Star Wars Rebels

[montgocloud]

You just listed off a whole bunch of things that do indeed make fans of the OT go 'squeee…' but that does not make a good show. It comes down to dialogue and story; everything else is secondary.

Don't forget characters! I like what I've seen of them so far. They may be similar archetypes to the ones seen in A New Hope, but they have been tinkered with enough to feel distinct. I'm really looking forward to everything with Agent Kallus. From the preview clips, it looks like this will be a light science fantasy romp, which I love. Sure, it would be interesting to have a sort of "Jedi holocaust" situation, but I don't think a kids show, Disney produced or not, would ever explore that dark of a story. But it does implicate some potentially interesting dilemmas in the previews, particularly whether it is ethical for Kanan to train Ezra as a Jedi in such a dark time.

I hope this show turns out as good as it looks.

[Jedi-Bendu]

You just listed off a whole bunch of things that do indeed make fans of the OT go 'squeee…' but that does not make a good show. It comes down to dialogue and story; everything else is secondary.

And looking at that as far as possible (thanks to the 3 and 7 minute clips from the series, all the newsitems, the books that have been released so far and the excerpt of the John Jackson Miller novel "New Dawn" I think the story will be just fine.

[Jedi-Bendu]

[Brickdoctor]

I really like the soundtrack to that clip. Similar enough to the Star Wars one to be familiar, but without seeming as if it's reusing the old cues.

[Spud The Viking]

Stormtroopers still got their lousy aim though

[Faefrost]

Is it just me or does the characterization of the pink Mando chick let seem to be bordering more than a tad on psycho?

[TheWolffe]

Is it just me or does the characterization of the pink Mando chick let seem to be bordering more than a tad on psycho?

She just enjoys pretty colors! Heh

[Venkefedo]

Stormtroopers still got their lousy aim though

...and for largely the same reason: they're shooting at main characters. The series would be pretty short if all the Rebels got killed in the first gunfight.

All that's missing is a "let them escape so we can track them to their base/capture them later" order that likely happened on the first Death Star and on Cloud City.

But it's also important to note that even tho they're highly-trained, they're nowhere near the levels of the clonetroopers who were born & bred to be exceptional soldiers. If that program had continued, the Rebellion may never have taken off, but as they were weapons against the Jedi there wasn't much need for Palpatine to keep buying new clones to populate the Imperial war machine... it was about keeping order, no longer about fighting a war or betraying Jedi. So stormies may be "elite", but it's a different caliber of "elite"--and thus Star Wars heroes, who even without the Force tend to be luckier & more capable than the average citizen or even Rebel soldier (kinda like RPG player characters), can clash with stormies frequently and not get mowed down. Hopefully the show will have stormies not be completely useless as the show progresses; they're not Battle Droids, who only really held any menace due to numbers, and were usually outclassed by SBDs, Destroyers, and Commando Droids during TCW.

[montgocloud]

Rebels had a surprisingly strong start. I only had some minor problems with it (oh, and spoilers obviously):

1. Cold Opening?

This is the first piece of the new Disney canon and for some reason they didn't open with the iconic Star Wars crawl. This seems like a missed opportunity. Hell, I think I'd be even giddier if the opening shot was of a Star Destroyer. This is one case where I'd actually like to be pandered to as a fan of the OT. I don't know, the fade in of the title set against the backdrop of Lothal just didn't work for me.

2. "Don't worry kids, he's gonna make it out A-OK!"

When that Wookie got shot on Kessel, I was morbidly overjoyed. I thought to myself: wow, this show is going to take some chances and show the stakes of the mission! NOPE, Zeb picks up the Wookie, who was apparently only injured by the shot to the chest. Look, I know that this is a kids show, but it really seemed for a second like the Wookie was actually dead by the way the scene was playing out. The death of the Wookie would also strengthen the reasoning for Kanan's risky diversion.

3. Kallus, what are you doing?!

The ending scene where Agent Kallus chases after Ezra still boggles my mind. What was he thinking? Even if Ezra really was Kanan's apprentice, why wouldn't he just focus on killing the master? Did he really trust his squad of Stormtroopers to finish off Kanan? If I was Kallus, I would personally see to Kanan's death with several bullets to his face. Then I'd get promoted. I dunno. If someone has an explanation for this bizarre behavior, please do tell.

Aside from those points, I really enjoyed the premier of Rebels. The characters were strong, the action scenes were thrilling (especially the "Star Destroyer->Imperial Carrier->Ghost" daisy chain sequence), and the sound effects and musical cues lifted from the OT were a treat. I can't wait to see what Filoni and Kinberg have in store for this series.

Edited October 2, 2014 by montyofmusic

[Daimar]

I really liked the premiere episode, even if it had its ups and downs, its still solid cartoon entertainment. The only minus for me would be, that it was short and that everything hapened so quickly; dont want to go in to details here, since I am not a spoiler. And it might be a surprise, but season 2 was allready confirmed. http://www.starwars.com/news/disney-xd-orders-second-season-of-star-wars-rebels-ahead-of-television-premier looks like Disney trusts its new show. Well I for once, am waiting to see more, of the rebels.

[BrickG]

Bad. Really bad.

Episode VII is the only hope for Star Wars to ever redeem itself. This obviously isn't. It is exactly what I thought it would be, simplified children trash.

I'm too depressed form this to even detail why. It's not worth the words.

[Mr Man]

The lightsabres flicker in the middle and the laser bolts are solid red, well done for making special effect failures from ANH canon instead of fixing them in the Blue Ray .

The Wookkies looked stupid, the model for Chewie in TCW was 1000X better.

The art for the ISD was stunning though, as was Agent Kallus' facial hair .

The lack of deaths bothered me, as did the random rescue of only 6 or so Wookkies on an entire slave planet.

Why has Sabine not got any armour on, she has one tiny piece on her chest and some arm bits, the Mandos in TCW where much better armoured, also no jetpack .

Some of the Imperial (read: English) accents were clearly Americans trying their hardest to sound like Monty Python characters .

It would have been nice to hear some of the Stormtroopers with Clone voices.

At times there is too much of a OT vibe and not enough TCW vibe to it, some more holograms or things would have been nice.

Less Stormtrooper deaths and more Wookkie deaths would have balanced it out a bit.

I really hope some minor TCW stuff might be tied up here instead of in comics and books, such as: What happen to Rex, Cody, or Wolffe? What are the cloned positions in the Empire?, What about Ventress and Asoka, having them as Jedi (Nightsister) remnants on the run from the Empire together would be very interesting.

[SpiderSpaceman]

I thought it felt somewhat more competent than The Clone Wars but then again:

I've watched those episodes multiple times, a bunch of them captivated me on first watch that weren't that great later, and I watched the Rebels episode at 2:00 in the morning

But it didn't have:

• Battle droid "humor"
  
• A radio announcer intro
  
• Insipid fortune cookie title cards
  
• Artificially extended story arc at the loss of any substance to an individual episode
  
• A name like this inane adjective verb trainwreck: Savage. Oppress.
  
• Or the godawful Matt Lanter putting the emphasis on the wrong word in every line, so that counts for something.
  

And I think I saw more than one texture on the 3D models

Also it ended with authentically comical impromptu murder.

Did I just start a whole lot of sentences with inappropriate sentence-starting words like conjunctions? I did? 50 lashes!

I do like a lot of stuff from the clone wars - I thought it had great visuals and battles and some great characters.

New things that were better than what's in Episodes 1 - 3:

Hondo, Cad Bane (and I hope those two are from long lifespan species, because they gotta show up some more) everything on the Talz planet, the commando droids, the aqua droids, the Malevolence, Dooku's home, the witch planet...

As well as making some amazing things out of existing E1-3 side characters like Plo Koon.

The Clone Wars plotting and scripting is generally not for remotely intelligent people, is my point overall with the "competence" comment, but there's good stuff in there.

Edited October 3, 2014 by SpiderSpaceman

[Clone OPatra]

I was surprised to be quite impressed with the Rebels premiere. It was about 1000% better than the god-awful Clone Wars movie; the main characters were pretty solid, there was even a little bit of character development with Ezra, and (most importantly) it wasn't painful to watch.

The chase and fight sequences were quite well done, though the animation will take some getting used to. The locations, planets, and atmospheric effects look wonderful, but the characters look too squishy. They're no horrible, and hopefully they'll improve, but the Clone Wars people looked much better by the end of that show. At the beginning they mostly had static hair, though, so things can change. The Rebels wookiees were ridiculously bad and almost painful to look at, but they were the only thing that were that way for me.

None of the plot points made me scratch my head to a tremendous degree in the same way that many Clone Wars episodes did. I suppose the fact that the rebel crew saved only a handful of Wookiees from an entire slave planet was strange in hindsight, but these were specific Wookiees who had fought against the Empire or saved people or something. Kanan could actually help them, whereas he might not know what to do with a huge horde of freed slaves. The Wookiees were a specific mission.

Kanan busting out the lightsaber didn't seem quite warranted to me, but whatever, the show had to do that to motivate the introduction of the Inquisitor I guess.

I actually look forward to seeing where this goes.

[montgocloud]

I'm too depressed form this to even detail why. It's not worth the words.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion that they can successfully defend. Since you seem to have a pretty strong opinion, I'd like to know your specific points on why you think the show is so terrible.

Kanan busting out the lightsaber didn't seem quite warranted to me, but whatever, the show had to do that to motivate the introduction of the Inquisitor I guess.

I totally agree with this point. Perhaps if Kallus started to get the upper hand and a couple Wookies died, the reveal would feel a bit more earned.

Edited October 3, 2014 by montyofmusic

[Jedi-Bendu]

Bad. Really bad.

Episode VII is the only hope for Star Wars to ever redeem itself. This obviously isn't. It is exactly what I thought it would be, simplified children trash.

I'm too depressed form this to even detail why. It's not worth the words.

That's way too easy. Explain why you hate it. I'm honestly curious!

[Mr Man]

Watching it again, I loved Kallus kicking that poor Stormtrooper of the platform at the end .

[TheBrickPal]

Wait, what? Doesn't Rebels premiere TONIGHT on Disney Channel?

[Starrocks923]

Wait, what? Doesn't Rebels premiere TONIGHT on Disney Channel?

Either they used Animeflavor, or WatchDisneyXD app, where it's been up for a week.

Edited October 3, 2014 by Starrocks923

[Mr Man]

Either they used Animeflavor, or WatchDisneyXD app, where it's been up for a week.

I watched it online somewhere, I don't know exactly where, I just googled the title and it was uploaded.

[Tariq j]

I watched it on Disney XD. I was overall impressed with the new Episode. If anything, it was an improvement from the Clone Wars Movie.

The animation and voices provided were fantastic, along with the designwork of ships and vehicles.

[montgocloud]

Episode 3, "Droids in Distress," was also fantastic. Sure, C3PO was a little... really annoying, but the characterization for Zeb and the relationship between Hera, Ezra, and Kanan more than made up for it. The Zeb vs. Kallus fight was spectacular. Not because of "woo, shiny electric staffs!" but because of their clear motivations. I'm also extremely happy that Kanan didn't pull out his Lightsaber again this episode. I was worried that once he revealed it, he would get prequelitis and never put it away.

And this episode is great from an artistic standpoint. Ezra's scene on the purple planet (whoops, the name is nowhere to be found on the Internet) really shows how much care is put into this show's animation. Ok, so the planet is violet-blue. Ezra's suit is yellow-orange, the color complement to violet-blue, AKA it makes yellow-orange stand out. The scene looked epic.

I loved this episode and wait anxiously for the next!

[Venkefedo]

I liked it, but complaining is more fun so let's start with that:

- Animation timing & direction felt off; from the silly voiceless Imps who make futile gestures just to have something to do (the biker who reaches add if to call out to Sabine, ignoring the beeping behind him; the Imp officer who tries to grab one-handed at the heroes as they zip by on speeder bikes AFTER they've already passed) to the gag of opening the hatch revealing an eavesdropping Ezra (who then pauses in his crouch long enough to go thru a few expression changes, THEN falls down into the room), there were several moments that just made me want to call for retakes.

- Kanan; I just finished A New Dawn, and wanted to see more of his attitude there present in the premiere; there were only flashes of it. He's the "cowboy Jedi", more Han-like attitude would be nice... Especially at the end, with Ezra. I think they completely failed to build the Obi-Wan/Luke moment they wanted... when Kanan explains the Force, he's WAY TOO SERIOUS in that line reading, I kept expecting him to make a joke, to acknowledge that he's a betrayed guy who never even got to complete his own training, and had mostly been hiding his gifts for the last 14 years... Obi-Wan had a lighter demeanor when explaining the Force to Luke, which would have been nicer here. And his "reveal" was unmotivated; as someone else said, if the odds were heavily against them, then maybe, but not as it happened... and then he just walks out into a hail of blaster bolts, dodging by just shifting his shoulders (was that some sorta nod to the ridiculous "Han dodges Greedo's shot" from the SE DVD?) and is given ample time to assemble and activate his saber?

- that Wookiee should've died; plenty of stormies died, which I appreciate, but dude got his in the chest! Hardy or not, he shouldn't have been able to just brush it off

- Callus is an idiot. Going after Ezra, the way he directed the assault on the Jedi, his inability to keep Ezra in custody, his inability to aim (it's not just stormtroopers!). He looks cool, but is wildly ineffectual.

- designs... Most of the eyes feel too bright, too intense. The humans & human-like faces look better than in early TCW, but the painted-on weird brows of Hera and Ezra's glue-on construction-paper-cutout brows need to go. I wish they'd just reused a lot of TCW models; tweak the humans and human-faced characters, the body proportions, etc maybe, but make use of the stock of aliens, civilians, droids, etc to populate even these backwater worlds! I like the ships, explosions, and even the blasts and saber blade, but the characters (those Wookiees!) left something to be desired.

Enough complaining for now (tho over probably forgotten several points)... I liked Zeb, Chopper, Sabine... I liked a lot, really, and recognize that the show will grow over time as TCW did and hopefully correct some of these design flaws, pacing, etc...

...oh, yeah: the stormtrooper Callus kicked to his death. THAT'S NOT A BATTLE DROID! It's a soldier under your command, you idiot. I know this is the cruel, evil Empire, but that gag felt misplaced.

For those wondering about clones, remember that Rex, Cody, and Wolffe are probably in their mid-50s now (rapid aging, remember, otherwise they'd look as young as Anakin during TCW), and if they all survived and stuck with the Imperial military, they're probably commanding ships or administering training centers or something. Don't be in such a rush to see what everyone we know is up to; let the galaxy be big again, and let the focus remain on the Ghost for awhile before we take detours to see how other folks are faring.

[Mr Man]

Episode 3, "Droids in Distress," was also fantastic.

Is episode 3 up already . So does that mean Spark of Rebellion is a two parter?

[Venkefedo]

Spark of Rebellion is an hour long, so yes it's a two-parter