Star Wars: Rebels

[Lord Revan]

There seemed to be alot of those EMP granades too, so it's not like it was like 1 conventional granade in the hangar bay took out the whole ship like some seem to imply.

That said I liked Fulcrum's real apprenceSpoiler

There was enough of teen Ashoka in Fulcrum or adult Ashoka to see it as suppose to the same person but enough difference that late 20s Ashoka didn't look identicial to mid teens Ashoka

[NecronLord]

Quite a good end to the season.

Imperials look more and more like brain dead morons... you can literally climb over a wall and steal a transport & Stormtroopers are literally too incompetent to be considered combatants at this stage, their practically civilian casualties considering their effectiveness. The lack of any response from the other Star Destroyers to the disablement of one of their brothers was nearly as dumb as letting the stolen transport hyperspace away when its docked up.

Why wouldn't they? I'm assuming that was an airlock they docked with, and they didn't cut their way in, and didn't visibly damage the star destroyer, and are a legitimate Imperial transport with correct codes. They probably dock regularly.

Star Destroyers (at least this unarmed version) can apparently be completely disabled by handheld explosives on the edge of the hanger bay whilst their manned by perhaps double digit personnel!

Just as a United States Aircraft Carrier can. Hangar fires are serious shit.

They also share the Venators any damage to the reactor is death vulnerability, a reactor that looks nothing like the ICS diagrams.

A vulnerability present in three of the six motion pictures, too, damage to the reactor causing a chain reaction is a key plot element in episodes I, IV and VI.

As for the ICS diagrams, they're not gospel, beyond which they do show various ancillary spaces that could easily fit that duel in.

Spoiler

Quite shocked the Inquisitor is apparently dead! That was some pretty nice combat choreography for animated action

Spoiler

I actually felt some pity for the Inquisitor. Which is unusual. I was surprised that he died too, hope it'll stick though. Would like to see more Inquisitors, in moderation.

More evidence that in Star Wars, railings are illegal, especially on walkways over pointless deep holes in engineering. Liked the paint scheme on Sabine's TIE. Have to admit a handful of hand grenades being enough to disable an entire Star Destroyer (however briefly) is a tad overboard (as in 'are you fucking kidding me'? overboard).

The idea that a single parachute flare being discharged in the hangar would disable an entire United States aircraft carrier for hours is a tad overboard, too. Also it is factual (USS Oriskany CV-34, Oct 29 1966, an incident that killed 44 sailors) Hangar fires/accidents are, in general, bad news, and we know that the fuel is flammable, so the same concerns as RL hangar bays apply. The two most vulnerable parts of a modern warship, whenever it has them, are hangars and flight decks.

And given the biggest parasite craft they have at their disposal seems to be that butt-ugly protoshuttle, how the hell do you evacuate several 10 thousand people in time?

Escape Pods are a thing in this universe. They are in two of the six films, after all. Also, they're sentinel class landers I thought, which are different.

I know the Empire is Evil and 'Tarkin got away, who cares' from a narrative PoV but is letting all that trained personnel die really cost-effective?
Seconded on the rest of the Star Destroyers doing nothing. 'Hey, there's a squadron of unknown ships aiding the Rebels that are trying to escape. Let's let our TIEs which can only hit the ground because of gravity handle it because it's not like we have guns of our own or something.'

Perhaps they were distracted, by the distraction.

[Darth Tanner]

Why wouldn't they? I'm assuming that was an airlock they docked with, and they didn't cut their way in, and didn't visibly damage the star destroyer, and are a legitimate Imperial transport with correct codes. They probably dock regularly.

Because they knew the Star Destroyer had been disabled from Tarkins signal stopping (why it took that for them to realise what with the lights going out and big flashes of electricity on the hull) and were sending in the response shuttles to trap the rebels but just let a transport that arrived and docked at the same time the rebels struck leave without question considering it only had a droid aboard.

Just as a United States Aircraft Carrier can. Hangar fires are serious shit.

There was no fire just knock out EMP... but even a fire on the loading ramp of a carrier will not completely disable every system on the carrier including main power? How do they power the fire hoses?

As for the ICS diagrams, they're not gospel, beyond which they do show various ancillary spaces that could easily fit that duel in.

Agreed, the depicted reactor was at least consistent with the Venator shown in the clone wars.

Spoiler

I was surprised that he died too, hope it'll stick though.

Spoiler

I'm most surprised because he had his own toy line which they likely would not dispose of after only 1 season - it strikes me as convenient we didn't actually see him die so I wouldn't be shocked to see him return. It was a brilliant death though, best moment of the episode for me.

Escape Pods are a thing in this universe.

Its also a potential Star Destroyers are depicted as being very low on crew, the arrival of a squad of storm troopers in a shuttle doubles the opponents to the rebels afterall. And in previous episodes all troopers were ordered to the hanger which resulted in double digit troopers turning up.

[bilateralrope]

I know the Empire is Evil and 'Tarkin got away, who cares' from a narrative PoV but is letting all that trained personnel die really cost-effective?

That depends. If it's quicker to train a replacement crew than it is to build a new Star Destroyer, then it could easily be cost effective to skip the escape craft. Especially if the Empire thinks that few Star Destroyers will get blown up.

[tezunegari]

While it is a nice show and relatively entertaining the show and its ending kind of disappointed and failed to generate a threat with its own characters.

They had to bring in the Big League to do that with Tarkin and now Spoiler

Darth Vader

...

The whole escalation of threat should have been handled differently in my opinion:

Kallus role should have gone to the Commander Aresko and Taskmaster Grint (the two Academy goons that were executed by the Inquisitor).

With their constant failure to catch the rebels Kallus should have taken the role of the Inquisitor, with the Inquisitor being this shadowy figure in the background that knows things that he shouldn't. Like were the rebels are or what their next goal would be.

And Spoiler

Darth Vader

should have been the Inquisitor instead.

It's four years until 0 BBY and the writers have to be really careful not to hit Tarkin and Spoiler

Darth Vader

with Villain Decay here.
These two need to win more than they loose... the rebels should only get even at best from now on.
But they'll win, over and over again until they have to bring in Palpatine himself...

[Thanas]

So:

1. Apparently the allegedly ABC-protection providing Stormtrooper armor is worth crap.
2. Stormtroopers cannot hit anybody doing cartwheels five meters away
3. Man, I wish they would just scrap the Ghost crew and have Organa and "Fulcrum" do real resistance work.

[Joun_Lord]

I don't get this series portrayal of the Imperials. You can't have them super competent or its unrealistic for the heros to win but having them be so bad they can't hit someone literally right in front of them is worse. There is no drama. How can you think the plucky space Al Qaedas........I mean Rebels are in any sort of danger with such terrible villains.

The Clone Wars series even the whiny, and highly sympathetic, roger roger B-1 droids were portrayed as relatively competent. Other droids like the SBDs and Commando droids had their goofball moments but all and all were highly competent but the heroes were more competent. They did lose people though. From what I've seen of Rebels the Stormies are even less effective then what amounts to disposable droids and even less human despite actually being human.

Is the smallness of the Rebels whats hurting the Imps effectiveness? With the Clone Wars they had an endless amount of Clones and piles of Jedi to kill to show that Grievous and Co weren't just push-overs. With Rebels you got what, 6 people with no real support or back-up? Would have probably worked better if the show was about more then Freddie Prinze Jedi, Mando Rainbow Dash, and all the others who are too bland to even remember but the actual Rebel Alliance (though that still wouldn't have worked for me but I'll admit I have my own highly biased reasons).

I do wonder if I am being unreasonably hard against this show. Considering I am pretty burnt out on Star Wars after the waves of fetid diarrhea that had came out of Lucasarts and stamped with the Star Wars label I will be hard on anything Star Wars much like ST fans were after getting burnt with Insurrection, Nemesis, Voyager, and Enterprise cockslapping them.

I feel the Rebels while on an individual basis might be good guys the whole organization is founded by corrupt kidnapping politicians pissed the Republic gravy train was over and corrupt Jedi willing to program a guys kids to kill him and is therefore not the good guys (though neither is the Empire for obvious reasons). I hate the fact they treat the literal murder of soldiers, men and women who joined up to protect their homes and families, as something funny.

Oh yeah its funny to tag the dead body of Private Joe Spaceguy by some underage Mand'ohwhorian, I'm sure his family just loves that. I call the Rebels space Al Qaeda because thats what they are, freaking space terrorists. Yes one mans terrorists is another freedom fighter but doesn't change the fact they are still terrorists. One could call people like the American Revolutionaries terrorists and, I dunno, they might be right. We know they did some pretty heinous things and most people don't like white washed depictions like the Patriot that downplays or outright ignores atrocities they may have committed or paints the conflict as black and white. Alot of people get rightfully offended when shit like the Patriot portray the Brits as pretty much Nazi's without the Swastika.

Yes this is a chilluns show and its not like they can show executions of prisoners, over-crowded prison ships filled with dead and dying prisoners, lynching, tarring and feathering of loyal Imperial citizens, and theft of property from civilians but they could atleast take a page from the Clone Wars and show a more nuanced conflict.

Oh well, if that Star Wars Rebel Stormtrooper voice changer helmet that I saw in some news article from a upcoming Hasbro Star Wars line actually is made then I guess even this shitty show will be worth it. The Clone Wars Clone helmet was kickass.

[bilateralrope]

We now have a reason why building a stun weapon into Ezra's lightsaber was a better choice than building in a blaster: A stun shot can't be reflected back at whoever fired it, but is still something a lightsaber wielding opponent needs to do something about.

It's four years until 0 BBY

I hadn't paid much attention to the timeline, but a quick check of wookiepedia confirms that figure. 4 years until A New Hope. Where nobody make any mention of other Jedi in the rebellion to Luke. The only plausible ways I can see that happening is if the jedi character in Rebels (including Ezra) do not survive long enough to help with Luke's training or they betray the rebellion.

Only question is if the writers realize that.

[Rogue 9]

We now have a reason why building a stun weapon into Ezra's lightsaber was a better choice than building in a blaster: A stun shot can't be reflected back at whoever fired it, but is still something a lightsaber wielding opponent needs to do something about.

It's four years until 0 BBY

I hadn't paid much attention to the timeline, but a quick check of wookiepedia confirms that figure. 4 years until A New Hope. Where nobody make any mention of other Jedi in the rebellion to Luke. The only plausible ways I can see that happening is if the jedi character in Rebels (including Ezra) do not survive long enough to help with Luke's training or they betray the rebellion.

Only question is if the writers realize that.

If they simply weren't present at Yavin, they could have until just before Empire. Luke wasn't with the Rebels for any significant length of time in A New Hope, after all, and his Force abilities did advance tremendously in the interval between the movies. The major obstacle to their survival is Tarkin's direct knowledge of them and his blunt statement to Vader that he's all that's left of the Jedi religion. So at minimum, Tarkin has to believe them dead.

[Batman]

Or they were just forced to go to ground and Ben/ Leia's piece of the Alliance didn't know if they still lived/plain never heard of them in the first place.

As for thew hangar fire analogy, if they'd just overloaded the TIEs reactor or piled it with thermal detonators or something to wreck the ISD, then I'd agree with you. What they actually did was setting off a handful of combination concussion/EMP grenades that caused zero fatalities, didn't start no secondaries, and did no physical damage from what I could tell yet knocked out every system and all personnel on the ship. You're not going to disable an aircraft carrier that way.

[bilateralrope]

If they trained Luke at all, I can't see them going unmentioned in ESB and ROTJ.

Luke not hearing about them during with them being alive during ANH is possible. Obi-Wan was in hiding so probably didn't hear anything. Everyone at Yavin 4 had the more urgent matter of the Death Star to worry about. That just means we need an explanation for why Leia didn't know about them, which isn't too hard to come up with.

But after the Death Star is destroyed, I'd expect that any Jedi characters would at least be curious enough about Luke making that shot without a targeting computer that they will investigate him and learn of the lightsaber and/or Obi-Wan's death. At which point they will know that he needs training.

So I think that they must die/turn shortly after ANH at the latest if we ignore Tarkin's statement. Account for Tarkin's statement and we are left with:
- Tarkin thinks them dead. Vader does not, but doesn't correct him.
- Vader thinks them dead. Tarkin lies.
- Both Vader and Tarkin think them dead.

So that pretty much says that Ezra and Kanan are dead. Ashoka might survive a bit longer if she keeps the fact that she was a Jedi secret, but that still leaves the problem of Luke's training.


Most likely we are going to have the writers going with a year of real time translating to less than a year of time in the show so that issue doesn't come up.

[Darksider]

It's four years until 0 BBY and the writers have to be really careful not to hit Tarkin and Spoiler

Darth Vader

with Villain Decay here.
These two need to win more than they loose... the rebels should only get even at best from now on.
But they'll win, over and over again until they have to bring in Palpatine himself...

This sort of thing happens when you let your canon be defined by a fucking children's cartoon, and not the less "kiddy" material that made up the EU. No matter how far above it's station this show might occasionally rise, the good guys must always win the day, and the villains must always look like buffons, because if not the six year olds might start crying and stop asking mommy and daddy to buy them the toys.

Just compare how effective and frightening Grevious, Dooku, and Ventress were in the original 2002-2005 depiction of the Clone Wars with the ineffectual jokes they were in TCW.

[Tychu]

I don't get this series portrayal of the Imperials. You can't have them super competent or its unrealistic for the heros to win but having them be so bad they can't hit someone literally right in front of them is worse. There is no drama. How can you think the plucky space Al Qaedas........I mean Rebels are in any sort of danger with such terrible.

I call the Rebels space Al Qaeda because thats what they are, freaking space terrorists. Yes one mans terrorists is another freedom fighter but doesn't change the fact they are still terrorists. One could call people like the American Revolutionaries terrorists and, I dunno, they might be right. We know they did some pretty heinous things and most people don't like white washed depictions like the Patriot that downplays or outright ignores atrocities they may have committed or paints the conflict as black and white. Alot of people get rightfully offended when shit like the Patriot portray the Brits as pretty much Nazi's without the Swastika.

It's funny you say that. I still remember an 11 year old me trying to explain Star Wars and defending my wish for the Special Edition for Christmas. My mom replied, "But Rebels are bad guys".

I was a little pissed on how bad a shot the Stormtroopers were while Sabine was flipping around, standing still and waving a few feet in front of them.

[Darth Tanner]

Both Ventress and Grevious had their victories though, although Grevious suffered the most from evil incompetence. The Jedi and Republic were usually victorious but the clone wars at least felt like a war with risk and casualties on both sides even if it was in the Jedi's favour - not so here. The empire has not had any competence or victories yet - even Tarkin when brought in still lets the rebels walk in and broadcast a signal that starts planet wide disturbances and has to blow up his own tower whilst letting most of the rebels escape before getting an entire Star Destroyer blown up for nothing! He needs to execute himself by his precedent he set.

The only way that can change is that now there are now than just the named characters to play with, we can have the faceless rebel troopers going down and maybe their ships getting blown away. Depends how long they intend rebels to run I guess?

Before the end all the Jedi all have to die without question. They can not exist in New Hope world, definitely not in Empire.

[Thanas]

Just compare how effective and frightening Grevious, Dooku, and Ventress were in the original 2002-2005 depiction of the Clone Wars with the ineffectual jokes they were in TCW.

Do you mean the comics? Because yeah the comics were far better than the childrens show.

Although Ventress was decent in the latter as well. Wonder if she will make a cameo.

[Imperial Overlord]

The Rebels aren't terrorists. Terrorists use the media to augment the impact of their violence to effect political change. Their tactics are based on shock value and usually counter productive. What we see from the Rebel Alliance is guerilla warfare consisting of political agitation, freeing of political prisoners, and strikes against military and security forces targets. Just because its become fashionable for every regime under the sun to call its opponents terrorists doesn't make it so.

[Tychu]

Just compare how effective and frightening Grevious, Dooku, and Ventress were in the original 2002-2005 depiction of the Clone Wars with the ineffectual jokes they were in TCW.

Do you mean the comics? Because yeah the comics were far better than the childrens show.

Although Ventress was decent in the latter as well. Wonder if she will make a cameo.

I believe he's talking about the Cartoon Network 2-5 minute series by the Samurai Jack people. My gripe with that series is the executive producer didn't know the name of Yavin…it's all Legends now so it doesn't matter.

[Darksider]

I believe he's talking about the Cartoon Network 2-5 minute series by the Samurai Jack people. My gripe with that series is the executive producer didn't know the name of Yavin…it's all Legends now so it doesn't matter.

I'm talking about all of it as a whole. The "Republic" comics, the micro-series, the novels, everything published under the "Clone Wars" banner as opposed to the TCW one.

[Vympel]

Thoughts on the finale:

1. Ugggggggh the opening was painful. I really, really, hated it. Watching the Rebels crew just jump about within spitting distance of Stormtroopers with impunity is getting really old.

In the movies, they were very careful to maintain the illusion of danger even when - necessarily - the characters couldn't die. The movies never rejoiced in the inability of stormtroopers to hit anyone. This is done by script and story choices which maintain the illusion that the opposition is dangerous to the protagonists - things like ensuring firefights take place with lots of cover to hide behind (cell block firefight, running Bespin firefight).

Rebels has no conception of this whatsoever - it revels in having its heroes move about with impunity, making smart ass quips, with virtually no cover, within spitting distance of the enemy. The necessary consequence is that there's no tension whatsoever. Kids may get a kick out of watching their heroes brazenly thumb their noses at the ineffectual mooks of the enemy, but I do not.

2. Why is the TIE Fighter painted? Just ... what narrative purpose does it serve? None. (It does serve to identify it for the audience, but I don't think this is strictly necessary).

3. On the plus side, Tarkin arranging for automatic reinforcements from the other ships was cool.

4. Though, why is it set near Mustafar at all if Kanan is just on Tarkin's ship anyway?

5. The lightsabre fight was also pretty cool.

6. The Inquisitor isn't dead.

7. That Rebels' plot points rely on comically oversized TIE cockpits is a flaw.

8. Don't shoot at the enemy ship, Star Destroyers - even when its right over your hull. Not like you ever shoot at anything ever in the films. Like the Falcon, for example.

9. Hyperspace is Fast: Ahsoka showed up quick.

10. I like that Tarkin's ship didn't catastrophically explode immediately, but slowly broke up.

11. The Gozanti cruiser and the Ghost docked in hyperspace?

12. Ahsoka is using curved lightsabres now.

13. I don't trust Season 2 to not make a fool out of Vader.

EDIT: oh, and I love how the other Star Destroyers a: didn't notice the cruiser was docking with the ISD in a place where it'd have to cut through the hull and b: let the damn thing escape.

[Batman]

Um-that Sabine likes spray-painting things was established (repeatedly) earlier in the series and they 'did' say they didn't have the time do paint it over. And thank you for agreeing that TIE cockpits in the series are ridiculously large.

[Tychu]

Um-that Sabine likes spray-painting things was established (repeatedly) earlier in the series and they 'did' say they didn't have the time do paint it over. And thank you for agreeing that TIE cockpits in the series are ridiculously large.

Apparently they had time to seal up and keep the cockpit pressurized. I can live with the Inqusitors TIE being altered.

[Tychu]

I especially liked the first post Order-66 "Republic" story arc. The Jedi were beat and had to go into hiding. According to Rebels the Galaxy wasn't that dark

[Darksider]

The more I think about it, the more I think that one of those CR90s should've gone down under an ISD's guns during the dramatic rescue scene. It would've prevented the episode from being completely one sided and showed that yes, the empire can be dangerous.

[Vympel]

Um-that Sabine likes spray-painting things was established (repeatedly) earlier in the series and they 'did' say they didn't have the time do paint it over.

But Sabine didn't paint it prior to this episode. She didn't even know it existed. Basically, they wasted untold amounts of time that could've been spent rescuing Kanan - indulging Sabine in painting a ship for no reason.

[bilateralrope]

Um-that Sabine likes spray-painting things was established (repeatedly) earlier in the series and they 'did' say they didn't have the time do paint it over.

But Sabine didn't paint it prior to this episode. She didn't even know it existed. Basically, they wasted untold amounts of time that could've been spent rescuing Kanan - indulging Sabine in painting a ship for no reason.

Oh, it was quite clear when Sabine and Ezra shared a look that they knew that there was something wrong with it that Zeb didn't know about. So it really looks like Sabine painted it when she had some free time because she likes painting things.