Harmy said:
A) They say that the Rebels may be introducing characters, whom we will meet in the new film episodes and it will be a whole intertwined universe - I don't like this idea much, because I'm beginning to have quite high hopes for the new movies but so far, I like Rebels less and less with every clip I see from it - it reminds me of those Saturday morning cartoons, which I used to like as a little kid (who also loved the Phantom Menace) but when I see them today, they are super cheesy and lame. I wasn't a huge fan of TCW but I never got that feeling of a cheap 80s or 90s cartoon from it.
They don't say that. The interviewer asked if we'd be seeing characters from the show pop-up later in the live action films. To which they just said that they want each of the different mediums to push the Star Wars story forward.
B) They make a big deal about not wanting to shrink the universe, yet, just in the few clips released so far, we've already seen cameos of Obi-Wan, 3P0 and R2.
Obi-wan appears as a hologram recording and running into 3PO and Artoo in a starport is pretty tame. The focus isn't placed on these cameo characters, it stays centered on the show's main cast. If they start running into everyone from the OT then it becomes a problem.
C) "I love origins stories of characters that you think you know everything about and then you learn the real story..." Does he mean like Obi-Wan, Darth Vader or Boba Fett? Urgh...
He was referencing exploring the origins of the Rebel Alliance. You're just reading far too much into it.
D) It seems to indicate them being seriously misguided, if they think that the show has the look of McQuarrie paintings
This I kind of agree with you on. I don't think they've done a particularly great job of capturing the look of McQuarrie's art but I do think the influence of it is there. Especially in the designs of the environments and ships.
As to the custom brushes they mentioned. I think it was in the Look Ahead video where you get a really close up look at one of the characters and their face has a distinct airbrushed look to it. We'll need to see more of the show to really see the extent of that.
As for the designs of the characters themselves I think it's just a more naturalistic take on the Clone Wars style. Removing the hard edges.
E) Apparently the favorite SW movie of the current generation of Lucasfilm employees is TPM, because "that's the one they had as kids..." Really? Really? :-(
That sadly is just the reality we live in. As has been said before we lost a generation to the prequels. Thankfully those kids are mostly still interns and not the ones making creative decisions.
F) The lightsabers - this could technically fall under D but I think it's worth mentioning separately - they say lightsabers are designed to look like in the original SW. Well, from what I've seen, they really don't.
I think this comes down to their trying to recreate the look of the sabers only using footage from the SE. They are hand animating the blades and trying to recreate the technique used on the films but the source they're comparing it to is of course compromised.