‘Star Wars Rebels’ Introduces Chopper, a Droid

January 31, 2014

Star Wars Rebels is the new CGI animated series coming to the Disney channel this fall. The show is being produced by Lucasfilm and Lucasfilm Animation. It takes place between Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, in which the Galactic Empire is securing its grip on the galaxy and hunting down the last of the Jedi Knights as a fledgling rebellion against the Empire is taking form

The first character they released for this upcoming show was the Imperial Inquisitor. The Inquisitor was released at New York Comic Con. He is tasked by Darth Vader to hunt down the remaining Jedi Knights and destroy them. They have released the second new character for the show, Chopper a droid. “If R2’s your favorite dog, Chopper’s the cat,” says Dave Filoni, executive producer of “Star Wars Rebels.”

Since the events of the show are taking place before the original 1977 film, they have kept that design in creating this character. Art director Kilian Plunkett is excited to be working on the character. “We’ve never had the opportunity to do a droid like that — just, kind of, is a little more dismissive of people.” Filoni is a little more blunt: “He’s grumpy.”

Chopper is about the same size and shape as the beloved droid R2-D2. His top reminds me of R5-D4, which you will remember from Episode IV. That is the droid that Uncle Owen purchased from the Jawa’s but blew up when walking away with Luke. Just like R2-D2, Chopper will have the rocket capability we saw R2 have in the prequel’s.

Here is a side by side image of R2-D2 and Chopper:

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Here are a couple more shots of the new droid, showing his extra set of arms and the rockets.
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As we get more details, we will be sure to share them with you.

Scott

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