The state of the Star Wars universe is currently in flux.
Whereas everyone assumed prior to the release of last month's The Last Jedi that it would simply coast on nostalgia, leaving any true experimentation to the Anthology films, it turned out to be the reverse: Last Jedi has proven to be the most experimental -- and controversial -- film of the franchise since Empire Strikes Back, and the Anthology films announced so far have relied solidly on nostalgia. Rogue One, as good as it was, existed largely to correct a "minor flaw" that was prevalent in the original film, while Solo aims to give us an origin story for Han.
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Of the Original Trilogy trio of Luke, Han and Leia, the scoundrel is the least interesting and most safe one to give a solo (no pun intended) film to, something many fans have noted since the film's announcement. The Anthology films, as a whole, appear merely to function as character prequels rather than the interesting, experimental tales Star Wars fans hoped they would be.
Meanwhile, Disney XD's Star Wars Rebels has been serving as a miniseries of Anthology films in its own way. And yet, it's also taken a more experimental approach, and as a result, is all the better for it.
Essentially a sequel series to Cartoon Network's Star Wars: The Clone Wars CG series, Rebels takes place in the five years before the original Star Wars film, A New Hope. In Rebels, the Rebellion is slowly but surely starting to form into the freedom force we know it will become, and Imperial forces are hunting down the very few Jedi left who managed to survive Order 66, along with anyone else who seems to be Force sensitive. One of those Force sensitive individuals happens to be street urchin Ezra Bridger, who soon winds up a member of the rising Rebellion's Ghost crew, led in part by Order 66 survivor Kanan Jarrus.
With it being so close to the timeline of A New Hope, you'd think Rebels would be incredibly cameo heavy with Original Trilogy characters, and to be honest, that's definitely the case in the first season and a half. Characters such as Darth Vader and C-3PO were locked in to be included, given their role in that era of the series, and it was be understandable to think the show was merely trying to cram as many beloved characters as possible to play things safe when Lando, Tarkin, and a teenage Leia show up.
Luckily, that has proven not to be the case.
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To Star Wars Rebels' credit, its creators realize that the true benefit of having its story be so close to the timeline of the original film lies in its Jedi protagonists. To put it bluntly, both Kanan and Ezra just plain suck at being the noble Knights we've come to typically associate with the name. They're both impulsive and tend to snipe at each other, which is a different dynamic than we're used to in a Master/Apprentice relationship. As a result, refreshingly, both of them tend to suffer for their tension between each other; ignoring Ezra's simmering anger blows up in Kanan's face in a very bad way, and Kanan's inability to communicate with the ticking time bomb that is his apprentice is what drives a wedge between them time and again throughout the series. And even though it takes some time longer than it should've, the non-Jedi members of the Ghost become just as fleshed out as Kanan and Ezra do, with their own histories just as vital to the story of the Rebellion as their Force-using friends'. Hera and Sabine in particular do quiet, but no less important work as big building blocks of the Rebellion.
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Clone Wars eventually proved itself to be a creatively ambitious anthology series that shifted genres, tones and characters whenever it felt like it, and Rebels is more than happy to follow suit. Even with the restrictions placed on it because of the strict five year timeline, the show still has time for goofy droid tales, family melodrama of the Syndulla and Mandalorian variety, and survivor stories, all while being able to delve into the guerrilla tactics Rogue One could only really hint at for most of its runtime. There's more ambition in most episodes of Rebels than there was in all of Rogue One, frankly, and likely more than we expect to be in Solo.
Rebels has also proven its creativity in taking what it can from all corners of Star Wars canon and bringing it into its own history. Star Wars reset its canon following being acquired by Disney, and that's actually ended up working in Rebels' favor, as the series has been allowed to bring in elements from various pieces of media, including the Old Republic games and Timothy Zahn's Thrawn novels.
The show gained a lot when it decided that it wanted to be a Clone Wars sequel in addition to a New Hope prequel, and it's there where it truly shows the potential of what Star Wars can be. Through bringing in fan favorite characters such as Ahsoka Tano and Darth Maul, Rebels isn't content to just treat them as glorified cameos -- they're real parts of the story whose presence has monumental impact on the characters. Maul in particular ends up becoming more of a genuine person in Rebels than his return in Clone Wars gave him. And it's through Rebels that the idea of balance and the Force surrounding living things and being malleable truly takes form, through the additions of Bendu and the Loth-Wolves. It doesn't completely restore those stories that were wiped out, but at the very least, it acknowledges that those stories matter and deserve something.
Star Wars has always held the belief that every character matters in their own way. Rebels is proof that statement can be true without it feeling forced or like an unwanted cash grab. If the Anthology films are all going to tie into the primary story seeded across the nine main films, that's fine, but Rebels has shown it doesn't need to be forced corrections or unneeded prequels. It just needs to be willing to do something interesting.