Via Cinemablend.com:
Superhero franchises are typically the first thing that comes to mind when we bring up the topic of interconnected worlds, but Star Wars has gradually started to become one of the best cinematic universes in all of pop culture. As the silver screen Star Wars world continues to flesh itself out, its small screen counterpart has gone a long way towards providing backstory, as well as linking characters, locations, and ideas. Star Wars Rebels has done a phenomenal job with shouldering those responsibilities over the course of its run, and the most recent episode continued that tradition by linking the Death Star’s origins on Geonosis with the events of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

As recently pointed out by io9, the latest two-part episode of Star Wars Rebels directly tied into the narrative of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and provided some much-needed context regarding the development and secrecy of the Death Star. The episode (titled, “Ghosts of Geonosis”) explores the aftermath of the creation of the first Death Star, and the Empire’s distrust of the Geonosis population following its completion. As the story progresses, Saw Gerrera (Forrest Whitaker) and his team of rebels learn that The Empire practically wiped out the Geonosian to maintain the integrity of its secrets.

The bulk of the story follows the heroes as they help a lone survivor of the Geonosian planet as he endeavors to safeguard an egg that could repopulate his race. The episode is chock full of amazing Star Wars Easter eggs, including a not so subtle hint at the Empire’s ultimate weapon, and helps inform the development of Gerrera into the man movie audiences meet during the events of Rogue One.

This episode will undoubtedly go down as a fundamental aspect of the Star Wars lore because of the way in which it fleshes out the creeping relevance and menace of the Death Star. There has been a significant gap in the Star Wars mythology ever since the release of Attack of the Clones because the exact fate of Geonosis has ever really received too much exploration. In this one episode, Star Wars Rebels can tie up some seriously loose plot threads left behind by the prequel trilogy while filling in the story leading up to the latest Star Wars movie.