Category Archives: Rebels

Why Thrawn Needs to be in Rebels

Posted on by

thrawnIf you ask people who the most well-known Legends character is, you’ll probably get one of a few common answers: Mara Jade, Revan, Starkiller, Jacen or Jaina Solo. Probably the most well-known antagonist (if not the best antagonist) from the Legends universe is Grand Admiral Thrawn, aka Mitth’raw’nuruodo, created by Timothy Zahn for the first post-Return of the Jedi novel Heir to the Empire. Thrawn did not survive his eponymous trilogy, but his legacy lived on in other novels and games. Perhaps it’s because he was one of the first breakout Legends characters, perhaps it’s because he wasn’t a Force user, perhaps it’s because of his similarities to Sherlock Holmes — whatever the reason, Thrawn struck a chord with many readers. Even though he’s now a “Legend,” the Thrawn trilogy is still considered some of the best in the Expanded Universe. And many people have asked to see him make the jump to the new canon.

Spoilers for Aftermath: Life Debt under the cut.

Continue reading →

8 Characters that Filoni Could Be Teasing for Rebels

Posted on by

rebels logoLate Friday night, Dave Filoni took to Twitter to tease his appearance at Celebration London this summer and to remind us that “there’s always a bit of truth in legends.” Needless to say, fandom handled this precisely as expected. (Thrawn. Everyone’s losing their minds because it might be Thrawn. Or maybe Mara Jade. Nah, probably Thrawn.) Problem is… that’s boring. Why waste these beautiful months of speculation time by assuming a certain Chiss is a given? Here are eight more minor Legends characters who I think have potential to appear in Rebels.

Qwi Xux – She’s the most logical choice, really. With Rogue One rapidly approaching, what better tie in for Rebels than to delve into the building of the first Death Star? Qwi Xux was a very naïve scientist who contributed greatly to its creation. Perhaps the time isn’t right to directly introduce the Death Star but teasing its existence with a secret military science lab would be intriguing to say the least. Using Qwi would give Rebels a chance to further contribute to the idea of Imperials who aren’t bad people but who still support the cause and it would given them an excuse to design a blue bird lady.

Adan Dooku – If they’re looking for a cool Prequel Trilogy connection, reaching back to Count Dooku would be a smart one that could also tie into Alderaan. In the Agent of the Empire comic, Adan Dooku was the Count’s nephew who lived on Alderaan in exile amongst the Organa court. He may not have been the best of people in Legends but the sky is the limit when it comes to canon.

Laryn Kre’fey – Or, as Rogue Podron as renamed him, Cray Cray Kre’fey. It’s only a matter of time before Bothans make their return to prominence in canon. Rebels needs on ranking officer cannon fodder and we should offer up Laryn Kre’fey. He’s arrogant and not too smart. In other words, he’s the perfect character to bring over from Legends just to die because of his own mess up. (He’s a legend because of how much he’s sucked. That’s the joke, guys.)
Continue reading →

Rebels Review: The Secret of Chopper Base

Posted on by

rebels logoThe Mystery of Chopper Base has the distinction of being an episode that I was enjoying but mostly ambivalent towards for most of it but had me completely hooked by the end thanks to a very well placed musical cue. Kevin Kiner continues to nail it this season. That last slowed down version of the Imperial March? Perfection. That Big Damn Heroes moment? Also perfection. But let’s break down the rest of the episode.

As mentioned in Rebels Recon, this episode served a sort of season finale for most of the crew of the Ghost. They found a new base for the Rebels and complete their mission. For the Jedi amongst the crew, we’ll continue to follow them next week so it was nice to get one last team up and see them work together to save Rex from the spiders on the planet. Sabine in particular gets some solidly good moments and even saves the day. If the Ghost family had been relying on their Jedi to save them, they never would have survived. Speaking of which… Continue reading →

post

Rebels Review: The Forgotten Droid

Posted on by

rebels logoWith a potential new base found, the Rebels need fuel, and the Ghost crew is once more on the case. Heading to a well-guarded Imperial refueling outpost, Hera puts Chopper in charge of staying with the Ghost and monitoring Imperial transmission, but he instead gets distracted by a new leg strut at a nearby shop.

Chopper being Chopper, he ignores his orders and instead steals the leg. After being accidentally abandoned by the Ghost crew, he is chased by stormtroopers into an Imperial cargo ship, where he meets an inventory droid, AP-5.

In The Forgotten Droid, we learn a bit more about Chopper’s backstory and his character beyond the fact he is a somewhat malicious, unpredictable droid. He’s a veteran of the Clone Wars, where he was a military droid, saved from a crash by Hera on Ryloth. AP-5, too, is a Clone Wars veteran, having been a tactical droid during the same Ryloth campaign. The two droids bond over their war stories, and Chopper shows he can care about something other than himself, surprising even Hera. This episode helps to build upon previous episodes, such as Homecoming, with little tidbits of character history.

Continue reading →

Rebels Review: Shroud of Darkness

Posted on by

rebels logo“Shroud of Darkness” starts right in the middle of the action, with Kanan and Ezra fighting the Inquisitors. They took the Phantom to find a new base, and somehow the Seventh Sister and the Fifth Brother managed to track them. They’ve been tracking them for a while, actually, and Kanan decides it’s time to ask the Force for guidance. Thus Kanan, Ezra, and Ahsoka head off to the Jedi Temple on Lothal.

It’s no secret I don’t usually care for Force-centric episodes, which is ironic considering my favorite scenes in the Original Trilogy involve Luke’s Jedi training and confrontation with Palpatine. The “luminous beings” speech from The Empire Strikes Back is my favorite in the entire saga. At some point, I feel like The Clone Wars and Rebels went overboard with Force mysticism, to the point where it’s just too weird for me. Your mileage may vary, of course, but I prefer to interpret events like Mortis as happening in the Force, not in real life (or ignore them completely).

This is a long way of saying I probably shouldn’t have liked this episode, but I did! I liked it a lot, actually, mostly because of Kanan and Ahsoka’s plot lines. I love Kanan having to deal with the implications of training Ezra, and that he might fail in doing so. I love him facing the Temple Guard and realizing the answer is not to fight. His insight is very similar to Luke’s in Return of the Jedi (and makes me really excited to see Episode VIII and why exactly Luke decided to leave the galaxy). Kanan being a full Jedi Knight has a ton of implications and I’m really excited to see how this affects the show going forward. The revelation that the Grand Inquisitor was once a Temple Guard was a bit predictable, given what we’d heard in behind the scenes interviews, but made me wonder if that’s how the Emperor got all of the Inquisitors.

I also loved Ahsoka dealing with her suspicion that the Sith Lord they faced is actually Anakin Skywalker. Hearing Matt Lanter’s voice again was awesome, not to mention a knife to the heart. Ezra seeing Yoda was a nice touch, but I’m much more interested in Kanan and Ahsoka. Sorry, I know people love Ezra, but he’s just not my favorite. The idea that Ezra might go dark, however, intrigues me a lot. I can’t lie.

The Inquisitors track our heroes to the temple, but the Force helps them escape. Vader arrives at the temple too late to catch them, but he has some insights of his own. Insights that will most certainly spell certain doom for some of the Jedi. (It should spell doom for all of them, but that’s another blog post.)

We’re nearing the end of Season 2, and this episode made me really excited to see how things wrap up. I also can’t wait to see Ahsoka confront Vader again, because I’m masochistic like that. Overall, “Shroud of Darkness” was a great episode, with little to complain about. I just hope we get more with the other characters throughout the rest of the season as well!

Star Wars Rebels Review: The Honorable Ones

Posted on by

rebels logoOn this Very Special Episode of Star Wars: Rebels, Zeb and Agent Kallus realize they aren’t as different as they thought. Or something.

The moving pieces in this episode are more set dressing to facilitate some lightspeed character progression for Zeb and our favorite inept Imperial agent, Kallus. A raid by the Ghost crew goes badly, and they’re forced to leave without Zeb as things get hot and hairy when Kallus’ men reveal that yes, it’s a trap. Zeb punches out on an escape pod with Kallus hitching a ride, but things go south and they wound up landing on the moon below the station.

Did I mention that moon belongs to Geonosis? Yeah.

So they crash onto an -extremely- cold part of the planet and have to work together to not die of exposure. Or the giant dinosaur thing that wants to eat them badly. It’s really not a good day for Zeb and Kallus. Forced to cooperate, they manage to activate a locator beacon, haul themselves out of a cavern, not get eaten, and learn some valuable lessons about themselves along the way. When rescue shows up, Kallus chooses not to be rescued by the Ghost crew and Zeb chooses not to force the issue and take him prisoner. Later, Kallus is rescued by the Empire and there’s a quiet moment in which he seems to reflect, alone, that maybe Zeb isn’t so bad after all, and maybe the Empire isn’t as great as he thought.

The moving pieces in this episode were a lot of fun, as they always provide Zeb with some chances for witty one-liners. I admit that the odd-couple setup for Zeb and Kallus had me interested, and I appreciated that this episode took the chance to do some background building for Kallus and just what he did to the Lasat. Unfortunately for me where it fell flat was Kallus suddenly having… well, a heart. Throughout the show, he’s been this (forgive me) cartoonish, mutton chop mustache twirling, kind-of-but-really incompetent villain. There wasn’t a whole lot leading up to this contemplative and has a heart Kallus.

I think, though, that leads into a bigger issue I’ve had with Rebels this season. Every week is, to borrow from X-Files parlance, a Monster of the Week episode. There hasn’t been a real overarching story that connects the episodes together. Each week is sort of a one off. Maybe if Rebels this season was constructed in a more Carter or Whedonesque fashion (Connected episodes with the Monster of the Week episodes punctuating them on occasion), Kallus having a heart works better. More consistent arcs that dole out the character development in smaller chunks makes an episode like this one feel more believable.

There’s precedence for animated shows like that. Young Justice, Avatar: TLA, Legend of Korra. Unfortunately, those shows seem to be magnetically linked to the cancellation axe. It’s a bummer, because as good as Rebels is (and it’s very good), it just feels like it could be better and more cohesive as a whole.

If it was, episodes like this would have carried more weight and felt a little less like it was just out of left field.