How 'Star Wars: Rebels' Almost Introduced Us To Starkiller, The Hero Of 'The Force Unleashed'

Star Wars: Rebels has always delighted long-term Star Wars fans. Under the leadership of showrunner Dave Filoni, the show has liberally lifted many beloved characters from the old Expanded Universe. The best example is surely that of Grand Admiral Thrawn, the Chiss villain created by Timothy Zahn back in 1991 who played a major role in Season 3.

We've recently learned that Rebels almost introduced another major character from #StarWars lore too. Sam Witwer, who voiced the character of Starkiller in 2008's The Force Unleashed video game, recently revealed that this powerful Force-user almost became canon once again!

Speaking on his Twitch account, Witwer revealed that Dave Filoni toyed with the idea of turning Galen Marek — a.k.a. Starkiller — into one of Darth Vader's Inquisitors. As fans of Rebels will know, the Inquisitors are Darth Vader's Force-sensitive agents, supporting him in their hunt for Jedi. They're fearsome enemies, who almost defeated Ezra and Kanan time and again.

In The Force Unleashed, Galen Marek was a Force-sensitive child who was discovered by Vader. The Sith Lord sensed Marek's potential, and brought the child up as his apprentice, hoping to one day unseat the Emperor. It's the way of the Sith; the Master trains an Apprentice, and the Apprentice covets the Master's power and position, seeking to surpass him. Blending his character with the new canon Inquisitors would be a very clever, subtle way of restoring an intriguing element of the old canon.

But why didn't Filoni go with this approach? It's probably because fans would have become too excited about Starkiller. He'd be viewed as a potential apprentice, and fans would have speculated that Rebels might show Vader attempt to unseat the Emperor. Besides which, the Starkiller of The Force Unleashed possessed a pretty hefty power-set, and there's no way Kanan and Ezra could have handled him.

We Will Still Learn The Origin Of The Inquisitors

The good news for Star Wars fans, though, is that the wider Star Wars universe is still set to explore the Inquisitors. They may not be playing a role in Rebels any more, but over in the comics, writer Charles Soule is currently penning a second Darth Vader series that is due to explain their backstory.

Soule has stepped back into the history of Darth Vader, and is currently telling the story of how Vader acquired his new Sith lightsaber. In interviews, he's promised that a future arc will show how Vader meets the Inquisitors, and why he chooses to train some of them as his agents. It's possible that Soule will lift ideas from The Force Unleashed; that the Emperor will be (at least officially) unaware of the Inquisitors, and that Vader will be testing them to see which Inquisitor is worthy of becoming his apprentice. That's the kind of subtle character beat that Charles Soule excels at, so it will be interesting to see how the Inquisitors are handled here.

So there you have it, Star Wars fans; Starkiller almost made his way into Star Wars: Rebels. I can understand why he didn't though — The character is so powerful, and has such a rich history behind him, that he'd risk dominating the entire arc. Although an appearance would have been tremendously cool, I think Filoni ultimately made the right call.