If you want guaranteed entertainment at Star Wars Celebration, head to any panel that involves Dave Filioni. The man behind Star Wars: Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels has a knack for teasing information-hungry fans, but most importantly, he can out-nerd even the most committed of Star Wars buffs.
During the Animated Origins & Unexpected fates panel, Filoni was joined on stage by walking Star Wars knowledge bank, Pablo Hidalgo, where they discussed the origins of some of Star Wars’ most beloved animated characters. One of the characters involved in those discussions was the Clone Trooper, Captain Rex. First appearing on Star Wars: Clone Wars Rex was one of the few Clone Troopers to make it out before the rise of the Empire.
Now a key member of the fledgling rebel alliance, Rex’s gray-bearded appearance has given rise to a fun fan theory, which links the character to one of the original trilogy’s many obscure background characters.
After watching Return of the Jedi, you might have noticed that one of the Rebel soldiers on Endor was not like the others. Known as Nik Sant, this veteran rebel’s aged appearance (pictured up top) secured him cult status among Star Wars fans. Given their respective fame and similar appearances, it’s not surprising that fans quickly started to link Rex and Sant in a creative way.
The theory goes that Rex, despite his accelerated aging, manages to stay with the Rebellion right the way through until the Battle of Endor where he’s able to help Han and co. secure the Death Star’s shield generator.
Given that the bearded Rebel soldier already had a name, and Rex’s accelerated clone aging would put him in pretty bad shape by the time the events of Return of the Jedi role round, the theory felt like something of a long shot. But, Dave Filoni, the superfan that he is, has previously said that he wanted to believe the Rex/Sant theory could be true and that Rex actually is the soldier on Endor.
Today, we got the closest thing to confirmation that Rex would survive long enough to make it to Endor when Filoni unveiled some new concept art for future iterations of Captain Rex on Star Wars Rebels.
ALSO! pic.twitter.com/ffEgroqEer
— Bryan Young (@swankmotron) April 13, 2017
The likeness is uncanny and, quite frankly, it’s all the confirmation we need to tell us that Rex survives and continues to kick Imperial butt right to the bitter end.
