Date Watched: 11/12/2019 – 11/21/2019
Introduction:
To say that I have had a mixed relationship with the Disney era of Star Wars would be an understatement of the century. Allow me to explain that a little bit. I’ve always defined myself as a George Lucas loyalist so to speak. I absolutely loved the six-part saga that George Lucas created, and fell in love with all the various TV shows comics and novels that came after. Furthermore, it was the prequel trilogy/clone wars/legends material that ultimately formed my childhood and was that a beacon of happiness in relatively traumatic school life. Stories such as “Knights of the Old Republic,” “The Thrawn Trilogy”, and “The Clone Wars” among many many others, including the films themselves quickly became my own personal escape into happiness and unconditional bliss. The reason I loved the George Lucas era of Star Wars was due to its strong character writing, amazing world-building, and the sense of progression and adventure that the audience would normally experience.
But that changed when Disney bought the rights to the franchise. At first, I was excited because they said that they were going to make more Star Wars movies. And when I was a kid, the idea that there would be more than six Star Wars movies in my life would be madness because we never thought we’d get another movie. So obviously I was very excited. But that excitement quickly vanished when I realized that the various Star Wars material (books, comics, etc) that Disney put out were objectively poorly written. For example, the Star Wars aftermath trilogy was probably some of the worst pieces of literature I have ever seen,“ Lords of the Sith, and “A New Dawn” (and pretty much most of the new Canon actually) were just as bad. The reason that most of these things were terrible was that there was no sense of adventure within them, and they existed largely as merch rather than as vessels for good storytelling. Specifically, they didn’t tell a story worth telling because largely both the characters and the galaxy as a whole remained unchanged… Meaning that nothing meaningful happened in the majority of the Disney content. Characters remain stagnant, and the galaxy remained as static and bland it as it always has been.
I hoped to myself the Disney Trilogy would be better. But unfortunately…the main series Disney trilogy turned out to be a massive disappointment. Let me explain that a little more. Paradoxically, I enjoyed “The Force Awakens” and “The Last Jedi” and probably will enjoy “The Rise of Skywalker”. But let me stress that the reason for this is due strictly to the relatively awesome action scenes, strong visuals, and solid acting. But in regards to the story, world-building, music, character arcs, emotionally residence and memorability, total consistency, being cohesive, and even basic creature design (you know…the little things)…then these are objectively the worst Star Wars movies in the entire series. In fact, this might be some of the worst told stories within the entire universe of the Star Wars mythology if you include the various books, comics, TV specials, and games released over the years. I think that the biggest problem right off the bat is that the people making the Disney Trilogy don’t even seem to have a proper grasp on the Star Wars mythology. Frequently the sequel trilogy either completely ignore the mythology and establish rules introduced in the original six-part saga, but also ignore its own rules. For example, JJ Abrams says that Snoke and Kylo Ren are not Sith yet Rian Johnson has Ben Solo says “The Sith, the Jedi. The rebels. Let it all die” to Rey in the next film, implying that Kylo Ren and Snoke are Sith. This very contradiction is further compounded when “The Rise of Skywalker” introduces Sith troopers into the ranks of The First Order. This set of contradictions is problematic because it makes the story incredibly hard to get invested in emotionally. It also doesn’t help that most of the characters remain static and disturbingly simplistic as the story progresses. For example, the character of Finn does not reflect the traumatic backstory that he’s given and simply remains the bumbling comic relief for the rest of the trilogy with no signs of meaningful character development. Specifically, the story goes to great links to establish that he was a former stormtrooper yet the character retains none of that backstory when he goes around interacting with the other characters. For another, Rey effectively doesn’t change at all as a character because she doesn’t have a character arc since her personality and her view on the world refuses to grow or evolve. Additionally, Kylo Ren – while an interesting concept – is virtually ineffective as a villain since he fails to accomplish anything worth mentioning as he completely fails to pose a credible threat throughout the entire duration of the storyline. To make matters worse, the sequel trilogy seems more obsessed with fan expectations and political agenda than it does about actually telling a story that successfully built off what came before. Specifically, the sequel trilogy is more focused on the hype of its own storylines than it does about actually exploring them. Finally, this trilogy – as I have explained elsewhere in my individual breakdown of each entry therein – as a whole destroys the ending of “Return of the Jedi” by turning the heroes of the original trilogy into geriatric morons while also completely invalidating all of their heroic actions (bringing back Darth Sidious, having Han Solo and Leia break up, and disrespectfully murdering Admiral Akbar) for no good reason. The result is an emotionally shallow adventure that is completely forgettable and actually kind of offensive sometimes. Worse yet, I found both the marketing of the films themselves and how they treated legacy characters to be disturbingly disrespectful and unkind. Frequently associates of Lucasfilm under Disney would attack fans online for not unconditionally praising their mediocre Star Wars material (e.g Chuck Wendig, JJ Abrams, Rian Johnson, etc)…all the while attacking the various films of the original six-part saga in their own marketing for Episodes VII-IX. This would have potentially been forgivable if the Disney Trilogy was actually half as good as the films that came before…But they’re not. Again I have to emphasize that I do enjoy the Disney trilogy but I will also stress that it was NOT even a 10th as good as it could’ve been/what was promised. This really made me hate the Disney era of Star Wars to such a degree that it made me hate everything that they made, even some of the stuff that I might’ve liked under regular and perhaps less hostile circumstances (such as “Star Wars Rebels”).
But luckily things began to turn around at Lucasfilm. For one thing, they revived Star Wars the clone wars, reversing their decision to cancel it. So that already got me somewhat forgiving of their behavior. On top of that, they decided to release more prequel trilogy related story material in the form of “Master and Apprentice“ and “The Queen’s Shadow”. And if you read my reviews for those, you realize how much I love those stories because they felt like the stories of Star Wars that I read when I was a kid so it rekindled my love of Star Wars someway. And with this new positivity in mind, I decided to give the new Disney air of Star Wars a second chance and I discovered that there were a lot of things in the new Canon that I actually enjoyed. Specifically, I enjoyed “Lost Stars”, “Dark Disciple”, and the first “Thrawn” novel. And I even got along to see a playthrough of “Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order” and saw the first three episodes of “The Mandalorian”, both of which were amazing and even managed to surpass some of the Star Wars stories that we saw during the George Lucas era. This was feeling was further emboldened with the creation of two additional prequels: “Rogue One” and “Solo”… which unlike the sequel trilogy managed to capture the essence of what made Star Wars good in the first place because they actually had a good story writing, strong world-building, and characters you actually care about and gave off the vibe that they were being made by people who actually have a passion for the world that George Lucas created. And bear in mind that this transformation happened very slowly over the last few years (starting in late 2017 actually). And during the few years, I also supplemented my consumption of the new Disney Canon with reading novels from the old defunct expanded universe that I’ve never read before (specifically “The Jedi Apprentice” series and “Darth Bane Trilogy”) that further increase my appetite for good Star Wars. So you could see that from 2018 and onward that my love of Star Wars and my general acceptance towards the Disney Canon had become far more positive. I think what further helped was the fact that people online stopped being incredibly negative about the prequel trilogy/legends and started becoming a lot more respectful to it in general. Since 2016, The prequel/legends generation has grown into such a presence that now these things are widely considered to be legitimately great installments in the larger Star Wars mythology.
With all of this in mind, the first thing I did upon getting Disney+ was to re-watch “Star Wars Rebels”. When I first watched this show when it first aired, I hated it because I thought the animation was amateurish and just thought it was too stupid to be a worthy successor to the holiness that was “The Cline Wars”. But after re-watching/binge-watching the show on Disney+ a couple days ago, I can safely retract my criticisms and say that the show is actually one of the best things in the Disney Canon. In fact, the show might be in the upper echelon of great Star Wars content despite the fact that it’s not as good as ”The Clone Wars”. Sonnow that we have this bloated intro out of the way, let’s actually talk about the show!
Review:
Plot Synopsis – So what is the show about anyway? Well, this show takes place approximately 15 years after the events of “Revenge of the Sith” (AKA the best movie in the franchise BTW) and about 5 years before “A New Hope”, and stars a young orphaned teen their named Ezra who lives on the imperial occupied world of Lothal. From there he inadvertently gets recruited by a rebel faction of misfits known as The Ghost. from there are protagonists go on a journey to become a Jedi Knight with the help of crew’s leader (Kanan) as he and his newfound friend go about freeing Lothal from Darth Sideous and his tyrannical Imperial Empire.
Positives –
- The execution of the story – I feel like the story, in general, is just really strong and cohesive. My biggest issue with the Disney trilogy is that nothing about the story was planned. They even said this in interviews that each director gets to make up the story and then it gets abruptly thrown up to the next director to decide what happens next. This is incredibly frustrating because it ends up causing characters to be written very inconsistently and that the story as a whole feels both rushed and disjointed. It’s also hard to do a proper overarching character arc. This would explain why characters such as Kylo Ren and Rey feel so poorly written because there’s no arc across the entire trilogy which they are featured in. Personally, I would’ve just had JJ Abrams or just Rian Johnson direct the whole trilogy rather than having a whole bunch of directors make each movie. Thankfully, Star Wars Rebels does not have this problem. Just the opposite in fact. It feels like the entire show, for the most part, was planned from beginning to end and even the minor things that happen as far back in season one impact what happens later on in the series finale. The character arcs feel cohesive and natural because it all feels planned and properly outlined before the series was ever written. It doesn’t suddenly feel like the show changes style midway through haphazardly for no reason. It’s really nice because it feels like one continuous storyline that truly has no filler because most of it ties back in later episodes whether it’s referenced or it bolsters a character relationship somehow. In this regard actually, it is even better than “The Clone Wars” of 2008. As much as I love that show, the biggest problem was the chronology because episodes were not shown in chronological order and a lot of the story arcs don’t necessarily connect. So that show felt incredibly jumbled especially in the earlier seasons despite how great it actually was. Thankfully Star Wars Rebels doesn’t have that problem. In a lot of ways, it feels like it was like an eight-hour+ movie.
a) The characters and their arcs were well executed. Unlike in the Disney Trilogy, the protagonists in this show actually grow and develop. Example: Ezra’s growth from a slightly annoying street kid to badass Jedi warrior was both believable and enjoyable to experience. By the end of the show, I had really thought fondly of him. He reminds of the quintessential Jedi protagonists like Anakin and Luke. In a lot of ways is a lot like the former except in the end he is ultimately able to make the choices that Anakin was not: to let go and keep moving forward instead of being trapped in the past. I also thought that he was way better than Rey since unlike Rey he actually had to struggle to achieve his goals. In other words, he has to work on his skillset and earn all his accomplishments instead of the story just giving it to him like they do for Rey. The same could be said of most of the cast, especially Kanan (embracing his Jedi ways and accepting the rebellion), Sabine (confronting the fear of her family and the responsibility of being a Mandalorian while also learning to forgive), and Hera (Learning to cope with her father, cope with loss, and developing her relationship with the rest of her crew.)
b) The Villains were used well – Unlike the inept bumbling fools that are Kylo Ren, Snoke, and General Hux… The villains in the story are actually interesting, useful, and contribute to the larger story in a meaningful way.
I) Darth Maul – His arc from “The Clone Wars” was beautifully continued in this show. He is as manipulative, deadly, clever, and is tragic and paradoxically vulnerable as he’s always been. I really feel like that Rebels did a great job of capturing the essence of his character. And of course, Sam Witwer does a fantastic job reprising his role. I love how he interacted with the main characters and how it propelled the story arcs of all of them. His chemistry with Ezra and Kanan was very well done and pretty much every episode that he was in was a 10 out of 10 for me.
II) Thrawn – For the most part I think that this character was beautifully re-introduced into the main series continuity. For those of you who don’t know, this character was one of the primary antagonists that Luke Skywalker and crew had to face after the events of “Return of the Jedi”. And I think that the character was beautifully reworked for the show quite well. He is smart, appreciates art and, genuinely threatening, and win several key battles against our heroes. I love he successfully forced the Rebels to retreat from their base. I also love the voice acting for him. The show successfully re-created his intelligent deductive skills. He really is the Sherlock Holmes of Star Wars. He definitely added a layer of tension and story momentum that otherwise would not have been there. I also love how they rework his assassin from legends into this as well. I think together with the whole Thrawn storyline really elevated the show for me.
III) The Inquisitors – I really love how the grand inquisitor was utilized as the central antagonist of the first season. His dynamic with the Jedi characters was really cool and definitely generated some of the best moments and some of the best action scenes in the whole series. He is the best aspects of each of the prequel trilogy villains put into one character. And I love how his final duel with our protagonists mirrored dual of the fates from “The Phantom Menace.” He was scary, innovative due to his new lightsaber design and his species, and his musical theme was also brilliant. Definitely one of the better aspects of the show for sure. Sadly, I feel like the other two inquisitors were not as well utilized, unfortunately. Sure they were cool to have around and I did joy the episodes that they were present in… but I just feel like they were not as prevalent as they should’ve been in the second season. Their deaths were pretty awesome though.
IV) Darth Vader – This one was kind of interesting. Although the TV show did a great job of capturing the essence of Darth Vader from both the prequels and the original trilogy, I feel like that he didn’t have nearly as much screen time as he should’ve had. I understand why he was in this particular season but if you like that he should’ve been used more. Granted I understand why they didn’t want to use this character because we know he lives in the movies and the only way that it could work otherwise would be just to have Vader kill everyone…which wouldn’t be that fun. And I know that he was placed in the show so he could have his confrontation with Ashoka be further explored. On that front, the show was very successful. And I feel like the show did a great job of having more original characters than pre-existing characters so I’m kind of glad they didn’t overuse Vader too much but at the same time, I do wish that he was present in more episodes. But still, he was fun to have around.
c) Integration of legacy characters was mostly excellent
I) Rex – This was probably my favorite character from “The Clone Wars” to be re-incorporated into Rebels. It’s so nice because unlike so many of the characters from the sequel trilogy, Rex was not turned into a bumbling geriatric moron. He carries the same essence that he did in all of his previous appearances. He is still the clone trooper that we’ve all grown up to love. I love how he finds purpose in himself to fight when our crew finds him. And I love his dynamic with Kanan and how he has to cope with the traumas of the previous war.
II) Ahsoka – Like I said with Vader, she was underused. But I also understand that they wanted to give closure to her story arc by having her confront Darth Vader and on that thread, the show did a great job. I feel like she could’ve had more stuff in the actual show. I like how the show tried to make her Gandolf the Gray of Star Wars. But I also understand it they didn’t want to overuse the character because there really wasn’t a lot of plays for her outside of being a key player in the rebellion and being the one to fight Darth Vader. And I feel like that the show stays true to her character for the most part. I thought she was she was decently used but more screen time would’ve been nice.
III) Hondo – This was something I really enjoyed seeing. His dynamic as a friend/enemy for Ezra was highly enjoyable. He was every bit as funny as he was in “The Clone Wars”. I think he injects the show is just the right amount of humor and drama to keep things going. The show wisely doesn’t overuse him because there’s a potential for them to get annoying, but thankfully that doesn’t happen. He was used just enough to develop the main character and add to the overall atmosphere of the show without necessarily being overbearing. I did enjoy having this character for sure.
IV) Leia – Although she appeared in one episode in season two, she was used very well. She definitely has the same presents the Anakin and Padme once had. And unlike in the Disney trilogy, she actually feels like her counterpart in the original trilogy. She’s inspiring, tenacious, brave and most importantly someone that I would actually follow into battle. I also like how she inspired Ezra to not give up when he’s feeling down after the loss of his parents. It was a small thing but it was a nice touch for sure.
V) Saw – This was without a doubt one of my favorite inclusions from “The Clone Wars” outside of Captain Rex. To put it simply… He is awesome. He adds a layer of gray morality that the show would otherwise have been without. It’s fantastic. He’s so cool. I love how old they bridge the gap between his ”Clone Wars” appearance and his depiction in the Rogue One. I love how he is the embodiment of that not all rebels are good and that the rebellion is a whole does, in fact, have a Darkside. I love his dynamic with Ezra and how that shapes his view of the fighting. In fact, I think it makes the character as seen in “Rogue One” even better because he feels far more fleshed out.
d) The character dynamics:
I) This was something the show did surprisingly well both of the time. It’s kinda hard to explain it but I feel like that most of them were just highly enjoyable and they added to the overall drama. Not all of them were noteworthy but a good chunk of them were. The dynamic between Kanan, Ezra, and the other characters were fantastic and just watching that relationship grow is probably one of the reasons why I will remember the show fondly. I also like that the ghost crew was the picture is being one big family of sorts it just felt believable and I think it had a layer of charm that works in favor of the narrative. You can really feel like these guys care for each other. I think that all of the individual character moments where we explore the backstory of each character and how the other characters and the ghost crew help each other out was just beautifully done and by the end I can believe that they were all friends/family. Honestly, I think it was this specific attribute that really held the show together for me.
e) Likable Droids:
I) You know when I first watched the show are used to hate the droid known as Chopper. But then when I rewatch the show actually grew to like the character. I liked his dynamic with the other imperial protocol droid that they recruited later on. I also liked how he was kind of a jerk and it made for some pretty nice laughs for sure. In fact, I would say that I like Chopper more than BB-8 that’s for sure if only because I feel like he’s actually useful within the story. And then he has a personality outside of being cute and that there’s actually like a concrete backstory for him that actually gets pretty interesting enough to explore.
2. The animation – This one was a bit interesting but I won’t necessarily spend a lot of time talking about it. I used to hate the animation for the show when I first watched it, but after rewatching it in HD I kind of realize how great it looked. The character models look colorful and I like how they integrate smoke and steam in various shots where it’s needed. I also enjoyed how they reworked Ralph McQuarrie’s artwork from the original trilogy as the inspiration for the shows aesthetic. It really made the show feel like Star Wars.
3. Reverence to the source material – This is something that the Disney trilogy really failed to do. That trilogy made frequent attempts to invalidate and disrespect the films that came before by way of disregarding legacy character such as Admiral Akbar, Han Solo and Leia (and many many more) while simultaneously burning all of the excellent world-building to the ground that the previous movies spent a ridiculous amount of time developing. Once again, ”Star Wars Rebels” doesn’t have this problem. In fact, it honors not only the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy as well. There is even some cool stuff from the old expanded universe in here. It does it’s best to expand on the world-building elements seen in both trilogies along with the various spinoffs and turns it into one single cohesive world. I like how it explores various prequel/clone wars storylines and integrate them into rogue one. I like how we got to see the planet of Geonosis, Mustafar, Malachor, and Yavin 4. So, for the most part, it actually felt like Star Wars since it actually takes place in the world that the actual movies created than being in this discount version that the Disney trilogy is. I like how it able to insert itself within the formation of the rebellion, which for the most part was believable, while also telling its own story. This is why I love the show so much because it’s able to make the movies and the extended material more cohesive while also not being bogged down such that it can tell its story. It really does feel like that the rebellion is scrounging for resources and that their victories aren’t that easy. We see this because once the empire actually tries to hurt them the rebels really do struggle especially when Darth Vader shows up. So yeah I think that overall it does a great job of actually honoring the Star Wars mythology without completely messing it up.
4. The action scenes – For the most part, I think the show does action sequences really well. Sure the lightsaber fight between Darth Vader and Kanan was a little disappointing but the rest of them were fantastic. Standouts include Darth Vader versus Ahsoka, all the Kanan vs inquisitor lightsaber battles, Sabine vs Saxon, and Ezra vs The Night Sisters. And that’s just the lightsaber battles. Most of the space battles were really fun, especially the ones with Darth Vader and Thrawn. For the most part, I’d say it’s on clone wars quality in this regard.
5. The voice acting – I think this part might be where the show really excels. Although I’ve never heard of most if not any of these people before the show, they did a really good job and you could really feel like that they were passionate about the roles that they had and they really inject themselves into it. It kind of reminded me of “The Clone Wars” actually because people actually managed to really put themselves in their characters instead of lazily reading off a script. My point is is that unlike the Disney trilogy, the people actually participating in the show seem to actually care about what they’re doing and it really shows.
The Negatives:
- Despite the fact that I love the show… There were things that I simply just did not like it much. There were three episodes that I thought we’re just kind of pointless and really just want that interesting. I think “The sister blood” and wedge Antilles episodes were just kind of dumb because they just felt like they had some shallow writing… I guess my point was that just certain episodes were just poorly written and they didn’t quite capture the essence of what they were trying to convey but thankfully those episodes were extremely few and far between.
- The Mandalorian Arc Storyline was told decently, I feel like that parts of it could’ve been done better. Let me explain to you why that is. Essentially, when the show was created “The Clone Wars” got canceled. And one of the canceled story arcs was going to explore was how the Mandalorians fractured after Darth Maul took over the Deathwatch. Unfortunately, we never got the story arc and the higher-ups at Lucasfilm made it clear that we’re not going to get it. This caused Rebels to have a lot of stuff left kind of poorly explained so certain events didn’t have as much meaning as they could’ve had. While the arc did a great job of developing Sabin’s character, I feel like the actual world-building regarding the Mandalorians was a little bit confusing because the show didn’t take that much time to really explain everything. Make no mistake, I still enjoyed it, but I feel like they could’ve used a few tweaks to make it really really great.
- This is not necessarily my gripe with the show itself but I feel like that the world between worlds idea that the show creates could very easily be abused in future Star Wars material. Essentially the world between the world is kind of like time travel but not really. My only thing is I feel like that there could be some stupid comic or novel that Disney might make that could be used to like destroy the films by undoing certain events. I know that Disney is going to reboot episodes one through six someday and I imagine that this is how they’re going to do it by having a character go back in time and change some key plot points within the original George Lucas storyline. My response… Please don’t. As for how the show handled it, I think for the most part it was done decently to show that some things were fated to happen but you shouldn’t live in the past but rather live to make the future better. I think it was used in the show for sure.
The Final Verdict:
Despite its flaws, “Star Wars Rebels” is a great show. For one thing, the character arcs are done surprisingly well most of the time, the story is well told and cohesive, and the characters themselves were actually kinda likable. On top of that, the story actually respects the source material and even managers to expand upon it in a competent manner and even manages to conclude arcs from the clone wars quite well. On top of that… It’s well animated it has great action scenes and the way it remixes Star Wars soundtracks across the series was quite clever. Lastly, it does justice to pre-existing characters without ruining them or anything terrible like the Disney trilogy has. However, the show is held back by two or three mediocre episodes and I thought the Mandalorian arc (while enjoyable) could’ve been told just a tad better.
Overall I give the show 4.25/5.00 stars and call it a great show that does justice to the mythology and its original creator. And unlike the Disney trilogy, it manages to improve on the larger mythology while also mostly living up to its potential. May the force be with you and I’ll see you guys soon.
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