Star Wars Rebels - Season One (Spoilers)

[Matt_Fury]

My son likes it and that's good enough for me.

I'll be curious to see if they tie into the new movies at all.

[P-Siddy]

I will say the scoring and planets we've seen are pretty kick ass...love all of the Williams and McQuarrie nods all over the place

This is one big plus for the show... something that draws in the adult audience that cared about SW from the beginning.  It's nice to see the McQuarrie stuff in action.  It's just a shame that its just for a kid's show. 

I hope that by the end of Season One this rag-tag team meets up with the actual Rebels and are brought into their fold.  Otherwise, the show has a misleading title.  Sure they are rebels in their own right, but it should be done without the watchers assuming there is an association with the Rebel Alliance.

[Matt_Fury]

Just guessing on the timeline, I think the show takes place only a short time after ROTS...maybe a couple of years.

The Empire is still extending their influence into the Outer Rim and the Rebellion is just getting off the ground.  At this stage, the rebels would just be pockets of resistance scattered around the galaxy.  The episode with R2-D2 and C-3PO had a great scene with Bail Organa asking R2 to show him what he learned about Kanan's group of rebels.  I got the sense that he too is just starting to find others to recruit into what will become the Rebel Alliance.

[Jeff]

Just guessing on the timeline, I think the show takes place only a short time after ROTS...maybe a couple of years.

Straight from the official site...

"Star Wars Rebels, set five years before the events of Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope, tells the story of the Rebellion’s beginnings while the Empire spreads tyranny through the galaxy. Star Wars Rebels airs Monday Nights at 9p/8c on Disney XD."

I've said it before - I'm 100% convinced they picked this timeline to be able to have 25yo Han bump into the Rebels... or to have 14yo Ezra meet 13yo Luke Skywalker or Princess Leia or whatever. 

[Jesse James]

They've said it's 5 (or was it 4?) years before the events of ANH...  I agree Matt, you'd think pretty quickly after ROTS, but no.

I'd have preferred that, and maybe a little more of a TCW vibe and tie-in to it.  Just my opinion.  Less Stormtroopers, and "Empire in your face" stories, and more of the transitional period covered.

I'm with everyone on the McQuarrie stuff, the settings, the planets...  That abandoned TCW base?  Come on man!  There wasn't a setting that well done in the entire TCW series if you ask me.

And I feel like Hera and Sabine as stand-alone new characters work great!  Chopper works well too...  And Kanan WITH Hera works great.  There's spark, there's connection, there's banter but with some kind of romantic overtone to it...

Zeb and Ezra though, they are the Jake Lloyd and Jar Jar of this series.  They can bring anything to a screeching halt with what seems like forced interaction.

I did get a laugh at Ezra riding Chopper and beating him, but his redeeming moments are few, and most of the time he's just grating, to be honest.  And Kanan is a weaker character, and generally less interesting, when he's around Zeb and Ezra as well. 

I thought the last episode with Hera and Sabine was really good, and while it's just voice acting, I feel like they do a better job at that too.

This show's trying very hard to be more kid friendly though, it's obvious.  So I'm just going with the flow.  I'll watch...  I'm sure things aren't going to be as well liked as TCW generally was.  It had a roller coaster feel to it at times, but it overall was a lot more mature in its tone (so far).  They'll always be held to that standard too, especially keeping Filloni on and all, so that's on them.  They may not give a hoot...  Which is fine too.

The only thing about vehicles I've been a tad annoyed about, and the movies do this too, so whatever really, but they jump around in terms of scale...  The AT-DP goes from tiny to not tiny quickly, haha.  I still love seeing the design in the show though!  And the Stormtrooper Transport...  Sneak in an MLC-3 next maybe?

I'm with others though...  This isn't the "Rebel Alliance".  That's somewhere else.  These are guys that may get caught up in it all, but they're just their own little side gig I think.  Or that's how I'm viewing it anyway.  It's either that or I'll just ignore the storyline for the mots part, haha.

Jeff beat me to the timeline thing, sorry.

Yeah I think the painfully unnecessary cameos are going to happen and it's going to hurt.     I can almost buy a younger Leia turning up since they've already intro'd her father, but I just will absolutely hate seeing Han, Chewbacca, Luke, or anyone like that turn up.  Ugh.

Jeff, I actually don't mind the "physics" thing...  Star Wars physics is **** anyway, so I have learned to ignore that.

The kids becoming Stormtroopers, I have 100% just rationalized it as the Star Wars version of the Hitler Youth or whatever...  Grooming the youth to go to the academy and become soldiers when they're of age.  Luke's whining about it and he's 17 or 18, and whining like he should've left by now, so I imagine there's little centers like Lothal's around the galaxy on any planet the Empire has a presence on...  Anything to get their minds hooked while young.

Noticed they had a black kid in the group too.  Dismissing "The Empire are also racist" notion somewhat?

[Matt_Fury]

Thanks for setting me straight on the timeline.  I think what I said still fits though.  The Rebels first major victory was right before ANH when they stole the Death Star plans.  If you read the novel for ROTS, Padme warns Bail Organa to hide, and to agree with Palpatine at least in public.  I'm sure Senator Organa, Mon Mothma and others from their groups opposed to what Palpatine was doing in ROTS are working behind the scenes to organize all this time, being patient and moving slowly, and their time to act is approaching.

Everything Kanan and his crew are doing, although helpful, is still pretty small scale at this point.

[P-Siddy]

And I really haven't seen what Ezra's slingshot can do... It's like a tazer, I guess.  Can't have kids killing people, I guess.

[McMetal]

And I really haven't seen what Ezra's slingshot can do... It's like a tazer, I guess.  Can't have kids killing people, I guess.

Yeah, but the 20" figure comes with his own homemade lightsaber, so let's bring that in at least.

I agree the last episode with the ladies was better, although the creatures seemed a little too cartoony somehow. These shows overall just feel more like online webisodes to me...so little depth in the plot, character development, etc. It's a pretty far cry from Clone Wars.

[Jesse James]

It doesn't seem to work on everyone, or work well maybe.  Yet other times it does...  it's inconsistent, I can say that much anyway.

What the Rebels first major victory was seems a bit ambiguous in the EU.  It could be it's the Death Star plan heist, but the DS plan theft is rather clandestine in most of the EU representations of it (especially if you stick with the Dark Forces arc).

Another angle I viewed on that line was the takedown of an Imperial Destroyer or two prior to the events of ANH...  Moving from simple convoy raids to real assaults on major targets...  which the DS plans kind of throw a monkeywrench into that then since there's this new big threat and all the victories in deep space suddenly mean bunk because of it.

It's an interesting topic I think.

And this still seems to meander back into the "EU is DEAD!" crap...  This is one of the things about Rebels I really don't like...  It's really just more EU to me, as is anything now in the post-Lucas era.  It's like having someone write Middle-Earth story lines now that Tolkien is long dead.  Any individual with enough $ could've bought it.

I keep getting these articles about the voice actors telling people how deep and dark their character's backstory is, but I'm reluctant to believe them at this point.  I don't see this show delving where TCW was willing to go.

I like that thought too, that the shows feel like "webisodes", McMetal.  They're shallow, and simplistic...  so far anyway.

There's a ton of cool stuff to take away, but there's a lot to just ignore and be disinterested in too.  I mean, some of the dialogue is really laughably bad too.  There is a long way for this show to go, and grow.

[Matt_Fury]

So watching the "Empire Day" and "Gathering Forces" episodes, was I the only one disappointed that the disk Ezra found didn't have the location of the hidden Valley of the Jedi on it?

[Nicklab]

The series has me wondering more and more if the crew of the Ghost is going to become more deeply involved with the Alliance.  They're basically passing themselves off as a freighter crew that regularly gets involved in "Imperial entanglements".  But from the episode with the droids to their rendezvous with the blockade runner, it looks as though "Fulcrum" may actually be Bail Organa.  He was overtly shown in the episode with Threepio and R2.  And when the crew of the Ghost handed over Seebo, the ship they docked with looked like the same blockade runner from the episode with the droids. 

As for where things go?  I guess the season needs to progress and we'll see how the showrunners direct the series.  Will they get as many seasons as Clone Wars?  Who knows.  I've actually seen a rumor about ANOTHER Star Wars animated series in the past couple of weeks.

[Jesse James]

Part of me feels the Corellian Corvette was something to throw us off...  Just a suspicion.  Then again I could see the show not really being that clever, too, and just making it Bail.

I watch Rebels, but I have to say I've not been impressed.  Top to bottom, it's much more boring than Clone Wars was.  I tune in almost more to see the background and vehicles than the story.   

[77Skywalker]

I hope Darth Vader will now appear in some episodes really soon.

[Qui-Gon Jim]

I think that Fulcrum is Ashoka Tano. One of the crates had markings on it similar to those on her head..thingies. 

[Jesse James]

Yeah, I really feel like the CR90's and the Bail tease are just to throw people off.  I'm not sure Fulcrum is Ahsoka...  And I wonder what the Fulcrum name's significance is and if it plays into who the character ultimately is, but either way I'm really reluctant to say it's Bail (or Leia, by default)...  I'm definitely leaning towards it being something more important and less obvious.

And if EU's any indication, there's an abundance of Corellian Corvettes and a myriad of variants of them, all around the galaxy, and in play by both sides and everyone in between...  I've gotta say though that it's one of the few aspects of the show to actually build a little interest.  Who is Fulcrum?  Who knows.  The Clone Wars base makes one think it's someone who had ties to the era though, as well...  and the military aspect of the war.

I'm wondering now...  Will other things turn up, from that era?  What about the Polis Massaan and their weird moon base?  I'd dig seeing them turn up as a founding species of the Alliance.