New setting details about Star Wars Rebels have been released, as well as two character images for a protagonist droid named Chopper.
 
Producer Simon Kinberg released details last week regarding the tone and timing of the series (see "Disney Is Taking 'Star Wars' Back To Its Roots"), and now executive producer Dave Filoni discussed setting and at least one main character with German movie site MoviePilot.de (via Coming Soon).
 
{IMAGE_2}In a video portion, he talked about the protagonist droid, Chopper.  "What can I say about Chopper?  He’s grumpy.  He’s a little, rickety astro-mech made up of a bunch of different spare parts because the Rebels can’t even afford the nice new parts,” Filoni said.  Designers pointed to the original Ralph McQuarrie concepts for R2 for their inspiration for Chopper.
 
Filoni also said the series will see a return to classic Star Wars ships, like Star Destroyers and TIE fighters. 
 
As far as the setting, planet Lothal, Filoni said, "Rebels takes place in the Outer Rim.  The audience typically thinks of Tatooine as the place where Luke Skywalker grew up, when the Outer Rim is mentioned.  We are on a more civilized planet, and one that profited from the Empire’s existence in the beginning.  Most of the stories take place on the planet Lothal, which is a grass planet with large monolithic stones on the surface.  The look comes from some Ralph McQuarrie concept paintings that were done for the original Star Wars films."
 
Star Wars Rebels is scheduled to premiere in fall 2014 as a one-hour special on Disney Channel, followed by a series on Disney XD channels worldwide.  A few previous images have been released (see "First Look at 'Star Wars Rebels'").