'll be in season 3 of Star Wars Rebels, producer Dave Filoni announced at Star Wars Celebration in London.
"Heir to the Empire blew our minds," Filoni told a capacity audience of 4,000. "We tried to strategize when it would be best to bring [Grand Admiral Thrawn] into Rebels." He also revealed that Zahn is writing a new Star Wars novel, his first since the 2014 reset, simply called Thrawn.
The crowd was then shown the first episode of Rebels Season 3, which features Thrawn's first on-screen appearance. We can't say much about it, except that the admiral is as wily a character as you'd expect.
Thrawn is voiced by Danish actor Lars Mikkelsen, famous for his appearance as the Russian premier in House of Cards -- and brother of Mads Mikkelsen, who stars as the father of Jyn Erso in the upcoming Star Wars movie Rogue One.
Meanwhile, fans on Twitter -- who were watching the livestream, but weren't privvy to the episode screening -- promptly began losing their minds.
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In addition to Thrawn, the new season features another fan favorite character, Wedge, a pilot seen in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
And Tom Baker, best known as the fourth incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who, plays a new force-sensitive giant called Bendu.
Rebels season 3 premieres this fall in the U.S. on Disney XD. No premiere date has been announced.
Topics Star Wars
Chris is a veteran tech, entertainment and culture journalist, author of 'How Star Wars Conquered the Universe,' and co-host of the Doctor Who podcast 'Pull to Open.' Hailing from the U.K., Chris got his start as a sub editor on national newspapers. He moved to the U.S. in 1996, and became senior news writer for Time.com a year later. In 2000, he was named San Francisco bureau chief for Time magazine. He has served as senior editor for Business 2.0, and West Coast editor for Fortune Small Business and Fast Company. Chris is a graduate of Merton College, Oxford and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He is also a long-time volunteer at 826 Valencia, the nationwide after-school program co-founded by author Dave Eggers. His book on the history of Star Wars is an international bestseller and has been translated into 11 languages.
