Television series

Star Wars: Rebels

Star Wars: Rebels is an animated series about a scrappy crew of rebels—pilot, Jedi, teenage street kid, artist, muscle—fighting the early Empire before the Rebellion even has a name. It's brisk, colourful, and unexpectedly willing to let real loss land. Younger in spirit than Andor, older than Clone Wars started out, it rewards patience: the later seasons turn genuinely mythic.

TVMaze rating7.9

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Star Wars: The Clone Wars2008

The show Rebels grew out of — same studio, same tone, same commitment to letting cartoon stakes feel genuinely tragic. Watching it, you'll spot exactly where Rebels' emotional grammar comes from.

But Seven seasons is a big ask, and the early run is noticeably shakier than the show it inspired.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars poster

Star Wars: The Bad Batch2021no page yet

Picks up almost where Rebels' era ends, following clone soldiers adjusting to a galaxy the Empire is busy strangling. Same animation house, same bittersweet tone, more war-movie grit.

But Leans on Clone Wars lore you may not have; newcomers can feel like they've wandered into episode two of something.

Ahsoka2023no page yet

A live-action continuation of two Rebels characters, carrying their history forward in flesh and blood. Seeing cartoon heroes become physical, aging people is oddly moving.

But Slower and more mystical than Rebels' pulpy adventure; it assumes you already care about who these people are.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Andor2022

It's the serious, grown-up mirror of Rebels' exact premise — the same early Rebellion, the same question of what ordinary people give up to fight — stripped of every childhood-adventure comfort.

Same Rebellion, same galaxy, but told as a grim, adult spy thriller about what resistance actually costs — bureaucracy, betrayal, years of grinding, unglamorous sacrifice.

But Deliberately slow and talky, devoid of the pulpy fun and colour that makes Rebels a joy for kids and adults alike.

Andor poster
More like this (8)

Avatar: The Last Airbender2005

Same shape — a found family of misfits growing up while fighting an empire that's already winning — but longer, deeper, and animated with real ambition about what kids' TV can carry.

But No Star Wars at all, and three seasons is a bigger, slower commitment than it looks.

Avatar: The Last Airbender poster

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power2018

A rebellion led by an unlikely, growing crew against a totalitarian force, told with the same warmth, humour, and willingness to let its young cast genuinely change.

But Brighter, campier palette and a more overtly emotional, romance-inflected register than Rebels ever attempts.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power poster

Voltron: Legendary Defender2016

A ragtag spacefaring crew, a wise mentor figure, and colourful mecha battles against an empire — comfort food built on the same crew-as-family engine that powers Rebels.

But Less interested in moral complexity or grief; it's lighter, sillier, and never quite earns its stakes the way Rebels does.

Voltron: Legendary Defender poster

The Dragon Prince2018

Another animated adventure built around a small found family crossing enemy lines, with a slow-burn arc about empire, propaganda, and who gets called a monster.

But Fantasy rather than space opera, and the CGI style is rougher and less polished than Rebels' clean visuals.

The Dragon Prince poster

Star Wars: Resistance2018no page yet

The most similar in scale and tone — another scrappy crew of young pilots caught up in the Empire's rise, made by many of the same Lucasfilm animators.

But Aimed younger and slighter than Rebels, missing much of the mythic weight that makes the later seasons land.

Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia2016no page yet

Guillermo del Toro's animated saga about an ordinary kid pulled into a war against tyrannical forces, told with real visual imagination and surprising emotional stakes.

But No spaceships, no Empire, just trolls under a small American town — a bigger tonal leap than it sounds.

Army of Shadows1969

Rebels is, underneath the lightsabers, a story about ordinary people organising against an occupying power; this 1969 film tells the same story straight, with no spaceships and no mercy, showing where the genre's DNA actually comes from.

Jean-Pierre Melville's austere masterpiece about French Resistance fighters under Nazi occupation, shot with the clipped, fatalistic precision of a heist film. It's the real thing Rebels is playing at.

But Subtitled, unhurried, and entirely without hope of a happy ending — a genuinely different emotional register.

Army of Shadows poster

Cowboy Bebop1998

Same bones — a small found-family crew of outsiders flying under the radar of a bigger power — reassembled as noir-tinged anime for grown-ups, proving the misfit-crew-in-a-ship formula works in a completely different key.

A ragtag crew scraping by on the edges of a lawless, empire-adjacent solar system, told with jazz-scored cool and sudden gut-punch melancholy that Rebels' best episodes clearly learned from.

But Episodic rather than serialised, moodier and more adult, with almost none of Rebels' optimism or clear-cut good-versus-evil structure.

Cowboy Bebop poster

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