The design of Zeb is based on Ralph McQuarrie's early concept art for Chewbacca, with the addition of purple tiger stripes.
The ignited lightsaber blades in this series flicker like they did in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) when a rotating glowing rod was used during filming as a practical effect. Afterwards, special lighting effects were added to the blades, and glowing rods were replaced by solid pipes in all of the sequels and prequels But for this show, lighting and visual effects supervisor Joel Aron studied the light-sabers in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977), and even managed to match the original flicker rate to make the light-sabers look exactly like they did in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977).
The concept of this show is very similar to what Dave Filoni and Henry Gilroy had originally planned for Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) when they assumed that Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker would not be the main characters. Their idea was to focus on the crew of a Millennium Falcon-style smuggling ship consisting of a Twi'lek Jedi called Sendak and his Togruta apprentice Ashla, a Han Solo-like smuggler called Cad, his girlfriend Lupé, and their Gungan strongman Lunker. The Jedi and his Padawan became Kanan Jarrus and Ezra Bridger. The smuggler pilot became female Twi'lek Hera Syndulla. The other female character became Mandalorian Sabine Wren, and the strongman became Zeb.
Grand Admiral Thrawn appears for the first time outside of Star Wars Legends in the third season. He was introduced in the Thrawn trilogy by Timothy Zahn, and is considered one of the most brilliant strategists in the Star Wars universe, nearly bringing down the New Republic.
There are several references in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016). Chopper can be seen in the rebel secret base on Yavin IV, The Ghost and Hammerhead corvettes can be seen in the space battle over the planet Scarif, and "General Syndulla" can be heard inside the rebel base.