Star Wars Rebels - Who is Grand Admiral Thrawn?

Earlier today at the Star Wars Celebration Event in London, a trailer for the upcoming third season of Star Wars Rebels was debuted, which you can see here. It’s got a lot of people talking; at time of writing, both “Star Wars Rebels” and “Grand Admiral Thrawn” are trending on Twitter. Not everyone, however, knows who he is - so here’s an attempt at an explanation.

After Return of the Jedi came out in 1983, the Star Wars story had been added to, but not exactly continued, by a series of comic books, table top games, and other related ephemera. While still well loved, the franchise had faded from the public eye - that all changed with the publication of Heir to the Empire in 1991.

Positioned as an “episode 7″, Heir to the Empire picked up the Star Wars story five years later; the Empire has been driven to the furthest edges of the galaxy, the Rebellion are trying to build a new Republic, Han and Leia are married and expecting twins, and Luke Skywalker has become the first in a new order of Jedi Knights. At the same time, though, a new threat is rising - Grand Admiral Thrawn, last of the Emperor’s Warlords, is reassembling the Imperial Fleet and preparing to strike at the fragile heart of the New Republic.

This book was, to say the least, very popular - it made it onto the New York Times Bestseller list, and revitalised the public interest in Star Wars considerably. There are some people who have attributed George Lucas’ decision to make the prequel trilogy in part due to the success of this book, so it is a pretty big deal. The story within it continued in a further two novels, Dark Force Rising and The Last Command, which collectively sold a total of 15 million copies. For a whole generation of Star Wars fans, this was their sequel trilogy - it’s only recently with The Force Awakens that these stories have been rendered “non-canon”. (As in, they didn’t happen in terms of the official Star Wars storyline.)

Thrawn was the overarching villain of this trilogy - he was the Darth Vader (or the Kylo Ren, or the… well, there’s no good example from the prequels) of these books. Hence why he has such a large fanbase; Thrawn has been voted the second best Star Wars villain by IGN, and UGO considers him the third greatest Star Wars EU character to exist. Known for being a brilliant tactician, Thrawn was very creative in his approach to battles, immersing himself in the culture and history of his opponents to attempt to beat them - and succeeding.

This is why, then, so many people are excited about the return of Grand Admiral Thrawn - he’s an exceptionally cool villain, who holds a particularly special place in the hearts of many fans, and he’s now being brought to life once more. It helps too, of course, that he’s being played by the talented Lars Mikkelsen (Sherlock), and that he’ll be featured in a program made by a team of writers and animators who have enjoyed a lot of success in recent years.

When it comes down to it, then, there’s plenty of reason to be excited for the next time we go to that galaxy, far, far away…

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