It was one of the most heartbreaking moments in an emotional final few episodes of Star Wars Rebels, the death of Caleb Dume AKA Kanan Jarrus. Speaking to Cinemablend, Dave Filoni explains why he felt that moment had to happen, and not in the final episode as many would have expected.
Well, it was something we knew was going to happen from very early on. It’s something that Freddie was adamant, he felt needed to happen. And he was right. But you have to do it in a way that’s not like, ‘Well, of course that was going to happen because he’s the mentor character.’
George had taught me a long time ago, when you kill off a character, especially a main character, that it has to be meaningful. The kids watching especially have to understand why we’re doing it, why was that necessary, how does it feed the story. So something that we spoke about very early on in the story was that I wanted to do this episode but I wanted to have several episodes after that deal with that event, that they could not just go back to being on an adventure the next episode, that the characters had to really feel the loss, because I felt the audience would feel the loss.
And I wanted them to understand why Kanan does what he does and that it’s a selfless choice, that it’s out of love and compassion for his friends.
