With Star Wars Rebels Season 3 set to premiere XD on September 24, fans of the franchise were delighted to know that Grand Admiral Thrawn will be featured in the animated television series.

Thrawn is one of biggest characters from the Star Wars Expanded Universe a segment which was later relegated as Star Wars Legends when new Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy set about streamlining the Star Wars Universe from the films, television series and books, Collider reported.

It can be recalled that hard core fans were not too keen about the idea since they felt that the  studio failed in exploring the potential of these materials that have been declared non canon.

The latest promo showed Admiral Thrawn, who is the main enemy of the New Republic after Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi after he took command of the remaining forces of the Galactic Empire.

According to a report by Collider, fans are excited over the role that Thrawn will play in the series as his original timeline is way later the timeline of Star Wars Rebels which takes place before the events of Star Wars: A New Hope.

Fans are curious to see how the storyline of the imperial strategist will play into the world of the rebels.

"Thrawn was always on the list, and we were just trying to figure out what's the right moment and how big a deal do we make out of that. The biggest thing is that, you get a character that everybody likes, that's a really great villain, you are cautious on a weekly series to put them into a, "Oh, we've lost again. Darn those crazy rebel dogs." You can't play him that way, he's way too smart. It's a very similar problem I had with Vader, which was, if our guys are around Vader too much, Vader's going to pick them out. I had to supply them with something to neutralize Darth Vader. Here, I don't really have a lot to supply to defend them against Thrawn, so it's going to get sticky because we want to treat him as a big-time villain," series co-creator Dave Filoni said, providing insight into the character.

Aside from Thrawn, the season is also set to introduce a character called Bendu and Darth Maul who initially appeared in the The Phantom Menace.