Star Wars Rebels – Review of “Spark of Rebellion” and “Rise of the Old Masters”


Rebels is a very important project for the Star Wars brand, it’s the first major media release to bridge Star Wars creator company Lucasfilm with its new owner, The Walt Disney Company – two masters of cinematic storytelling from the 20th century. Rebels showrunner Dave Filoni feels that it is not only successful in that respect, but the combination has made Star Wars even better. Only time will tell if the fans agree, but there’s already no question in my mind that this series isn’t holding anything back as it goes for that true Star Wars feel.
Star Wars Rebels takes place around 5 years before Ep IV: A New Hope, and 14 years after Ep III: Revenge of the Sith. The show follows the small, rag tag crew of a Millennium Falcon-like starship, The Ghost, as they push back against the Empire, rebelling in their own manner, trying to survive while doing good and keeping one step ahead of every Star Destroyer and Stormtrooper in the galaxy.
There are no famous characters from the rest of the Star Wars universe starring here, making this the first fully stand-alone animated series for Star Wars. Rebels is also the first major media entry in the new Star Wars aligned canon, following only the films, The Clone Wars animated series, and the recently-released Star Wars: A New Dawn novel – which ties directly into main characters on Rebels.
Some spoilers are involved from this point on.
Star Wars Rebels – Spark of Rebellion (parts 1 and 2)
Spark of Rebellion, the two-episode-long series premiere, begins with a cold open. Disney-Lucasfilm released the first 7 minutes of the episode back in early August as an extended preview, and the series doesn’t miss a beat continuing that scene. On the planet Lothal, young Ezra Bridger is a loner scavenging and thieving his way through life when he crosses paths with the crew of The Ghost as they are pulling a heist on some Imperial troops moving crates in the street, and the Force nudges the young guy towards the crew, especially its de facto leader Kanan Jarrus who also has a bit of a connection to that mystical energy field. Ezra uses the distraction of the heist to steal something for himself, which turns into a chase of Ezra by the Ghost’s team, while both are being chased by the Imperials. Soon, the threat gets too heavy and the team whisks Ezra onto their starship for an exciting getaway, followed by adventure and emotional messages about one’s place in the universe being selfish or selfless, and the training of a talented Force-wielder into a Jedi by a former Padawan who survived the Empire’s culling to make his own way rather than follow the Jedi path.
Visually, this show shares a great deal of behind-the-scenes technology with Star Wars: The Clone Wars as a lot of that production team has been brought over to Rebels. Yet Rebels also serves to carve out its own visual language that is more grounded and connected to the original Star Wars. The character designs on Rebels are less stylized than Clone Wars, less leggy and angular, with Zeb being taken from McQuarrie’s original designs for Chewbacca, before the Wookiee became a giant dog. Much has been made of Rebels’ art drawing heavily on Star Wars concept artist Ralph McQuarrie’s work and rightfully so, McQuarrie gave us much of the feel of the saga and Rebels draws heavily upon the saga not just in designs but also similar feelings via virtual camera angle choices and character placement. Here’s also that early ’70s sci-fi color palette, it’s very muted in tans and grays, and the universe’s colorful paint jobs have gotten washed out.
Musically, Rebels both lifts music straight from the Original Trilogy and pays homage to it, and it’s a good fit, an entirely welcome return to the best of what Star Wars music has to offer. Interestingly, there’s also some restraint shown on the score with areas that in other shows might be filled with music being unafraid here to be silent at times. At first, it was jarring having an emotional or suspenseful scene not carried by bombastic orchestration, but carrying a scene with mood and dialogue without music can draw the audience in when done right.
While the premiere is an origin story for Ezra, the rest of the characters are already developed and working together so we get to know them through their interactions. Voice direction here is solid, there’s an Imperial Officer that seems almost out of place, but the guy is written as a big bully and voiced to match. Overall there isn’t someone who feels like they’re not pulling their weight or might not fit in Star Wars, each performance is solid or better, and while the voice design on Zeb, the most alien of the group, might seem odd being a very human Australian-like piece at first, it quickly grows on you as the big guy gets more involved with the story. Nobody in this episode felt out of place, like they were slapped together just to move the story along, they all felt like people who really existed and made choices based on experiences and personalities. Where The Clone Wars connected its dialogue heavily to the Prequels, Rebels judiciously touches on Original Trilogy dialogue while avoiding the pitfalls of feeling like awkward cameos.
Hera Syndula (voiced by Vanessa Marshall) is the Twi’lek owner and pilot of The Ghost, and unfortunately she gets almost nothing to do here but pilot the ship and give orders to Chopper the droid. Her successes flying the ship feel rote, and she doesn’t seem as connected to the TIE Fighter battle elements either. Despite a starring role on the cover of the novel A New Dawn, Hera didn’t get fleshed out there either and it’s a shame that for this premiere episode she chiefly plays the “mom” role while getting leered and flirted at by Kanan, there’s not much for her in the premiere.
Zeb Orellios (Steve Blum, a prolific voice actor) is the muscle, a big alien who isn’t afraid to speak his mind and doesn’t pull his punches with Ezra or anybody else… literally. He’s not always a great guy, some of his choices are unpleasant, and he is very sarcastic, it makes him fun to watch.
Sabine Wren (voiced by Tiya Sircar) is a young Mandalorian woman (the armored kind of Mando, not the boring political kind) who is into explosives and art and sometimes both at the same time. Sabine doesn’t get much to do in this story either, but she is a direct part of the action much more than Hera, and is often paired with Zeb.
C1-1OP aka “Chopper” is the cobbled-together, runty astromech droid mechanic of The Ghost, he comes off crankier than R2-D2 and speaks partly in bleeps and bloops but largely in a new language of grunts and semi-vocalized complaints. Chopper doesn’t get all that much to do in the premiere, but he’s still engaging and I can’t help but dig him.
Overall, I’d say that Star Wars Rebels’ first outing wasn’t perfect – it was a decent “B”-grade due to a story that felt too much like mere episodic TV and didn’t quite stick a big enough landing – but had enough heart and personality to set the tone and carry viewers into the series. The best element was that Rebels isn’t afraid to go back to the Star Wars saga’s roots as it builds out its own corner of the universe, while still being a quality adventure cartoon that should work for fans both new and established. The characters, music, art, and writing held up, had some nice surprises, and set the stage for another great animated Star Wars series, one that hopefully will get a good, long run on Disney XD.
Star Wars Rebels premieres on Friday, October 3rd at 9pm on the Disney Channel before moving to a regular series schedule on Monday, October 13th at 9pm on Disney XD.
Star Wars Rebels – Rise of the Old Masters
Zeb and Sabine are tasked with holding the escape route, which requires improvisation and action. They don’t get a lot to do, but they have a few fun moments and a great elevator moment.
Once again, Hera gets virtually nothing to do, she pilots the Phantom – the Ghost’s small fighter shuttle – down and hides against a wall until the ship’s cloaking signal draws the amorous attention of some Aihwa-type creatures. It’s a shame she doesn’t get more as she seems like her passion is supposed to be a driving force of this crew.
Kanan partners with Ezra to free Luminara. Ezra keeps getting the idea that Kanan doesn’t want him as a padawan, but tries not to voice his feeling rejected. Unfortunately for our heroes, The Inquisitor (voiced by Jason Isaacs) intercepts them; he is cruel and driven and full of himself to the point where he doesn’t need to rush, portrayed as the cat playing with its prey. The Inquisitor is very knowledgeable and astute of his enemy, he has studied as much as he can of the Jedi temple’s texts and is able to parry every move thrown his way, he would be a devil to our heroes even if he weren’t also a Dark Side Force user.
The episode feels somewhat similar to the series premiere, Spark of Rebellion, in a number of ways:
– our heroes raid a seemingly impenetrable target to rescue someone,
– Stormtroopers fooled by a misdirect,
– a trap is sprung,
– and the end moment has our heroes using the Force to escape the enemy.
Yet Rise of the Old Masters seems like it handles everything better, and I wasn’t alone in that feeling as the audience burst into enthusiastic applause at the end credits, which should give fans hope that this series can really deliver on its intents even when they are familiar ones.
This episode doesn’t shy from the elements taken from the prequels, yet it takes great care to have that Classic Trilogy core group dynamic, that humor offsetting action, that sense of narrowly surviving the overwhelming odds, that sci-fi setting with only a touch of mystic Force elements, and even that look of something simple like a lightsaber blade delivered with that odd pointy Original Trilogy look and the flicker (which was caused by the blades’ spinning reflectors in A New Hope as that film’s in-camera optical lightsaber blade effect), who would do that in a CGI cartoon if they didn’t have to? People who really care that Star Wars is the sum of a vast array of parts, not all perfect, but just the right ones for the job.
If Rise of the Old Masters is any indication, Star Wars Rebels has a bright future ahead of it. The story pulled no punches and delivered lots of Star Wars style adventure while still having new ideas to convey. I’d give this episode a contented grade of “A”, it delivered on the Original Trilogy and on the Prequels without selling its soul or going too big to get there.
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Star Wars Rebels premieres on Friday, October 3rd at 9pm on the Disney Channel before moving to a regular series schedule on Monday, October 13th at 9pm on Disney XD.
Rebels will also be available early to verified users of the Watch Disney XD app and the WatchDisneyXD.com website, as well as on Disney Channel SVOD (subscription video On Demand) on Monday, September 29th.
October 4th, Spark of Rebellion will be available on Disney XD VOD and for purchase on iTunes, Google Play, and Amazon Instant Video.
October 6th, Spark of Rebellion will air on Disney XD at 8pm.
October 14th, Spark of Rebellion will be available for purchase on DVD at retailers nationwide. The DVD includes the movie, a free Ghost 3D model ship, the 4 Star Wars Rebels shorts, plus a never-before-seen piece that takes you deeper into the world of Star Wars Rebels and its upcoming season.
I really enjoyed SW Rebels, I know there’s a lot of review there but it’s only because I’m more passionate than I expected about the series already, the premiere hit me where that kid who just saw ROTJ for the first time in theaters lives, and Rise of the Old Masters told an even bolder story confirming this show has somewhere deep to go.
Now to keep it on the air, because the last Disney XD series I felt this way about, Tron Uprising, only got a single season, and Rebels is even better than that one.