Rebels: "Crawler Commandeers" (Ep. 4.08)

-- "We've done a lot more with a lot less."

Sometimes, I'm reminded how dumb droids are in Star Wars. Not the idea of them, but the actual droids. No, I don't mean the battle droids; they have a reason to be that way. But there's no good reason for anyone to be able to sneak up on a security droid and, yet, Sabine does just that. If you're going to use droids for security, they should be able to see, or whatever, in all directions. They shouldn't be marching around on patrol like a stormtrooper. If that's the way you want to play it, use a stormtrooper.

Yeah, sometimes I'm bothered by little details, even in Star Wars.

I don't have much to say about this episode other than that. It has almost nothing to do with the overall plot arc and nothing of real significance happens. It was amusing, but, mostly, it just left me with, "Why?" Not that I believe that everything must further the story, but this episode seems to be totally inconsequential.

"That could have gone better."
"I thought it was pretty good."

"It's not too late to abandon ship."

"Like mother said, 'Once a scoundrel, always a scoundrel.'"

Rebels: "In the Name of the Rebellion: Part One" (Ep. 4.03)

-- "There she is, coming in hot with what's left of her squadron."

The question of Saw Gerrera is a difficult one. As we saw in Rogue One, Saw eventually becomes so extreme that not even the rebels want him, a terrorist kicked out by other terrorists. Which begs the question, what is too extreme in war? When you are being oppressed, where do you draw the line in regaining your freedom? At what point does freedom become too high a cost?

No, I don't have an answer to that.

There's that whole, you can't fight like them, be like them, or you become as bad as them, become them, but if the other option is to be dead...? Is it better to allow yourself to be killed, to stop short of a goal like freedom, not just for yourself but for everyone, than to cross some arbitrary line and become like "them"? Isn't that kind of selfish? Putting your own good ahead of the good of thousands. Or millions. Or billions. "I could get freedom for you, but it would have required me to kill some people in cold blood, so I said nah."

I don't know if these episodes here that are bringing Saw back into the picture are actually going to deal with any of these questions or not, but they are acknowledging that the questions are there.

None of which tells you anything about the actual episode, but I think that's fine. This stuff is more important than the episode itself. I guess we'll find out where it all takes us in part two now that Saw has sort of kidnapped Ezra and Sabine.

Wait, what?!

They didn't go unwillingly. Not that it was exactly willingly either.
I guess you'll have to watch it.

"This is a time of difficult choices, sometimes impossible ones."

"I hope you will find some comfort in the fact that you fought according to the rules."

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.

Clone Wars -- "Senate Murders" (Ep. 2.15)

-- Searching for the truth is easy. Accepting the truth is hard.

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This episode, I believe, is the first episode where we begin to see what and who become the core of the rebellion. I could be wrong about it being the first because I'm not looking back to see, but it is the first episode with Mon Mothma, so I'm going with it. The episode revolves around the issue of putting a halt to the creation of anymore clone troopers for the war.

Which is an interesting question when you're in the midst of a war against an aggressor. The contention of Padme, Bail Organa, and Mon Mothma is that if troop production is halted then diplomacy would have to take its place. They believe diplomacy is the road to peace. Palpatine, of course, believes that peace can only be achieved through victory on the field.

At least, that's his stated belief.

I suppose that must be somewhat like playing chess against yourself only with some of the pieces making their own decisions. Hmm... Maybe it's more like playing The Sims. My wife used to get constantly frustrated by her sims going off and doing things she didn't tell them to do.

The action in the episode has nothing to do with any of this, though. All of this is just the backdrop, but I find the backdrop more interesting than what's going on center stage. Not that there's anything wrong with what's going on center stage, because there's not. It's a fine episode and one that doesn't involve the Jedi at all. Or the clones. It's very rare in that. Still, it's the philosophical questions that are touched on that are of real interest, the things you see played out in the background.