Now when I first read about the show, my very first thought was you introduce Kanan as a Jedi. And if he in some way is part of an early Rebel Alliance, was there ever consideration that if Jedi helped create the Rebel Alliance, it makes Luke’s discovery as a Jedi less impactful?

I don’t think so. I mean, the interesting thing about it is when you look at Luke, he’s accepted pretty quickly into the Rebellion. Nobody seems to make that big a deal in the movies about the fact that he’s got these strange abilities. You almost wonder, how many other people in the Rebel Alliance even thought about him him as a Jedi? I don’t think there’s a lot of evidence that people did. Maybe you think it is that, but certainly not in the films. I mean, he wears a lightsaber on his belt almost as if he’s someone who found it. I think that’s frankly Luke’s strength is that remember, he doesn’t even say he’s a Jedi until he’s standing before the Emperor and throws his lightsaber away. So I think one of the things we’ve talked about is how there are artifacts and things out there like lightsabers, remnants of this old religion and probably a lot of people assume Luke just found it. In a lot of ways that’s true.

Yeah.

He did find it. From Obi Wan. Obi Wan said “This is your Father’s.” But Luke, I don’t certainly think, goes around telling people that. So all the Jedi or all the Force wielders are kind of hidden now. You know, Kanan breaks his lightsaber a part and wears it out sometimes, but you think it’s more like a Droid caller or something like that. You don’t think it’s a lightsaber. Because as soon Obi Wan turns his lightsaber on in the Cantina, there are people reporting it like “Yeah, there’s a bounty on these guys.” So I think it’s just all about how we reveal Kanan. It’s very different from Luke.

I mean, on a basic level at this point he’s so much better trained than Luke could ever be. It’s just an interesting take on what are all these other people that have the Force doing? And how do we not have that interfere with the blinding light, the New Hope that Luke Skywalker becomes? Luke’s mission in the Force is very specific. Learn to be selfless. Selfless enough to save your Father. To realize that you can forgive and redeem. And that’s a bit different than where we’re going with Ezra and Kanan for sure.

Okay cool. Now in Star Wars lore, Obi Wan says Darth Vader hunted down the Jedi. But you guys have introduced another villain, The Inquisitor. Why introduce a whole new character to do the same thing? Especially when we already have a Sith Lord apprentice thing with Vader and the Emperor. Now you add a third character into the mix. Talk about why and how it’s gonna work.

I think for me the main idea is that, again, when Obi Wan’s saying these things to Luke, he’s trying to get them explained. And he knows it’s gonna come from Vader. And it’s very specific to Luke. And that’s his destiny. The Inquisitor, is he even around at that point? Who knows?

Sure.

But it was reasonable to believe that, looking at a galaxy, there were 10,000 Jedi in The Clone Wars. That number’s been diminished. How do you find them? Where do you find them? I’m sure Vader is involved in hunting down Jedi all the time. I’m sure that right after the Clone War, when the remnants are very visible and the Jedi are all trying to figure out what happened, that he was luring them into traps and wiping them out several at a time.

At the point we are, so many years later, they are so few and far between that I don’t think he would follow up every lead. Because one of the things that’s muddled the whole operation, in my mind, is kids being born that can use the Force. The Emperor and Vader don’t really want them around either. But they’re so unnotable, you needed a group of hunters, attack dogs. And so we have an Inquisitor that goes out and hunts these guys down. Now if he was to hunt a guy down, let’s say he’s somewhere on Tatooine and he runs into Obi Wan Kenobi, probably the Inquisitor won’t survive that. But if he did, he would call Vader up and go “You better get out here.”

He’s a Jedi Master. This isn’t nobody.

This is a Master. This is somebody significant, right. So I have to believe that, as it went along, Vader got entrusted with more and more important missions, hunting down those stolen data plans. Stuff like that. And the Inquisitor is left to be this kind of hunting dog. He finds you, he analyzes you, even by fighting against them, saber to saber, he’s learning about you. Who taught you, where you came from, how old you are. Sometimes what your name is. Because they have all the records and he’s meticulously studied them. So, you know, he can break down pretty quickly who Kanan is just by fighting him in a lightsaber fight.

Full interview here.