Rebels: "A Fool's Hope" (Ep. 4.14)

-- "That would be no problem for me."

Ezra sees a window to get Lothal out from under the thumb of the Empire; the problem is that rebel command has written Lothal off as a planet that can't be helped. Which is totally understandable considering the fact that they lost their entire attack fleet (mostly fighters) when they went after the TIE Defender program. Every last ship. The cost of Lothal is just too high.

But in many ways, Ezra is the last Jedi -- Sure, Ahsoka is out there, and so are Yoda and Obi-Wan, but they've all retreated into hiding, which only leaves Ezra out in the world. Alone. -- and he has a plan.

Most of this episode is battle sequences, including a duel between Ezra and Rukh. Exciting stuff.

The episode is also fairly typical, story-wise, which is fine. It's an exciting episode. However, there is, for me, a major flaw with the story, one which is too spoilery for me to talk about. I'll just say that it would have been a much more interesting story if they'd gone the other way with it rather than sticking to what is stereotypical for these kinds of things. Maybe there would have been too much involved in doing that in a series that's winding down; I don't know.

But the episode has Hondo, so I can't complain too much, even if they did have him throw himself all in with the rebels. I get it. They have to tie up all of the loose threads, and Hondo needs an honest-to-goodness happy ending, kind of like Han in Jedi.

"He talks a lot for a smuggler."

"For that boy, there is nothing I would not do." -- Hondo

"This is the risk you take when you are a pirate."

Rebels: "The Occupation" (Ep. 4.05)

-- "Everyone is suffering."

You know how they say you can't go home again? Maybe that should just be that you don't want to go home again. At least, not after the Empire has occupied it.

Ezra and company go back to Lothal to find that the Empire has turned much of Lothal into a wasteland. They have a mission, but Ezra is just busy coping with what's happened to his homeland. Well, you know, as much as they allow that to be a thing in a 20 minute cartoon, meaning Ezra gets about three minutes to deal with what's happened.

Most of the episode is them running through sewers.
Very clean sewers.

"I'm going home to help my people."

"Apparently, there's something wrong with my face."

"Don't make me paint you again."

Rebels: "In the Name of the Rebellion: Part Two" (Ep. 4.04)

-- "We turned a worst-case scenario into the best!"

Considering that we know where Saw Gerrera ends up, it should be no surprise that this episode puts us on the trail of the Death Star with the discovery that the Empire is transporting another overly large Kaiburr crystal. This ongoing plot line, carried over from Clone Wars, is one I really like. It's interesting to follow the rebels trail to discovering the Death Star, not that they were able to do anything about it before it was too late. At least too late for Alderaan.

Which takes us back to our question from last episode... sort of. Because this episode doesn't really address the issue; it just kind of skirts around it. Rather than dealing with the philosophies of the opposing viewpoints -- one being that we should be better than our enemies rather than lowering ourselves to their level, the other being that we should win at all costs -- they turn it into a personal matter for Ezra and Sabine because Saw betrays them when they balk at what he wants them to do. They're not likely going to see any part of the side of "win at all costs" when they are the ones being considered a cost of victory.

But that still leaves the philosophical question hanging in the air. I mean, we know what the Empire is doing and that they're going to use it to destroy whole planets, but does that, even with knowledge, justify the sacrificing of some "innocents" to achieve victory?

I don't have any answers at the moment.

But I'm sure that this question is weighing on me the way it is because, in many respects, the GOP is currently the Empire, and they are doing their best to build a Death Star and, mostly, the Democrats are just arguing about what to do about it. We already saw in the last election that "going high" when they go low does not win battles. Or elections.

"What you're saying is that we owe you."

"Just an observation, this isn't a very good rescue."

"This droid is cross-wired."

"Those two can't go anywhere without blowing something up."

Rebels: "Secret Cargo" (Ep. 3.18)

-- "I've begun to see this fight cannot be won in the Senate."

One of the things I've enjoyed most about Rebels (and Clone Wars to some extent, though this has been much more prevalent in Rebels) is the introduction of characters that we have known from the movies and getting to see where they came from and how they ended up who they are, especially with the more background characters. It gives an interesting perspective on how things turn out and gives us the opportunity to get to know some characters that we never had a chance to get to know before they died. They've brought in quite a few characters from red and gold squadrons that die in the assault on the Death Star. Gold Leader is in this episode, for instance.

But what we're really getting to see is Mon Mothma coming into the rebellion and pulling all of the disassociated rebel cells together into what will become the Rebel Alliance. I'm going to admit here that I have never been a huge fan of Mothma. In Return of the Jedi, she's overly stoic and devoid of charisma, enough so that it made me wonder (even when I was 13) how it was that she got to be in charge. I always felt that Leia would have been a much better choice. This episode, though, gives us some insight into how Mothma got to be in charge, and it makes much more sense with this as background.

Plus there's a lot of fun as the Empire pursues Mothma in the hopes of capturing her alive.
Most importantly, there's what may be the best animation sequence in one of these shows that I've seen. I don't want to give anything away, but it has to do with igniting nebula gas as a weapon. Really, so cool.

And, as I said last review, things are getting serious. It's time for you to start watching.

Rebels: "Legacy of Mandalore" (Ep. 3.16)

-- "Maybe things have changed. They might be happy to see you."

You know, crash landings in spaceships in the Star Wars universe is way safer than crashing a car here in ours. I mean, no one ever dies. Or is even hurt. Sometimes, the spaceships aren't even hurt that bad. I suppose 40 years of precedence is hard to overcome. No, I don't know why I've never realized this before, but this episode gets us going with a crash landing, and the realization sort of just hit me like a spaceship to the skull. Not only is everyone fine, but the spaceship doesn't need any repairs.

Anyway...

Mandalore has gone over to the Empire, something I'm not sure I've mentioned in any of my earlier reviews, and their armor looks pretty cool in white. Sabine has gone home with the darksaber to try to rally support to the Rebellion. Hi-jinks ensue.

By hi-jinks I mean betrayal and family conflict.

This episode marks a turning point in the series. I'm not sure what kind of turning point, but I will say that Ezra and Kanan leave Mandalore with only Chopper, leaving two of their companions behind.

Yeah, read between the lines; I'm not spelling it all out for you.

Or go watch the episode.

"Didn't you tell them who you were?"
"That's probably why they're shooting at us."

"That went better than expected."

"That was better?"

Rebels: "Ghosts of Geonosis: Part 2" (Ep. 3.13)

-- "We're in trouble!"

Jumptroopers are cool! Or, as they are called in this episode, rocket troopers. But I looked it up and "rocket troopers" are the "also know as" term, so I'm going with jumptrooper.

Also, Saw Gerrera is an asshole. Which I knew, because you can see the asshole streak in him back when he was first introduced, but it's becoming more than a streak, something more along the lines of a big, gaping hole. It doesn't make it less interesting to see the evolution of the character from his first appearance in Clone Wars to his last in Rogue One.

This is one of those frustrating kind of episodes. The team caught a Geonosian last episode, and it keeps trying to tell them about the Death Star, but, well, there's a language barrier and the rebels have no actual way to comprehend what it's trying to say, so they continually misunderstand.

And then they have to fight the Empire.

Most of the episode, though, is dedicated to the question of whether the Geonosians deserve to be wiped out, not the kind of question Rebels usually goes in for, so it was good to have them dealing with a more serious kind of philosophical question. You know, the kind of thing Clone Wars did all the time.

"Stupid sand. It gets everywhere."

"This doesn't look good."

"I want one of those jet packs!"
"I know."

Rebels: "The Antilles Extraction" (Ep. 3.04)

-- "We are unarmed. You have no right to fire on us!"

One of the things that has become kind of accepted lore about Star Wars is that the rebels have better pilots (and ships) than the Empire, just much fewer of them. What the Empire lacks in skill and shields, they make up for with numbers. Lots and lots of numbers.
The opening of this episode abuses that notion as a handful of TIE fighters lay waste to an entire rebel squadron of a-wings.
It was fairly spectacular.

But, you know, early days of the rebellion and all that.
It was clear the rebellion needed better pilots...

So they sent Sabine in to get some.

And we get to meet Wedge while he's still an Imperial cadet!
Which is pretty fucking cool.

I can't honestly say at what point I became a Wedge fan. I know that it feels to me that it was before Empire came out. I mean, he did fly his x-wing right through a TIE fighter. So cool. Of course, he also abandoned Luke during the trench run, so... there's that. I do know that I was very excited that he was Red Leader in Jedi. I suppose it doesn't really matter when, just that I am. Cool character. Glad to see his origin story, per se.

"We have to make the most of this chance; we might not get another."

"What's your plan?"
"I'll tell you when I figure it out."

"We were coming to rescue you."
"That's cute."

Rebels: "Homecoming" (Ep. 2.16)

-- They're always on schedule.

Ah, we get some background on Hera, finally!

And some action to go along with it.

Evidently, Hera's father was a famous general on Ryloth during the Clone Wars. Actually, having seen the episodes he was in in The Clone Wars, I'm familiar with him as a character. And he went to be a famous general. Kanan is kind of in awe.

To make things interesting, Hera and her father don't get along. He's not for the Rebellion, only Ryloth, which puts them in conflict when Hera comes for help for a Rebel cause. Hera wants to steal an Imperial ship; Cham wants to blow it up. A symbolic gesture.

All that and we get to see Ezra do his first Jedi Mind Trick.

Fun!

"Hang on!"

"I hate it when she says that."

Rebels: "The Call" (Ep. 2.15)

-- "It's not the strangest thing we've ever done."

"Yeah, that doesn't make me feel better."

So now we know that Jedi can survive and operate in the vacuum of space... unless Kanan and Ezra wear special "pressure clothes" just in case they need to space walk, but I'm going to go with the being functional in a vacuum. We kind of already knew that from an episode of Clone Wars, but, Plo Koon (at least, I think it was him, and I'm not looking back to verify) seemed to imply that was a very limited ability. All of that, or there was some kind of atmosphere around the asteroid they were on providing enough pressure to allow them to function without a suit? But not breathe. The breathing was definitely an issue.

Anyway... Space whales! This isn't the first time we've encountered giant creatures living out in the vacuum of space in Star Wars. Or even the second. The first, of course, being in The Empire Strikes Back and the giant space slug that wanted to eat the Falcon. Not to mention the mynocks.

This episode, the Ghost runs out of fuel. I have to wonder if this is where idiot Rian Johnson got the idea for an entire fleet of ships to all run out of fuel at the same time. Probably not. Anyway, as I said before, I don't have a problem with the fuel idea; it's that ALL OF THE SHIPS ran out of gas AT THE SAME TIME! This was much better. Just one ship running on fumes, not the whole fleet.

And what do rebels do when they're running low on fuel? Steal it from the Empire, of course.

"Sounds like a dangerous plan."

"Don't worry, buddy, you're staying here."

"Sounds like a good plan."

"There's no explosion. Why's there no explosion?"

"Next time we just plan on the plan changing."

Rebels: "A Princess on Lothal" (Ep. 2.12)

-- In our position, you take what you can get, Kid.

Fuuuuuccck! When the Empire deploys AT-ATs, they just drop them! They DROP them! That explains the legs on them, I suppose.

My son couldn't buy it, though. Me, I was willing to give them that one. It was when Kanan -- see picture above, which is really cool -- went running at the AT-AT with a lightsaber THEN cut right through its legs (yes, two of them!) as if they were butter that they lost me. I mean, they had just dropped the AT-AT from a spaceship and the legs had supported the drop! But Kanan can just slice through them as he runs by? I don't think so. Go back to Phantom Menace and how long it took Qui-Gon to cut through one of those doors on the Trade Federation ship. Oh, wait! He wasn't able to do it in time. AT-AT legs have to be at least that tough.

Anyway...

This episode features a certain princess, and it's a pretty decent episode. You know, except for the bit mentioned above and that Leia seems to be unable to connect with people. Hmm... Actually, I suppose that's just Leia, so it makes sense when Kanan tells her that she should talk to Ezra because she understands what it's like to be young and have a lot of responsibility that she kind of just fails at that.

This is Leia before she's a senator. At least, that's what I'm assuming because her father is the senator from Alderaan. It's interesting to see her from this perspective, but it's more interesting to see the Empire's view of Alderaan. It gives a little insight on why Tarkin becomes so willing to blow it up.

"Wait, why does she get to give orders? I don't get to give orders."

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (a movie review post)

Before I get into the review itself, let me say up front that I loved this movie. I was very trepidatious about this movie ahead of time. It's not like Gareth Edwards, the director, has made anything prior to this worth watching: Monsters was the cliche of every indie movie out there, full of dialogue that was written to verbalize the personal philosophies of the director, and boring; and Godzilla was... well, it just was. That coupled with the fact that Disney took the movie away from Edwards back in June or July to do re-shoots because it was testing so poorly with audiences leads me to believe that the quality of Rogue One is due more to Disney than to Edwards.

But I did love it. In so many ways, it was like being a kid again and watching Star Wars for the first time. Not in a nostalgic way, which is what Abrams was going for with Force Awakens (and which didn't work for me at all, because I don't want to see the same thing again because I already saw that movie(s), and Lucas did it better than Abrams), but in that way of seeing something new and brilliant for the first time. Something that excites you. Rogue One did that.

Which is not to say that there aren't plenty of nods to the original trilogy, but that's the thing: They are just nods, not throwing the same story back at us.

Rogue One sets itself apart from the very beginning: There is no opening crawl. The lack of it was... weird, and I immediately went to a negative space of, "Oh, man, this is going to be bad." It went on from there to offer place name subtitles, which reinforced that initial internal groan. The movie, however, quickly overcame those initial misgivings.

So what is there that I can say about it that is not spoilery? Rogue One gives us a real view of what the Rebellion is all about. I think there is a lack of understanding about how much Luke Skywalker changed the Rebellion and what it was. The Rebellion grew out of the destruction of the Jedi. We see that at the end of Revenge of the Sith, normal humans witnessing the destruction of the Jedi Order, the protectors of peace and freedom in the galaxy, and determining to resist and fight back... on their own.

Fight back against the Empire, which includes both the Emperor and Darth Vader. With no Jedi.

That's the world we find ourselves in, and there are no holds barred. As such, this movie is... there's no other word for it than brutal.

And it's excellent.

The cast, also, is great. Felicity Jones, whom I was also trepidatious about after her performance in The Theory of Everything (which probably wasn't her fault; it just wasn't a very good movie, and her role was rather weak), performed admirably as Jyn Erso. There's not a moment when you don't believe she is not a strong, street-smart young person. You can tell she is trouble right from the beginning of the movie, unlike Luke.

In fact, there are so many great performances (from the most diverse cast of any Star Wars movie and, possibly, one of the most diverse casts of any movie (no, I haven't done the research on that, but, at least, on the rebel side of things, there are virtually no white, male cast members, highlighting the white male human supremacy of the Empire)) that it would take too long to go into them all. The only performance I was disappointed in was that of Forest Whitaker, an actor I really like, but I think that was mostly due to the very brief screen time the character of Saw Gerrera was given.

This next thing might be considered a spoiler, but it's something definitely worth noting, especially since, as far as I can tell, no one is talking about it. At least, no one is talking about it in any of the more mainstream reviews that I've seen.
Rogue One contains what I believe is the first homosexual couple in Star Wars: Chirrut Imwe and Baze Malbus. It's not explicit, which is what makes it beautiful. These are definitely two men who care deeply for each other, and I think anyone would be hard pressed to make the case that they are just "good friends." Not without some creative bending of the facts. They bicker like an old married couple and are just as affectionate. And I would really like to delve into this more, but I really can't without giving actual spoilers. Maybe I'll come back to it at a later time.

Unfortunately, I haven't had time, yet, to go see the movie for a second time, but I have a great desire to. I walked out of this one wanting to go right back in, and that desire hasn't diminished. At the moment, Rogue One is in my top three Star Wars films. It will hit you on a visceral level (my wife cried often during the movie) and leave you not knowing what to do with yourself. Other than seeing it again, that is. There's more I could say about that, but that, also, would be a spoiler. It shouldn't be (because no one ought to actually be surprised at the ending of the movie), but it would be. Just go see the movie. If you are at all a Star Wars fan, you will in all likelihood enjoy the movie immensely. If you don't like Star Wars, you might like it anyway.

It's that kind of movie.

Clone Wars -- "Kidnapped" (Ep. 4.11)

-- Where we are going always reflects where we came from.

[Remember, you can sign up to join the Clone Wars Project at any time by clicking this link.]

A theme Star Wars returns to rather more frequently than you'd think -- or, at least, I'd think -- is slavery. Chewbacca was a slave, freed by Han. Anakin was a slave, freed by Qui-Gon. The Hutts run slaves. The Trandoshans trade in slaves. And those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Oh, and the Empire, because Chewbacca was a slave owned by the Empire.

"Kidnapped" introduces a new race that specializes in trading in slaves, the Zygerrians. At least, they used to specialize in it before the Jedi shut down their slave trading ways. The problem is that the Zygerrians have been holding a grudge and have joined forces with the Separatists in the hopes that they will be able to re-establish themselves and their slave market. Their opening gambit is to invade the planet Kiros, a colony of the Togruta, a peaceful people who have no weapons.

The wrinkle? Ahsoka is Togruta.

When the Jedi arrive to assist the Togruta population, they don't find them. Any of them. All of which leads to an interesting face off between Obi-Wan and Darts D'Nar, the Zygerrian leader of the Separatist forces.

That's about all I can say without spoilers. It's a good, solid episode, and a good start to this arc.

Rebels: "Call to Action" (Ep. 1.12)

"You're finally getting the hang of this. There's hope for you yet."

After just covering Tarkin's first appearance in Clone Wars, Tarkin makes his first appearance in Rebels. As Grand Moff. The writers make a point of him saying something about how he knew actual Jedi, which makes me glad I just watched the Citadel arc in Clone Wars.

What brings Tarkin to Lothal? Our rebels, of course. Because they have begun to be bothersome enough that a Grand Moff has to make a special trip to deal with them. This means nothing good for the leadership on Lothal nor for the Inquisitor, who has not managed to deal with Kanan and Ezra. Not that Tarkin believes that there's a Jedi involved, but the Inquisitor does, and he hasn't dealt with the issue.

Now, it's not like Tarkin is travelling around stopping on cells of rebel forces; he's not. Mostly, they are disorganized groups of what amount to terrorists. But not the group on Lothal. They're different, which is what draws Tarkin to the planet.

The interesting bit is that it is because of the Empire that our little Lothal band is coming together in an organized manner, Planning and choosing strategic targets. Of course it's because of the Empire, you say. And, yes, of course, because they don't like the Empire. But, specifically, it is because the Empire begins to target them and go after them that they really begin to coalesce as a group that does more than just raid supplies.

And the show really feels like it's coming together at this point with an actual direction and ongoing plot.

Rebels: "Out of Darkness" (Ep. 1.6)

"Stay calm; it's all part  of the plan."

I was going to say, at some point you have to start revealing the back stories of the supporting characters, then I realized they've revealed the major points already on the male characters. Sure, it's only episode six, but they gave us the stories for each of the male characters by the end of the second episode.

1. Ezra: The protagonist. Orphan boy with special powers. Fantasy cliche hero. Same model as Luke, actually. And Anakin. And Harry Potter. You get the picture, I'm sure.

2. Kanan Jarrus: Jedi on the run from the Empire and trying to do it harm at the same time. Sure, we don't know everything about him, but that's really enough to place him in the spectrum of things. He's the mentor character. Flawed, but the best available.

3. Zeb: The strong man. One of the last survivors of his race. The Chewbacca replacement, down to the part where his race was exploited and killed by the Empire.

We get all of that in the first two episodes with nothing about the women other than that Hera owns The Ghost and is the pilot, and Sabine wears some pieces of Mandalorian armor.

We get to find out a tiny bit about Sabine in this episode. She was a loyal Imperial in the Academy on Mandalore, blindingly following orders... until something bad happened. Now, she has trust issues and hates it that Kanan and Hera keep her in the dark about things. The whole episode is an exploration of trust between Hera and Sabine.

There is some fighting of monsters, too.

And the repeated referring to someone called Fulcrum.

But, overall, this episode was back down into the "kids' cartoon" realm for me as the fight with the monsters had a very video game feel with even the characters referring to the combat as "wave one" and "wave two" and so on. So I'm back to waiting to see where the show goes after the brief moment of hoping that it was rising about merely being a cartoon for kids.

Star Wars: Clone Wars vs. Rebels

I've been a fan of The Clone Wars since it came out. We own the series on DVD. I was less than pleased when Disney announced, shortly after acquiring Lucasfilm, that they were cancelling production on it. Season six was in mid-production and season seven was in  the early stages of production and, while it wasn't a raging, everybody-must-watch-it-show success, it seemed to be doing fine. But, then, it was just over.

And, you know, I get it. From a business perspective, what they did made good sense. That doesn't mean I have to like it, though.

See, the thing is, The Clone Wars had a problem. It couldn't figure out its demographic. It wasn't a cartoon -- excuse me, animated television show -- made for kids. That is, they, the kids, were not the specific target audience. Clone Wars was launched for the Cartoon Network's prime time, adult viewing time slot. Clearly, it was an animated show that wanted an adult audience. It featured adult characters and dealt with a lot of mature themes. Sure, all of that was then presented in half hour blocks in such a way that kids could also digest the material and Ahsoka was included to allow the younger viewing audience a character they could identify with. But it wasn't a show for kids and, so, it also wasn't a show for adults. It just grabbed people like me who wanted to know more about the gap between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith and all the kids who just like the excellent Star Wars action.

Rebels, however, is a show solidly targeting kids.You can tell because the protagonist is a kid. And, well, from what I can tell so far (only having watched the first couple of episodes), the overall action is going to revolve around the Empire's search for the "children of the Force" in its quest to exterminate the Jedi. So, still, maybe, dealing with some mature themes but, I'm going to assume, handled in a child-appropriate way. After all, we are quite used to things like dinosaurs and killer robots and gangsters chasing kids with the intent to kill.

And, well, Disney wanted to bring Star Wars to the Disney Channel, not Cartoon Network, so allowing Clone Wars to slip away allowed Disney to launch Rebels on its own network.

I'm glad to see that some of the characters from Clone Wars will carry over.

So, yeah, I'll be reviewing Rebels as I watch it, but it won't be on a weekly basis like we're doing with The Clone Wars. It will be interesting to see how it compares.