Well, most of those concerns have been addressed as of the season finale. I'll state up front that the animation still looks too simplistic to me. CLONE WARS set an extremely high bar which REBELS hasn't even come close to yet -- and I've since learned that part of the reason is REBELS having a much smaller budget than did CLONE WARS. Say what you will about George Lucas, but by most accounts he treated every arc of CLONE WARS like a small-scale feature film, and budgeted accordingly. I assume Disney simply looks at REBELS as just another weekly cartoon series. So if the producers are doing the best they can with what they've got, I must reluctantly give them a pass on the animation.
The voices, which I originally felt were a bit plain, have mostly grown on me. The actors have, as I'd hoped, grown into their roles and have developed some chemistry -- and the character interactions are that much better as a result. Guest performances are generally fine and occasionally outstanding. The musical score from Kevin Kiner, adapting vast swaths of John Williams' original film cues, continues to impress as well.
And the story--! This is where I had some concerns, originally. The earliest installments of REBELS felt like a kiddie show, with minimal continuity and pretty basic plots. Oh, what a difference a season makes. It took CLONE WARS two or three years to find its balance and reach a level of maturity that could engage adults while remaining straightforward enough to appeal to kids. And it took even longer than that to really start developing ongoing, overarching storylines. It took REBELS only about half a season to accomplish both those feats. Beginning with their mid-season finale and continuing through to the end, this show grew up in a major way, both in tone and in terms of serialization. It still has all the action, excitement and color that kids' show needs, but at the same time it has become -- for me, anyway -- as engrossing as any drama I watch regularly on TV.
One thing that really helped this show develop so quickly was its relatively small scale. Where CLONE WARS traversed the galaxy and told mostly epic, sweeping tales of high adventure against the backdrop of an intergalactic war, REBELS spends much of its time on one planet, Lothal. Lothal is our heroes' home port and there's something comforting about seeing their ship, the Ghost, always planted in that same field at the start of most episodes. The Lothal setting allowed the REBELS producers to create a strong cast of recurring supporting characters and ongoing plotlines, something of which CLONE WARS had a bit of a dearth.
And the small scale allowed for small stories to really sell the characters' personalities and motivations. CLONE WARS dealt mostly with characters established and already defined in George Lucas's prequels, so viewers knew much of what to expect from them going in. REBELS has a wholly original cast, so this sort of fleshing out was needed. In a way, the entire first season of REBELS feels almost like a "pilot season", carefully introducing the characters, their friends, foes, and conflicts.
But, as of the season finale, things have been ramped up. REBELS is poised, possibly, to become just as grand as was CLONE WARS. Our heroes have drawn the attention of Grand Moff Tarkin, Darth Vader, and the Emperor himself. But they've found new allies as well, in the form of the fledgling Rebel Alliance, led by Senator Bail Organa. And, perhaps best of all, we've learned that the mysterious contact, "Fulcrum", from whom the group has received missions all season, is actually Anakin Skywalker's former apprentice, one of the core protagonists of CLONE WARS, Ahsoka Tano.
Ahsoka's appearance in the final moments of the season finale was a big deal for me, even moreso that the arrival of Darth Vader a few minutes later. With CLONE WARS showrunner Dave Filoni guiding REBELS as well, I harbored hopes that CLONE WARS characters and continuity might work their way into the new series. But at the same time I was concerned that Disney's recent focus on the Original Trilogy era, practically ignoring the Prequel period, might mean that such things were off limits. Look -- I know we're all supposed to hate the prequels, but I just can't do it. Those movies expanded the size and scope of the STAR WARS galaxy beyond anything we had ever seen before onscreen. The prequels, and CLONE WARS, made Coruscant my favorite planet in the canon. And CLONE WARS expanded the mythology of the prequels immensely, making it a very fun and exciting STAR WARS era.
So, to see Ahsoka show up in REBELS served as a sort of validation for me, confirming that Disney has not swept the Prequel Era entirely under the rug. Since her appearance, I've also learned that venerable voice actor Jim Cummings has verified that CLONE WARS' Weequay pirate, Hondo Ohnaka, will also put in a REBELS appearance down the line. Dare we hope to eventually see Cad Bane return as well, and perhaps an onscreen resolution to the dangling Darth Maul plot? (I know Maul's story was told in a comic book mini-series from Dark Horse, but I don't believe that's canon any longer.)
Time will tell. But for now, after a low-key, personal "pilot" season, as its characters have linked up with the larger Rebel Alliance and Ahsoka Tano, it seems STAR WARS: REBELS is about to explode into a series steeped in the STAR WARS mythology of all eras, and I couldn't be happier about it. Bring on the confrontation between Vader and his former apprentice!
Look -- I know we're all supposed to hate the prequels, but I just can't do it. Those movies expanded the size and scope of the STAR WARS galaxy beyond anything we had ever seen before onscreen.
ReplyDeleteI knew there was a reason I liked you. :)
This grew on me as well, as I had pretty much the same thoughts as you when it started and now at the end of the season. I initially rankled once it became clear we were never going to be away from Lothal from too long, but now I kinda like it, and it gives the show a nice foundation for when the group does eventually move on to bigger and better things.
The cast has grown on me too. Chopper is still annoying as hell and Zeb does little for me, but I like everyone else, even Ezra, who I had pegged as the annoying audience POV character.
And, of course, I loved the Ahsoka reveal, even though I'd read plenty of chatter online guessing she was Fulcrum before the episode. I was still surprised, as you say, to see Disney so willing to acknowledge something from the Prequel era in their firmly-tied-to-the-OT-era show. It bodes well for the future of the show as its own thing and as a continuation of the saga as a whole, plus it makes it look in hindsight like the transition from Clone Wars to Rebels (and Ahsoka's random disappearance after leaving the Order) was part of a larger plan and not just Clone Wars getting the plug pulled abruptly.
(Part of me also hopes that Disney's focus on the OT is just an introductory effort, in the hope of capturing the attention of Prequel-hating older fans and because the next movie is a continuation of that, but that once they've got a handle on things, they'll loosen up a bit and do more stuff in more era. But that could just be wishful thinking).
Bring on the confrontation between Vader and his former apprentice!
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Holy crap, I never made that connection until now, that Ahsoka and Anakin are now firmly on opposite sides of a direct conflict with each other. Now I *really* hope they face off at some point, and that Ahsoka learns what happened to Anakin.
" Chopper is still annoying as hell and Zeb does little for me..."
DeleteI actually find Chopper kind of funny. I burst out laughing in the finale when they befriended that Imperial astromech and Chopper threw it out of the Ghost in a fit of jealous/a-holeish rage. Zeb, though, I agree, hasn't grown on me yet. An episode or two focused on him, maybe showing how he hooked up with the crew, would be nice.
I somehow missed the rumors about Fulcrum being Ahsoka until right before the finale. I almost wished I'd been spoiled weeks earlier, rather than literally hours before watching the episode. But I still enjoyed it.
Glad to see someone else appreciates the prequel era. I suspect there are more of us than the internet would lead one to believe. It's okay to dislike Jar Jar and the wooden acting and whatever else -- but as far as the actual mythology, I think George Lucas was just as creative as ever. There was some really good stuff in that era, and CLONE WARS did a fantastic job of fleshing it out and exploiting it. I'd love to see the upcoming stand-alone Disney films revisit the period.
I burst out laughing in the finale when they befriended that Imperial astromech and Chopper threw it out of the Ghost in a fit of jealous/a-holeish rage
DeleteThat was pretty funny. I just get frustrated at how unhelpful he can be, to the point where it goes from being curmudgeonly and put upon to straight up "these people will die if you don't do your job". I've seen people theorize online that he's actually an Imperial spy, and while that's clearly not the case (and I never really bought it anyway), it would have made some sense up until the finale.
There was some really good stuff in that era, and CLONE WARS did a fantastic job of fleshing it out and exploiting it.
Yeah, just cuz the Prequels weren't perfect doesn't mean they're entirely devoid of merit. There's some bad ideas there, but some good ones, too. Honestly, I think a lot of older fans were just turned off because they didn't match the headcanon they'd spent decades building, whereas I've never had a problem tossing out my personal ideas for stories in favor of the "official" version.
Yes, Chopper definitely does lean a bit more toward the sociopathic side than Artoo did, I'll agree there.
Delete"Honestly, I think a lot of older fans were just turned off because they didn't match the headcanon they'd spent decades building, whereas I've never had a problem tossing out my personal ideas for stories in favor of the 'official' version."
I'm with you there. I've seen people positively incensed that Disney has dumped all the old Expanded Universe in favor of a new continuity going forward. I, on the other hand, don't really care. I was honestly surprised when I learned in high school that the Star Wars EU even "counted" and referenced other works at all, having read so many licensed comics and STAR TREK novels and such in my childhood, which were obviously never considered canon. I distinctly remember reading one of Kevin J. Anderson's novels which A.) used characters from Zahn's previous trilogy and B.) referenced events from the DARK EMPIRE comics, and being completely flabbergasted at the continuity.
So, coming from a place where licensed works never mattered, the idea that they should somehow count just as much as the stuff onscreen is just foreign to me, even all these years later. I know there are new novels and comics that are considered official canon, but I still only really think the movies and TV shows should be considered "officially official".
Plus, for all the good stuff in the EU, there was about ten times more dreck. I'll miss Thrawn and Zahn's Mara Jade, but if it means we also lose the Yuuzhan Vong and all other writers' Mara Jade and insanely overblown Force powers and the New Jedi Order and dead Chewbacca and Admiral Daala and a thousand other dumb things, I'm just fine with that.
I'm not sure how my response to your comment turned into an EU screed, except I think I was trying to make a point that we need to accept that we don't own STAR WARS; LucasFilm/Disney does. We just have to accept what we're given.
That said, I loved PHANTOM MENACE when it came out. I saw it three times in theaters in 1999. The fans loved it too; there was plenty of cheering throughout the first screening I saw. That initial shininess has obviously worn off over a decade and a half, but I still think it's a fun little movie. Plus Qui-Gon Jinn is easily the coolest Jedi Knight ever.
Interesting. I come at it from a completely different place: I read a handful of Star Trek novels, but never really dove into that world specifically because they weren't canon, whereas what I loved about the EU from the moment I picked up Heir to the Empire was that it was all official; this is what *really* happened after the movies, and I've always been anal retentive about stuff like that.
DeleteThat said, I wasn't too bothered when Disney swept it all aside. I liked a fair amount more of it than you did - I love the Yuuzhan Vong and New Jedi Order (Mathew Stover's Traitor is one of my 10 favorite books, period), and didn't mind Chewbacca's death (on page, he's a non-character so I hardly even notice he's gone) or the overblown Force powers (makes 'em more like superheroes), though I hated what they did to Jacen in "Legacy of the Force" and haven't even read any of the "Fate of the Jedi" series yet, and there were certainly were a fair share of duds in there, especially during the Bantam years - but at the same time, nothing Disney does can take those stories away, and even though I'd much rather read a boring canonical story than an exciting non-canonical one (which is why I don't read a lot of fan fiction), I have no problem segmenting my mind to say "these stories happened in this continuity, those stories happened in that continuity", cuz, you know, comics.
So even though they're no longer official, the old EU is still out there, and even though I'm excited by the prospect of a new EU designed from the ground up to be canonical (instead of sort of backing into it like the old one, just cuz no one said otherwise), that can't take away from what was.
That said, the thought hit me recently that it's entirely possible that in the new canon, Han and Leia don't get married after Return of the Jedi, and for some reason, the possibility of that makes me sad in a way the loss of Mara, Thrawn, and Jacen & Jaina didn't.
I think I was trying to make a point that we need to accept that we don't own STAR WARS; LucasFilm/Disney does. We just have to accept what we're given.
Again, I'm with you there. That's always why Lucas tinkering with the movies has never bothered me. Sure, I like some of the changes more than others, some I don't like at all, and I'd love to see original theatrical cuts of the films preserved for the sake of film history, but they're his movies. He has every right to tinker with them to his heart's content, and I'm not going to get mad at him about it.
That said, I loved PHANTOM MENACE when it came out. I saw it three times in theaters in 1999
I saw it *SIX* times, twice on opening day, and camped out overnight in a tent on the theater's landscaping the week before for tickets. :)
But you're right, the audience was totally into it, and Gui-Gon is the coolest Jedi Knight ever.
Yes, ultimately what it comes down to is that the stuff we like hasn't been erased from history. I can still go back and read the HEIR TO THE EMPIRE trilogy (in my original first print hardcover editions!) whenever I want. And, by the same token, I can continue to ignore the newer licensed stuff that I don't like. I'm happy with the STAR WARS continuity in whatever shape it takes going forward, because I'll only bother with the stuff I like.
DeleteAnd I'll probably still read it all, and then just quietly ignore the stuff I don't like. :)
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