Welcome to the Man of Recaps. You may have noticed a lot of these new Star Wars series are bringing
into live action characters that were introduced in the animated Clone Wars or Rebels. If you love
Star Wars, they're both great and you should watch them. But if you don't have the time, I got you covered.
To start you off with the super simplified Star Wars timeline,
the Galaxy went Republic, Empire, Republic, Empire.
The Clone Wars takes place here, in between Episodes Two and Three. Remember the Galaxy
was in a civil war between the Republic and the Separatist Alliance. It stars our Jedi main
characters from the prequel movies, Anakin Skywalker and his master, Obi-Wan Kenobi.
The Jedi are generals in this war, leading the Republic forces against the separatist Droid army.
And remember, it's called the Clone Wars because the Republic troops are all clones. But right at
the start we're introduced to a new main character who wasn't in the movies, the young Jedi Padawan,
Ahsoka Tano, who's been assigned to Anakin as an apprentice. She's real fun, calls him Sky Guy,
"Oh, don't get snippy with me, Snips!" And pretty soon these two are best friends.
But Anakin's not the only one who had an apprentice that wasn't in the movies. The
Separatist leader, Count Dooku, is training the skinny goth assassin,
Asajj Ventress. She's real cool, fights with two lightsabers, and eventually Ahsoka does too,
because I mean two sabers are better than one. So the show features all
the big characters from the prequel movies: Yoda, Mace Windu, Count Dooku,
General Grievous, but it also sometimes features some of the background characters.
That's why, if you ask a Star Wars super-fan who their favorite Jedi is,
they're saying someone you've never heard of, like Plo Koon. Padme Amidala has a pretty big
role as the senator for Naboo, and remember, she and Anakin are secretly married. She goes
out on diplomatic missions, but diplomacy usually fails, and she has to resort to
aggressive diplomacy. And, of course, there's Chancellor Palpatine, leader of the Republic,
but secretly he's leader of the separatists too, as his Sith alter ego, Darth Sidious!
A major new character introduced in the show is the lovable pirate,
Hondo Ohnaka. The Jedi sometimes work with him on smuggling stuff,
but Hondo is always willing to betray him if he can make a bigger profit. But the separatists
can't really be trusted to pay him, so most of the time he's working for the Republic
as a good-ish guy. But on the flipside is bounty hunter Cad Bane, who has just a really cool hat.
He's a bad dude that's a cold blooded killer, and he's a great fighter,
he can hang with these Jedi. Speaking of bounty hunters, there's a young Boba Fett who's formed
his own little bounty hunter crew. He tries to get revenge on Mace Windu, who remember
killed his father Jango Fett in Attack of the Clones. On Onderon we meet a young Saw Gerrera,
who would go on to be a somewhat brutal rebel leader featured in Rogue One.
And of course, some of the main characters in the Clone Wars are
the Clone Troopers themselves. Yeah, they may all be genetically identical,
but they all have their own personalities. The main one we follow is Captain Rex,
who's in charge of Anakin's Division the 501st. They're all born with numbers, but they
get nicknames like "Echo" who repeats things, or sometimes just "Fives," whose number is all fives.
The main theme of the Clone Wars is that these troopers aren't expendable machines like droids,
they're real people. This comes to a head when the 501st is lent out to the Jedi General Krell,
who treats them like they are disposable, sends them into suicide missions. It's an
intense military dilemma, do you trust your commanding officer sees the big picture,
or do you have to disobey orders when they're clearly incompetent?
But in the end, they realize he's used the cover of darkness to have the clones fight themselves!
Yes he's actively turned to the Dark Side, betrayed the republic to join the separatists,
so the clones put him down. But the most important arc begins with Asajj Ventress.
Remember, the Sith have a Rule of Two: one master, one apprentice.
Because if the apprentice takes an apprentice, they can team up and overthrow the master. So
Dooku tries to have Ventress killed, but she escapes and goes back to her
home planet ruled by the Night Mother, a powerful witch. She helps to get revenge on
Dooku by buffing up one of the males of their species, this absolute beast, Savage Oppress.
He and Ventress team up to go kill Dooku, but it doesn't work, Dooku's too strong. So
Ventress goes off to find new meaning in her life, She briefly joins Boba Fett's group of
bounty hunters. But the Night Mother has a new plan for revenge with the strongest of
their species, yes, it's Darth Maul! A super cool villain that was underused in the movies,
because he died at the end of Episode One when Obi-Wan Kenobi cut him in half.
But turns out he's a hard guy to kill. He survived with just the top half of his body
grafted onto spider droid legs! The night Mother hooks him up with a new pair of legs,
and yes it's happening, Darth Maul is back! His primary goal is revenge
on Obi Wan Kenobi, he and Savage fight him a bunch, but they can't beat him.
So now let's cut over to the planet of Mandalore. Yes, the people with the super cool armor that are
an honor-bound warrior culture. But at the moment Mandalore has become a pacifist planet, their
current ruler, Duchess Satine, is trying to make them into a more civilized society. But of course,
there are some who prefer the old ways, and the fringe group Death Watch is trying to take over.
So Death Watch makes an alliance with Maul, who's a real smart guy actually,
he like organizes a whole coup. But now Maul challenges their leader to single combat to
be ruler of the planet. And when you're an honor-bound warrior culture, that's allowed.
Now the Death Watch leader, Pre Vizsla, has a super cool black saber sword, the Darksaber!
It was made by an ancient Mandalorian who was also a Jedi, and by tradition whoever holds it
is the rightful ruler of Mandalore. But now Maul kills this guy and takes the Darksaber
for himself, and most death watch is like "All right, cool." Now remember, for Jedi,
romance is forbidden, but if Obi-Wan were going to date anyone, it would be Satine.
So naturally he goes to Mandalore to rescue her, but it was a trap, and Maul kills her! Oh,
no, we're crying everywhere. Now one of the Deathwatch leaders was the orange haired Bo-Katan,
who was never down with the whole Maul thing. And especially not now because
Satine was her sister! So she rescues Obi-Wan and Bo-Katan goes to fight to liberate Mandalore.
But it's someone unexpected who defeats Darth Maul, yes, it's Palpatine himself! He can't
have any rivals for Lord of the Sith. And so it's time for an epic lightsaber battle! Voom, voom,
Palpatine showing that he's a beast. In the end, he kills Savage Oppress,
but he leaves Maul alive to serve his own nefarious schemes. Back on Coruscant,
someone has bombed the Jedi Temple, and Anakin and Asoka are on the case.
Ahsoka is sent to interrogate the suspect, but she's like "Oh, I've been set up," and
just then someone's killing her remotely with the force! And unfortunately, Ahsoka was the
only one in the room, and it sure kind of looks like she's guilty. So Asoka has got to go on the
run to clear her name, and her investigations lead her to none other than Asajj Ventress.
But Ventress had no part of this, she's just working as a bounty hunter now,
and she's trying to be less evil these days, so she helps Ahsoka, a little
bit. But Ahsoka' recaptured before she finds proof, and it's like "Yo I'm clearly innocent,
please let's do an investigation." But the war has clouded the Jedi Council's judgment,
and even Yoda makes mistakes sometimes, so they expel Ahsoka from the Jedi order.
But her master Anakin believe she's innocent, and pretty soon tracks down the real culprit.
So the Jedi give her a half apology, Yoda's like "Our bad, that was." But Ahsoka's disillusioned
with the Jedi now, it's like "Honestly, screw you guys." She and Anakin had such a close
relationship and it's heartbreaking for him to let her go, but Ahsoka Tano leaves the Jedi order!
In the next major arc a clone malfunctions, he kills his commanding Jedi, yes he executed
order 66 early. Fives takes point on the investigation, and discovers all clones
have a chip in their brain. He tries to uncover this vast conspiracy and is
brought to see the Chancellor himself, but of course he is the one behind this conspiracy!
So Fives tries to kill him, but now he looks guilty, and they put him down! No,
Fives was the loyalest trooper of them all, and now the truth dies with him. Now let's meet an
elite clone squad, The Bad Batch, because they all have mutations that make them pretty strong.
They rescue a trooper who was captured by Separatists, and turns out it is our old friend
Echo, who we thought was dead when he sacrificed himself a long time ago. But they experimented on
him, he's half cyborg now, and so he figures he'll join the Bad Batch. Finally, we catch up with
Ahsoka Tano, who long story short befriended some good smugglers, the Martez sisters.
But she learns that Maul is leading a crime syndicate, and she gets a visit from Bo-Katan,
who's like "He also took over Mandalore again." Now unfortunately the Republic can't really help
out, but Anakin Skywalker's like "Yo, girl, I got you." He lends her Rex and the 501st,
who have painted their helmets orange in Ahsoka's honor. So Ahsoka leads the siege
of Mandalore, which ends with an epic lightsaber duel between her and Maul!
In the end the good guys win, and Bo-Katan has liberated Mandalore... again. But as
we'll find out in Rebels, it doesn't last. So as Ahsoka and Rex have a touching moment
of friendship after having fought in battles together all across the galaxy,
the timeline's caught up to Revenge of the Sith, and oh, it's happening! "Execute Order 66."
Yes all across the galaxy the clone troopers are mind-controlled into betraying and killing their
Jedi friends! Ahsoka barely manages to escape, in fact she frees Darth Maul to cause a distraction,
so he goes off to continue... shenanigans. Luckily Asoka subdues Rex and gets that
chip out of his brain. But all the other clones cannot be reasoned with,
and it's tragic as Ahsoka and Rex have to fight them.
They managed to escape as the cruiser crashes, and it's a heart wrenching visual as Ahsoka
gave them all a proper burial. And so, Ahsoka Tano is one of the few surviving Jedi, who,
like the others across the galaxy, leaves her lightsabers behind to go into hiding.
The Republic has fallen, The Empire has risen! The Clone Wars animated series
comes to an end the only way it ever could: in tragedy. Now it's time for Star Wars Rebels,
which takes place here during the height of the Empire, getting close to the events
of the Original Trilogy. On the Planet of Lothal, we meet young orphan, Ezra Bridger.
He's a small time thief who survives by stealing from the Empire, he's basically Aladdin. But
today there's another group stealing from the Empire, and they're not just thieves,
they're rebels! Long story short, Ezra joins their crew. Their leader is Kanan Jarrus, who's rocking
the ponytail goatee. And he's got a secret, he is a Jedi! One of the last survivors of Order 66.
But the group's real leader is Captain Hara Syndulla, an ace pilot and Team Mom. There's
a young Mandalorian, Sabine Wren, who is an artist and explosives expert. Then there's Zeb,
who is your classic big grumpy alien guy. And last but not least,
is the team's Droid, Chopper, who is a crazy chaotic mayhem machine! He's the
real MVP of this team because, with a paint job, the Empire ignores him.
And because he makes a habit of blowing up entire Star Destroyers, he's maybe got
the highest kill count in all of Star Wars. So the crew flies around on their ship The
Ghost, doing rebel missions mostly here on Lothal. Now at first Ezra's
main contribution to the crew is being small enough to crawl
through air ducts. But pretty soon he discovers - woah! He can use the force!
So Kanan takes him on as a Jedi apprentice, and in general becomes a great father figure mentor
to him. Pretty soon they visit the Jedi Temple here on Lothal, where Ezra has a vision quest,
gets his kyber crystal, and builds his own lightsaber! And it's a real
unique lightsaber because the hilt is a blaster, which is a nice upgrade from his former slingshot.
Hunting them down for the Imperial Security Bureau is Agent Kallus,
a man with truly epic sideburns. But now that they're Jedi, the Empire brings out the big guns
and sends an Inquisitor. Yeah they're a group of Dark Side Force users who have been trained
to hunt down Jedi. And their signature weapon are these unique circular spinning lightsabers.
Now Kanan Jarrus is pretty outmatched, he was only a Padawan during Order 66. But when he
thinks Ezra's killed he goes into beast mode, and exploits this guy's obvious weakness. And so in
the season one finale, the Grand Inquisitor dies. But this really catches the Empire's attention,
and now they bust out the bigger guns. Oh, snap! It's Darth Vader.
Kanan and Ezra are way outmatched, through sheer luck they managed to escape. So now
Lothal is too hot for them, they got to lay low. They meet up with Hera's rebel contact Fulcrum,
who turns out is Ahsoka Tano! Yeah she's back and fighting for the rebellion! And somewhere
along the line, she built herself new white lightsabers, all right,
super cool. Her rebel cell Phoenix Squadron is still real small, but it's trying to grow.
She sends Ghost Crew to recruit an old friend, yes a surviving clone,
old bearded Captain Rex! We get one-off cameos with some future rebel leaders like Princess
Leia and Lando Calrissian. And there's a ton of episodes with Hondo Onaka, lovable pirate from
the Clone Wars. Because Ezra is a bit of a thief himself, these two actually become good friends.
Eventually Ahsoka takes Ezra and Kanan on a secret Jedi mission to an ancient
Sith temple. And here Ezra finds a mysterious old hermit, yes it is Darth Maul! He doesn't
want to fight because the Emperor is his enemy too, and he's a pretty cool guy,
Ezra kind of like him. But soon he betrays them and oh! Hit's Kanan in the eyes!
He manipulates Ezra to use the Sith Holicron to activate the temple,
which is a big weapon. Then Maul will make Ezra his new Dark Side apprentice,
and together they'll overthrow the Emperor and rule the galaxy. But Kanan Jarrus isn't
going to let that happen. Yes he's been blinded, but he gets lucky and throws Darth Maul off the
cliff. But someone noticed when they activated the temple - oh, snap! It's Darth Vader.
And this became an iconic Vader line:
"I'm not afraid of you!" "Then you will die braver than most." But now Ahsoka Tano arrives,
and it's time for the epic master apprentice lightsaber duel! But when she cuts open his
mask she gets to see it really is her old friend and mentor Anakin in there.
But at this point Darth Vader has fully disassociated, "I killed Anakin Skywalker."
So as Ezra and Kanan deactivate the temple, Ahsoka stays behind to finish off Vader.
But when we see Vader walking away, Ahsoka Tano is presumed dead. So the rebels have
been searching for a new home base, and of course it's Chopper who finds one for them.
He befriends an Imperial Droid, AP-5, who becomes his sassy C-3PO to Chopper's R2-D2.
He helps them find the planet Atollon, not on imperial charts. And it's a pretty great
base except for the giant spider monsters. Now Kanan Jarrus is permanently blind, but he finds
a mystic creature Bendu who teaches them how to see through the Force. Now Ezra Bridger has
buzzed his hair and built himself a new green light saber, he's becoming a real strong Jedi.
But he started playing with the Sith Holocron, and flirting with the Dark Side! But pretty soon
Kanan helps him realize the Dark Side is bad. But now Maul comes back to get that Holocron,
and he makes Ezra open up a Jedi one with it, which combined will answer any question you want.
And the question Maul most wanted answered is the location of his old rival, Obi-Wan Kenobi.
And so it's time for the final old man Obi-Wan Darth Maul duel! But as soon as it starts,
it's already over. Yes, Obi-Wan's been ready for this, takes him out in one blow, samurai style.
And it is kind of a sad moment as Obi-Wan just pities Maul, he never had a chance,
was brought to the dark side at a young age, and lived a life of pain and anger. So now
we know how Maul's story ends, but this probably isn't the last we'll see of him,
because he was still alive during this whole chunk. And turns out
Maul still had the Darksaber, so now our Mandalorian Sabine Wren claims it.
Remember Mandalore was liberated by the Republic at the end of the Clone Wars,
but immediately the Republic became the Empire, so Mandalore has been under imperial rule. So
Sabine goes home like "Yo Mom, it's time to liberate Mandalore!" "Did someone say
'Liberate Mandalore?'" Yeah Bo-Katan is obviously in. So young Sabine Wren,
with the Darksaber, leads her people to kick out the Empire!
But Sabine doesn't want to stay here and rule Mandalore, she's got to go back off
with the rebel friends the Ghost Crew. So she passes the Darksaber to Bo-Katan,
who has successfully liberated Mandalore... again. But as we'll find out in The Mandalorian,
it doesn't last. Now our rebels, Phoenix Squadron, has been outsmarting the Empire across the galaxy.
So now the Empire brings out the big guns, Grand Admiral Thrawn! Yes the main villain from the old
Star Wars novels, before there were any prequels or sequels. The story is just part of "Legends"
now, but Thrawn himself is officially canon! And Thrawn is a real interesting character,
very soft spoken, always calm and collected. Most importantly,
he is a genius tactician who instantly sees through all our rebels' tricks. Every time
they escape this season is because he lets them, he's trying to figure out where the rebel base is.
But the rebels have an advantage, a spy on the inside, and pretty soon Ghost Crew
discovers it's their old enemy, Agent Kallus! Yeah there was an episode where Kallus and
Zeb crash landed on a planet, had to work together to survive. And Kallus,
turns out, is an honorable dude, who now realizes the Empire is bad.
But unfortunately Thrawn found out he's the spy, and used his broadcasts to pinpoint the
rebel base! So Thrawn rolls up in force, ready to crush the rebellion completely.
"I am not accepting surrenders at this time." But there's one thing Thrawn couldn't have predicted,
the old creature Bendu, who doesn't appreciate all this fighting on his planet.
So Phoenix Squadron joins the rest of the rebellion, which has set up shop on Yavin 4,
yeah the planet from A New Hope! They're hanging out with rebel leader Mon Mothma, the rebellion
has reached its final form. But our Ghost Crew of course was not in A New Hope. They go back to
their old stomping grounds Lothal, to stop Thrawn from building his new improved Tie Defenders.
Now Kanan Jarrus makes a big life decision, it's time to lose the ponytail! Although,
not sure if they should let the blind guy cut his own hair. Now all series
long it's been kind of assumed that Kanan and Hera are in a romantic relationship,
but it's never been mentioned or really shown. But finally it's confirmed, there was never any
doubt, and the understated-ness of their relationship makes it kind of beautiful.
But tragically just then the mission goes bad, and Kanan got to use the Force to stop the explosion.
And this is it, there's no other way, Kanan Jarrus sacrifices himself to save his family! Oh so sad,
for what is mostly a kid's show. Now Ezra Bridger has always had a strong connection to animals,
specifically the wildlife of Lothal like the super cute loth cats.
But now the mysterious loth wolves show up who have a mystical connection to the Force. They
show Ezra the secret back door to the Jedi Temple, which is a trippy weird space with
doorways to different points in space and time! Ezra finds one that leads to the Asoka Vader duel,
and just as Vader is about to win, woah! He yoinks her out of there.
She's like "Wow man, thanks, I didn't know the Force could time
travel." And she helps him understand that he can't save Kanan the same way,
because it would create a time paradox. In fact she goes back to the time she came from,
to I guess lay low for a few years to not upset the timeline.
So now it's time to liberate Lothal! Our rebels are vastly outnumbered, but Ezra
gets reinforcements from the loth wolves! Oh yeah! These things are beasts. Unfortunately just then,
Thrawn comes back, and he is accepting surrenders this time. And Ezra's brought in for a Skype call
with... Emperor Palpatine himself! He really wants that Jedi temple time travel, so he's brought
a piece of it here and tries to tempt Ezra into opening it by showing him visions of his parents.
But Ezra's come to terms with their loss, and so he destroys the temple so Palpatine
can't get it. Of course there's still Thrawn to deal with, but Ezra had a secret plan that even
Thrawn couldn't have predicted. In a pretty early episode we met a real crazy animal, the Purrgil,
that are these whale squid things that live in space and can travel through lightspeed.
Ezra, naturally, formed a bond with them, and now he's summoned them here! Oh! An army of Purrgil
taking out all the imperial ships! Not sure if these things are cute, or eldritch horrors. They
hold Thrawn here as they grab the whole ship, Ezra's like "Yo guys, sorry, this was the only
way." Because Ezra is taking Thrawn off the board, by warping them out of here, to who knows where.
No one's quite sure what to do with this development, except of course Chopper,
who takes the opportunity to blow up the entire imperial base. And so our
rebels have saved Lothal! And a short time later, Luke Skywalker blows up two
Death Stars and defeats the Emperor, so all around the galaxy that day is saved. In the
epilogue we learn that Hera was pregnant! Yes her and Kanan's son, Jacen Syndulla.
But as for Ezra, he left them a message that he wasn't gone for good, they just need to
find him. So Sabine Wren is going to take point on finding him, and she gets help from Ahsoka
Tano! Who's now come back as Ahsoka the White. And that's where Star Wars Rebels comes to an end.
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