Star Wars Rebels: You need to be watching this!
With season 2 of Star Wars Rebels just around the corner (June 20th 2015) I wanted to give a run down for those who haven’t watched this series yet. Aside from Dragon Age, Star Wars is my fandom, so I know it might not hit your buttons if you refuse to watch anything past episode 6 (I don’t blame you after *JarJar*), but I really think Clone Wars and Rebels are worth your time! Rebels brings back the space wild wild west we fell in love with, characters we recognize from episodes 4, 5, &6, and fan favorites from the Clone Wars. The dark story line is impressive for what is ultimately a children’s show running on Disney!
IN A WORLD… THAT YOU ALREADY KNOW. Rebels season 1 takes place 5 years before episode 4: A New Hope. The Jedi are decimated, the Empire rules with an iron fist, and there is little talk of rebels, let alone an alliance. The protagonist is a 14 year old kid (Ezra) who has no parents and no love for the Empire. Funny shenanigans lead to him finding himself in league with a group of smugglers – who just happen to also hate the Empire, and happen to be lead by a man (Kanan) who was a Jedi padawan during the massacre and escaped. Oh, and it turns out Ezra is force sensitive. I know… hear me out though. If we didn’t have ridiculous setups like this, we wouldn’t get rad stories. So just stick with it, it pays off.
The rest of the crew Ezra finds himself with feel like they were mostly inspired by someone who watched Firefly over and over (which is also a great western in space, so I am okay with that!). Hera the Twi’lek pilot who acts as the heart of the crew; Sabine – a Mandalorian rebel with a flare for graffiti style art (she steals a tie fighter and paints it to look like something that should be a mural in Hot Topic); Zeb is a Lasat honor guard. Picture Jane from Firefly, but with a past that might make you kind of like him (though doubtful).
It feels a bit like what Luke must have felt when he walked on the Millennium Falcon, only with a bigger crew.
The show starts off with heists and plots that feel more like scavengers in space trying to get by that also screw with the Empire at the same time. Over a few episodes that shifts to focus more on how to screw with the Empire, how to save people, how to rescue a Jedi who might have been in prison for the past 14 years. It doesn’t take long to get past that you’re watching a children’s cartoon show – much like how I felt when watching Airbender on Nickelodeon. Maybe it’s because the setting is getting more and more familiar to me, maybe it’s because they are bringing in characters that I love (Lando!!!), but it feels like we’re moving into the a grove that is comfortable.
Spoilers below regarding the end of season 1, and the intro to season 2!
Season one ended with the crew trying to rescue their leader who had been captured by the Empire’s Inquisitor (who is a badass sith, and not just because he has the title Inquisitor), and the crew is realizing that they, and all their efforts to fuck with the Empire are actually part of a larger effort to unseat the Empire – which is making a move to close in on them. The crew has made contact with someone (code name: Fulcrum) who has been organizing the independent cells that have been a menace to the Empire, and the end of Season one revealed that person to be Ahsoka Tano. This would be the moment where I completely lost my shit.
I loved the Clone Wars. Ahsoka was the character that I wanted – a main character who was Jedi woman who could hold her own. When she made the decision to leave the order I was so proud and horrified, because it was a heartbreaking choice, and yet we never found out if she survived order 66. (Well, fan fiction told me she made it out alive, but nothing official. heh) So when an adult Ahsoka climbed down to address the crew in Rebels, I was so damn happy. Then they panned over to the new villain in the series, and I realized that with Darth Vader into the frey, Rebels was the connection between the Clone Wars, and Episode 4: A New Hope that I wanted. The preview for Season 2 even brings back the fan favorite: Rex, answering what happened to those specific clones after order 66.
