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: "Gathering Forces" (Ep. 1.8)

"Make it your specialty and make it fast or this ship becomes a real ghost!"

The Inquisitor is hot on the heels of the crew of the Ghost chasing after a cybernetically enhanced rodian who has inadvertently stolen Imperial plans. At least, that's who he's supposed to be chasing, because the information the rodian is carrying is significant: blue prints for top secret weapons, deployment schedules, what the Emperor eats for breakfast. Okay, so I'm kidding on that last bit; it's what the Inquisitor eats for breakfast. Fine, still kidding. It's important stuff, though, and the Empire wants it back.

The situation is complicated by the fact that Tseebo, the rodian, and Ezra have a history, one Ezra is not prepared to forgive. Then there's the fact that, no matter how important the information Tseebo has is, the Inquisitor is more interested in bringing down Kanan and his Padawan. Kanan uses that to his advantage which, of course, puts him and Ezra into harms way.

A was not completely happy with the episode "Out of Darkness," as I said in that review a couple of weeks ago. This episode somewhat redeems that one by bringing elements of that episode back into the plot. "Gathering Forces" reaches back and elevates what felt like a mostly disposable episode at the time by giving it a larger purpose in the scheme of things. That's the kind of thing I like in story telling, where things that seem insignificant at the time return later and show their importance. Not that this is incredibly significant, but it's enough so to make it interesting.

So the show has bounced back up in my estimation, especially with the conclusion of this episode, showing that things are going to be a bit more complex than what is normal for just a kids' show.

Rebels: "Breaking Ranks" (Ep. 1.5)

"Don't worry. I've been training to be a Jedi."
"Yeah, right. Who isn't?"

In this episode, Ezra goes under cover.

In many ways, this is the mirror to the Clone Wars episode "Death Trap." In that one, a young Boba Fett went undercover as clone trooper cadet; in this one, Ezra goes undercover as a stormtrooper cadet. In that one, Boba was attempting an assassination; in this one, Ezra is trying to steal something the crew of the Ghost needs to save lives. In that one, Boba betrays the friends he's made; in this one, Ezra risks his life to save the new friends he's made.

There's one other significant interesting difference:
Throughout the Clone Wars series, we see the clones being trained to work together, trained to be one unit rather than a bunch of individuals. And, as close as the clones were to each other, they still had to be trained to work together. In this episode of Rebels, though, we see the stormtrooper cadets being encouraged to work for themselves individually, even to the detriment of their fellow stormtroopers. [This might explain why stormtroopers never hit anything.]

Also, there's a brief bit with the Inquisitor, a bit which may be a reveal on what the underlying reason is for the method of training for the stormtroopers.

The only negative I have about the episode is the video game nature of the particular training event happening in "Breaking Ranks." And how easy it is after the commander built it up as the most difficult thing they'd ever face. Yeah, I know it's 20 minute cartoon, but it seems like they could have come up with something more interesting and dangerous enough to be believable.

Rebels: "Droids in Distress" (Ep. 1.2)

"Your formal Jedi training starts tomorrow."

"Droids in Distress" actually opens with the distress of Ezra, distress over not being taught to use the Force by his would be mentor Kanan Jarrus, but it quickly moves to the distress of the entire crew of the Ghost as they lament over needing a job or not being able to keep the ship running. [I was strongly reminded of Firefly during this whole exchange.]

The droid part doesn't start until they actually begin their job, which is when we... Well, let's just say I was surprised to run into R2-D2 and C-3PO, basically, right off the bat for the series. They are the droids who are in distress. Okay, C-3PO is the droid who is in distress, but what's new? Of course, C-3PO believes that R2 is also in distress but, as we find out, R2 is really on a secret mission. Also sound familiar?

The episode gives us some the background for Zeb, one of the remaining of the Lasat. We get to find out why. I'll be interested to find out how this particular thread develops. It seems to me to be more along the lines of what Lucas originally had intended for the wookies before Chewbacca happened to them.

There's also what we'll call a cameo appearance by Bail Organa, somewhat like the way he shows up at the end of Revenge of the Sith. Organa was one of the movers behind the Rebellion, so I'm curious as to how often he's going to show up. I think my vote is for "more often," as long as he doesn't become some kind of deus ex machina device.

Rebels: "Spark of Rebellion" -- Part 2 (Ep. 1.1b)

"You're about as bright as a binary droid."

The real question in this two-part opening to Rebels is, "Is Ezra a good guy?" Ezra doesn't seem to think so. He looks out for himself. Period. At least, that's his perception of himself. It's all rather Han Solo. Of course, as with Han, Ezra finds out he can't so easily turn his back on those in need.

Which gets him into trouble.
And allows him the opportunity to find out whether he can depend upon the crew of the Ghost.

Oh, and, also, Kanan, the captain of Ghost, or at least the leader of the little rebel group that operates on the Ghost, is a Jedi.

But... Wait! What about Order 66?
Yeah, I hear you out there.

Order 66 didn't quite get all of the Jedi, just almost all. There's that whole thing about Darth Vader hunting down and killing the remnants of the Order. Kanan was one of the survivors. So the question is simple:
Did he get lucky or is he that good?
That, I suppose, is something we'll have to wait and find out.

And, yeah, I want to find out.
I'm still not happy about losing Clone Wars, but I'll take Rebels as a reasonable substitute.
I'll note again, though, that Rebels is a show that is unambiguously targeting a younger demographic. You can even see it in the animation style. I don't know. Maybe that it clearly targets kids as its viewing audience allows adults to feel more at ease watching it. It's clearly defined, and adults seem to need stricter definitions than kids. So it's okay to watch a "kid show" if you know that's what you're doing, but it makes you ill-at-ease to watch a show that skews to both markets. Or something.

Crimson Peak (a movie review post)

I want to like this movie more than I actually do. I like del Toro. Mostly. Although he may be shifting to a focus that too much relies on visuals over story for me. Or, maybe, he's always been that way but just happened to have better stories for the movies I liked. At any rate, Crimson Peak is visually amazing. But, then, Pacific Rim was visually amazing; dumber than a box of rocks but visually amazing, nonetheless.

Of course, the thing that stands out most is the ghosts. Or, maybe, the house. The house is pretty amazing. But the ghosts are freaky and cool. And, well, there are issues with the house that take away from its "cool" factor.

So, yeah, ghosts... Because it's a Gothic thing, and you have to have something supernatural in Gothic things, right? Evidently. Except for Wuthering Heights. That one gets by on tragedy alone.

I really wanted to do this without spoilers, but I'm finding myself unable to, because I'm going to just go ahead and say this, so... SPOILER ALERT!

The problem with the ghosts is that they are just a sleight-of-hand, which, in-and-of-itself is fine, I like sleight of hand, but the movie pretends to be a ghost story, and it's not that. It's a story with some ghosts in it. There's a huge difference between those two things. These ghosts are no more than props. To say this is a ghost story would be like trying to say that something is a chair story just because there happened to be some chairs in it.

But they do look cool. The ghosts, not the chairs.

Then there's the house, which also looks cool, but there are so many problems with the house that it drags the movie down into stupidity much like the house is sinking into the clay on top of the peak. Because, you know, the clay is so soft that it can't support the weight of the house but
1. we're expected to believe that someone built a house on clay that soft to begin with.
2. we're expected to believe that a mountain made of oozing clay would even exist.
I could go on with issues around the house (like the huge hole in the roof that exists only so that leaves can aesthetically flutter down around the characters (while they are inside) throughout the movie), but let's just stop there and say that the house broke my suspension of disbelief.

Beyond that stuff, the story is pretty formulaic... in a Flowers in the Attic sort of way. The ghost stuff is just there so that you won't see what's actually going on. You expect a supernatural story. Like I said: sleight of hand.

The acting is decent. That's about all that can be said about, though Tom Hiddleston is quite charming, which is good, because that's exactly what he's supposed to be. Jim Beaver is also good as Edith's father, but, really, it's the same sort of role he always plays, so you can't say he was any better than usual. Jessica Chastain was also pretty much as she always is, cold and somewhat aloof. I'm not sure at this point if she's capable of anything other than that. And Wasikowska... well... she's not bad. But she's also not good. She just kind of is. I find her mostly bland.

So, yeah, I want to like this movie. The use of the ghosts is almost very clever, and, again, cool. But the places where logic and sense are sacrificed to what looks cool are just too plentiful. I can't turn my brain off that much. It's not a movie I'll ever willingly watch again because, now that I've seen it, any other viewing will cause me to be irate at all the dumb.