Ahoy, squirts! Quint here to talk a little bit about Star Wars Rebels. I don't want to keep harping on it, but Dave Filoni's rise to prominence is one of the most fascinating aspects of Star Wars fandom in the post-prequel era. With The Clone Wars he worked closely with George Lucas to tell the actual story of the war that should have been in the goddamn movies (sorry, still a wee bit bitter) and as Lucas' direct touch waned as the sale of Lucasfilm to Disney was underway Filoni and his core creative team really came into their own.
The Clone Wars toons did the impossible: They made me retroactively appreciate certain character choices and visuals in the prequels. I haven't quite had the balls to dive back into the prequels outside of a few minutes of cringe-worthy sequences I've looked at while compiling material for my regular This Week In Star Wars column (which I will be coming back next Monday, by the way. I only dug up two things for this week and it felt really paltry so I'm adding it onto next week's column instead of just running a little nothing one), but I can say that the Clone Troopers, General Grievous and, most importantly, Anakin all become more well rounded and relatable thanks to the Clone Wars cartoons.
After The Clone Wars Filoni set his sights on another time period that should have been covered in the movies somewhere: the pre-A New Hope years as the last remnants of the Jedi order are hunted down and wiped out by the Empire. The brilliance of this show is that it didn't need to rely on previously known characters to feel like Star Wars.
Throughout Season 1 we do meet old friends, but only after we've established a whole new family... and that's exactly what they feel like. You have young Ezra Bridger, a brash orphan who seems drawn (both physically and character-wise) in the Aladdin style falling in with a rag-tag group of pirates/terrorists/rebels comprised of Hera (the pilot), Kanan (the leader), Zeb (the muscle), Sabine (the sneaky one) and Chopper (the droid).
It is revealed rather quickly that Kanan was a Jedi padawan when Order 66 was sent and barely escaped with his life. His master wasn't quite so lucky. As far as Kanan knows he's the closest thing to a Jedi still out there until he senses Ezra's connection to the force.
It's a fantastic dynamic at play. Ezra is in desperate need of a family, whether he'll admit it or not, and Kanan feels the responsibility of keeping the line of the Jedis going to the next generation even as he questions his own ability to teach. He never was a Jedi Knight. It'd be like if all the piano players on Earth were wiped out and I found some kid that had a natural talent with a keyboard. Why the hell should I mentor him? I took lessons for, like, 14 months and can kinda tell you what notes are what and tap out some Beatles and John Williams stuff okay, but that's about it.
As these new nutballs begin gelling as a likable family they find themselves in deeper and deeper shit. Kanan being revealed as a kinda-Jedi has caused the Empire to target them, sending the new wave of bad guys out at them.
The villain of Season 1 is The Grand Inquisitor (voiced wonderfully by Jason Isaacs) and much like Kanan he's no professional, but he seems to have more control over his fighting style and a technologically assisted lightsaber.
Rebels is still a cartoon, but it never really feels like it's playing down to its audience. Let's just put it this way: it's for families, but doesn't have characters stepping in shit and constantly tripping over themselves. That's a big difference and one of the key tonal differences between the prequels and the original trilogy that has been argued since 1999. You can be for families and not feel the need to play to the lowest common denominator.
Season 1 is adventurous, emotional, filled with great callbacks (there's an episode that brings back Paul Reubens voicing Rex from Star Tours for god's sake!), but never feeling too precious about the Star Wars universe.
It's my kind of Star Wars storytelling and from what I've seen of Season 2 things just keep getting better.
I'm off on this Rebels kick because I got to check out the Blu-Ray that came out today and while combing through the extra features I found myself wanting to just start the whole series from scratch again. The only reason I haven't undergone a round 2 on Rebels yet is because I found out my nephew hasn't seen it yet and I'm now saving the revisit for when I can watch with him.
I can say it was fun going through the bonus features, though. There's not a whole lot there, but the best is the Rebels Recon series originally posted to StarWars.com. It's great because every episode takes a look at each episode, talking with the creators and voice cast as well as a running Q&A with Lucasfilm's Pablo Hidalgo, who I happened to share a BBQ meal with last December when he came in for BNAT.
I didn't know it then, but quickly figured out he's the man that knows everything about Star Wars and from what I gather is an indispensable resource for the filmmakers coming into the Lucasfilm fold to tell new Star Wars stories.
Every episode of Rebels Recon has Pablo taking fan questions and each one I found illuminating. For instance, there was a question about what the Empire would want with Kyber Crystals (the stones that focus the lasers in lightsabers) and he just smiled and said something like “Well, those crystals are capable of focusing large amounts of energy... if the Empire had a huge amount of them they might just be working on some huge battle station that needs a massive amount of energy focused in one spot...”
He's the kind of mind working on Rebels, someone that knows their shit and can pepper things into the story that might just feel at play for the immediate characters involved, but actually set up stuff that comes later. I love that attention to detail.
Today sees a couple of huge geek releases. I understand if you need to make Mad Max Fury Road your priority, but if you're a Star Wars fan at all and haven't given Rebels a shot then I highly recommend picking up the Blu-Ray.
If you're anything like me you'll fall in love with a whole new Star Wars tale. Plus it has Billy Dee Williams back voicing Lando. That should be worth a purchase just by itself!
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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