One Step Forward, One Step Back: Star Wars Rebels Review

Fanghawk

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One Step Forward, One Step Back: Star Wars Rebels Review

"Droids in Distress" tries to cram way too much into a single half hour episode.

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rofltehcat

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Jul 24, 2009
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Overall I have to say that I liked the pilot and the episode. But I feel that they are possibly using too many in-jokes/references/easter eggs. But as a more light-hearted approach to Star Wars it probably needs a few of those. Still, too many of those feel a bit obnoxious rather than charming and bog the episode down a bit.

About the ethics of selling the weapons: I think the rogue/jedi guy is more of a grey jedi rather than one of the "good" jedi. At least he seems to worry a lot less about the dark side and ethics but maybe this is just because he has to keep his jedi abilities a secret. In kotor I always liked the grey jedi more than some of the pure evil/pure good ones, although some of them still had doubts or likeable aspects. Overall, I really prefer having a jedi with some possible character development and flexibility around rather than a steadfast preacher-jedi.

This also ties into that I'm still not sure if the series is aimed more at children or at people plagued by nostalgic feelings. Maybe at people who watched Star Wars when they were young and now have children of their own to watch it with? Like Disney movies also always seem to contain some aspects (e.g. in-jokes/references) for older viewers. Wait... this is Disney now, right?
 

Buizel91

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Aug 25, 2008
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It's clear why 3P0 and R2 are in it.

Starwars has been hiding under the radar for ages, sure we had Clone wars, but nothing much else on the TV aside from the movies playing on ITV every once in a while.

It's trying to find itself, and the best way it can do that is bringing in well known characters to keep the views up. Wouldn't be surprised if 3P0 and R2 became recurring characters.
 

rofltehcat

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arc1991 said:
It's trying to find itself, and the best way it can do that is bringing in well known characters to keep the views up. Wouldn't be surprised if 3P0 and R2 became recurring characters.
That would be interesting. But I'd prefer them to not appear too often (or too long), 3PO is pretty obnoxious and tail-riding on nostalgia alone doesn't really work.
They could be the rebels' contacts to Senator Whatshisname who is obviously working against the empire from within and could give them information on key targets every few episodes.
 

Win32error

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Jul 18, 2011
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It feels like they were making sure not to have an irrelevant episode right after the first one. By setting up long-running plot points, they at least avoided that, but it did feel a bit rushed. I'm not too happy about the revelation about Kallus, i'm much more afraid he'll grow into an ineffectual villain than one that isn't evil enough. Let's just hope they won't always bring him around just to fail at accomplishing anything.

When it comes to the droids, i'm fairly okay with them appearing already to reinforce the fact that it's the same universe, but I do hope they keep it limited. The cast should (and very clearly can) stand up on it's own, and dragging in characters from the rest of the universe doesn't neccesarily make any of it better. Of course, someone like bail organa wouldn't be much of a problem considering he didn't even appear in the OT.
 

nevarran

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Just watched the fist episode. I liked it, but just like The Clone Wars, it seemed rather childish for my taste.
I wish they would make a more mature SW animation, I would really enjoy that.
 

Yozozo

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Mar 28, 2009
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I think everyone is missing the most important thing about this episode:

The Star Tours pilot droid is now cannon.
 

Ishal

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Again with the complaining for an Empire that is evil? Really?

They blow up a planet to prove a point killing billions, then there is this. I don't see how it being somehow coincidental is a mark against the episode. Kallus is an ISB agent, and likely given command over certain Imperial Navy operations, especially if they involve Imperial security matters, like oh... I don't know, a potentially rebellious or dangerous planet? And it is a known fact that the empire does not look kindly on aliens.

If this raised your eyebrow a bit, that's fine. But I have to wonder if stuff in the original trilogy did as well. Like say... Vader being the iconic villain who chokes people with magic, fights with a red laser sword. Then, at the climax when their battle station is under attack, he hops in a Tie Fighter to try and stop them himself, because of course he's a pilot, too! And an exceptional one to boot. This kind of stuff isn't new to Star Wars.

I understand that it's nice to look at the Empire and want to have a few people there that satisfy your cravings for that moral grey area. It would be nice, but only if it's done well, and the character is not tampered with like a certain one in The Clone Wars that they tried something similar with.

The Empire are space Nazis, and their propaganda permeates everything in their training programs. Tie Pilots, AT AT drivers, Stormtroopers, etc.

What you want is this.


But that might not be what they're going for with this show, and that's okay. And if contrivances or coincidences are a concern to you, how contrived would it be that the crew of the Ghost just happened to run into that guy?
 

Fanghawk

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Ishal said:
Hey friend, that evil Empire comment was literally just a sentence. And it wasn't about the Empire being "evil"; it was about forcing unnecessary plots twists/backstory into an already bloated episode.

In other words, I'm halfway-agreeing with you: This episode should have just been "we know the Empire is evil, you don't need to mess with it".

Once again, my problem isn't making the Empire evil, it's that evil /= interesting. Vader and Tarkin don't have that problem because they're great characters. But Kallus is Generic Antagonist #8, and making him a mass murderer doesn't fix that.
 

Fanghawk

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rofltehcat said:
About the ethics of selling the weapons: I think the rogue/jedi guy is more of a grey jedi rather than one of the "good" jedi. At least he seems to worry a lot less about the dark side and ethics but maybe this is just because he has to keep his jedi abilities a secret.
True, but since Kanan still has Obi-Wan's final message (not the mention the whole "I'll train you as a Jedi" thing) you'd think he was still following those Jedi principles pretty closely. I agree that it could be interesting moving forward, but in this context all we have is "We're the heroes but also amoral weapons dealers because reasons".
 

Baresark

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I like this show. I think one of it's biggest failings at this point is the compulsory need to have any Jedi characters what so ever. It's like they are afraid to have anything Star Wars without the Force being included. I think they are among the most boring characters in the whole universe and it's a shitty writing shortcut. "How can we have this character cross this area? Oh, we'll use the force!"

I definitely like the first episode better for the above mentioned reasons. At least it's not Clone Wars though. That got so old so quick for me because it used the very boring clone wars era for it's stories. I do still look forward to where this goes though. I want to find out more about the girl in the Mandalorian armor. Is she Mando'ade? If not, where did she get the armor? So many questions and no Anakin in sight.
 

Phil the Nervous

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The Kallus twist actually made sense to me, instead of being some kind of random villain-of-the-week he's there to finish the genocide. Absurdly evil? Yes. But it explains why he was so off-guard in most of the fights so far. Guy wasn't prepared for Jedi. That'll probably be more important later when the guy he was reporting to shows up.

Plus that fight was awesome. They really stepped up the choreography since the clone wars ended.
 

leviticusd

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Mar 19, 2009
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Yozozo said:
I think everyone is missing the most important thing about this episode:

The Star Tours pilot droid is now cannon.
This was the best cameo for me. Artoo and Threepio were bound to show up and I kind of agree that is the case, but when I saw them board practically a replica of the Star Tours ride, I couldn't have been happier. That hit child nostalgia in a brand new way.