Star Wars Rebels fans were leaping with joy and pointing at their TV screens like Leonardo DiCaprio once again this past Wednesday when the Disney+ live-action hit The Mandalorian made another big connection to Lucasfilm’s popular animated series Star Wars Rebels.
Earlier in season three of The Mandalorian, viewers got their first live-action look at the Purrgil space whales from Rebels, and this week we were treated with a cameo appearance by none other that Garazeb “Zeb” Orellios, a member of the Ghost crew from the cartoon.
Zeb Orellios is one of the last surviving members of the Lasat species from the planet Lasan, which was devastated by the Empire during its reign. He served on the Ghost alongside Captain Hera Syndulla, Jedi Knight Kanan Jarrus, Mandalorian Sabine Wren, Jedi Padawan Ezra Bridger, and their cantankerous droid Chopper throughout all four seasons of Star Wars Rebels, which aired from 2014 to 2018 on Disney XD and the Disney Channel. Zeb, often known for his temperamental attitude and tank-like ability to mow through countless Imperial stormtroopers, has clearly survived the events of the Galactic Civil War, as Rebels was set before the original Star Wars trilogy.
His appearance in The Mandalorian, in which he sits at a bar next to New Republic Captain Carson Teva (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee), comes in advance of the release of another live action Disney+ series, Star Wars: Ahsoka, in which the five remaining members of the Ghost crew are all rumored to appear (as the character of former Jedi Padawan Ahsoka Tano also recurred on Rebels). In The Mandalorian, Zeb– who in the aftermath of the fall of the Empire appears to have become a New Republic pilot– is once again voiced by actor Steve Blum (Transformers Prime), reprising his lovable role from the animated series. Does this mean we’ll see Zeb Orellios again in live-action, perhaps more prominently, when Ahsoka arrives on Disney+ later this year? We can only hope!
New episodes of The Mandalorian are released Wednesdays, exclusively via Disney+. Star Wars Rebels is also available to stream in its entirety on the service.