(INTRO)
Hey guys, this is a EckhartsLadder,
Hello, and welcome to my Star Wars Rebels finale review/breakdown.
This is going to be sort of a rambling video.
So if you're interested more and my structured content this probably isn't the video for you. Don't worry
we'll have new stuff coming tomorrow so Star Wars Rebels just had it's three episode finale. Now
I wasn't the biggest Star Wars Rebels watcher,
I haven't seen every episode and that's not because I don't like the series,
or I was mad at it Rebels for replacing the Clone Wars,
But really I just got a little bit far behind before I started my youtube channel.
I wasn't super interested in the series, and I never really got fully caught up.
But I have been watching most of season four. Season four was
definitely the strongest season and really ever since Thrawn was introduced my interest in the show has definitely increased
significantly especially after reading the Thrawn
canon novel. So let's now talk about the full episodes. The first was called "A Fool's
Hope," then we had "Family Reunion," and
"Farewell" which was a double length episode and really two and one. I will be talking fully about spoilers here
so if you haven't watched the episodes yet, you might want to come back later. My expectations for the finale were fairly high.
We've had some really great moments in the last few Rebels episodes from the World Between Worlds,
to of course, the death of Kanan.
And I think Rebels is actually a really good show when it focuses on plot and moving the overall story forward.
And you know this was the finale, that was certainly something that was gonna happen in these three episodes. The first one however
I think was fairly disappointing. It was filled mostly with small-scale action and that the action that was in the episode
I think was a bit underwhelming, not much was done for the story.
This is something that's sort of plagued Rebels throughout the series in my opinion people standing around for minutes at a time kind of just
ducking and weaving away from blaster fire, shooting at stormtroopers. It's not really very compelling.
There's no tension there, but I guess I understand it.
I will say a few characters really did stand out however Sabine was really cool throughout the entire fight,
She must have taken out like thirty or forty guys Ezra (GIRL POWER)
has
Shown his development with the force and his lightsaber and the scene with the Loathe Wolves where they basically come out of the darkness behind
Ezra
was really cool and kind of continues the whole theme of
the Force really actually taking a much more prominent role in the story.
I will say that one thing they did way too often. Not only in these episodes, but just generally was throwing Rook off ledges.( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
It'd be like every five minutes someone would take him whether it was pushing him off with the Force or the Loathe Wolves *studder*
throwing him, like we know he's an exceptional climber.
We're not fooled anymore by shots of him being thrown down a hole because we know that he's found something to latch onto.
That was done way too much. Although. They did apparently kill him off later on which I thought was an interesting choice.
I really thought that he would actually impact Thrawn's storyline a bit more directly sort of as a call out to Star Wars legends.
But we have a lot of Expanded Universe material old Expanded Universe material in this episode,
so we'll talk about that later. One other small complaint that really isn't very important,
but still kind of bugged me was the Empire's over reliance on that one drop ship model.
It was kind of disappointing to see one of the last major battles
just be between some ground-based rebels and some hovering drop ships. Would have been nice to see some Tie Fighters,
maybe some Rebel star fighters, and maybe just some more interesting equipment. Overall the first episode was fine,
I think a lot of what happened, It was a little bit boring,
I wasn't necessarily paying attention to all of it like I expected to in a finale.
But let's move on to the second and third episode which I'm sort of gonna treat as one because I actually saw them put together.
So I don't even really know when episode 1 or part 1 finished and episode 2 began first of all.
I just wanna say that it was really nice to see basically the
entire gang back together. *stutter* That was a good thing and that really helped the feel of the finale.
Especially when you know it did feel like anyone could die after what we saw with Kanan a few episodes ago.
I don't really love Lothal. (same)
I don't love the save Lothal storyline so that already kind of put me off the finale.
But I think they still handled it fairly well.
It's a little disappointing that they were clearly limited by the fact that the Battle of scarf was supposed to be the first major victory
of the Rebel Alliance.
It would have been nice for the gang get in one last
major space battle or to do something that would help the Alliance as a whole moving forward.
You know kind of to connect them with the greater you know mythos.
I don't think the liberation of Lothal is necessarily the most
important thing, the most important event of the war and I would have just liked something a bit more...
consequential it didn't bother me that much,
but it was just kind of a personal
preference type of thing I have in my notes that it was funny to see Azadi pretending to be Yularen,
and that was one of my favorite moments in the three episodes. I also liked Thrawn's
introduction in the orbital bombardment, it was really great that they used a modified Emperor's throne room type theme.
But once again rebels is really blowing it with how it portrays orbital bombardment.
You know these are ships with massive turbo lasers shooting at the ground from close range
we shouldn't have tiny explosions, and this isn't a situation like before where you could argue that Thrawn isn't actually trying to kill anyone
he's trying to cause major destruction.
This sort of inconsistency with the lore and really just lack of thought I would argue really, really bothers me,
and it's gonna make my job as someone who looks at you know space battles and the power of
spaceships really annoying for the next little while I did however. Also enjoy the relationship between Sabine and Ezra (really?)
It's really been fun to see how the two have grown together. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
I liked when Sabine basically allows Ezra to sacrifice himself by distracting the group.
This is one of many
thematic ties to the Last Jedi.
Jedi allowing themselves to do what the Force wills putting themself in danger and everyone else realizing that sometimes, that's
necessary. The scene of Ezra actually confronting Thrawn for the first time was just...okay
I just don't think they have Thrawn nailed down as a character, and he's certainly pretty different from how he appears in his novels,
he's a lot more rash and emotional.
I mean he's not super emotional, but for Thrawn any sort of outburst is fairly significant, and he's less composed...
...he's less analytical
And it seems like the rebellion is always getting the jump on him. Thrawn and canon is also portrayed so far as being fairly cold,
but not
necessarily cruel later on he says what matters is who's in power. That personally just stuck out as something that I don't feel he would
say during that same scene.
I was
totally
expecting Ezra to snap for just a second and force choke throng that would have been a nice callback to the expanded universe with the
outbound flight and the Thrawn Trilogy.
Later on we have the SENATE hologram which was one of my favorite parts of the entire finale
I love the fact that the emperor uses his younger self when communicating with the public.
That's something we saw another time in Star Wars Rebels, but we've never seen him for this much screen time.
It was totally believable as Palpatine to me they got Ian McDermott, which I thought was really awesome.
My only small complaint is why not use the crab hologram projectors from episode 1.
We never see anything from the Phantom Menace in Cannon.
I just wish that would have had the little walkie crab things that Palpatine 'n' Sidious used in that movie. As he was in the "World
Between Worlds" though. I will say that Palpatine was also very menacing in very frightening. I mean
I'm not sure if the switching between the Sheev and the Sidious form really makes sense logically,
but it's fairly cool, and Rebels has done a great job of just making the Emperor seem really frightening. I like Ezra's conflict of duty
vs the life that he wants to have. On a personal level Ezra wants
nothing more than to just return with his parents,
but that sense of duty stops him from doing so and he puts the needs of the galaxy before his own personal needs.
That's something that's really explored in depth in the prequels especially with Anakin and his
responsibilities with the Jedi Order vs his love of Padme and especially once the child is in the mix.
And it's also something that pops up in the the Last Jedi
Novelization based on some leaks that we've seen I won't go any further to that because this isn't really at the video for it. Moving
on to the concluding bits of the series and of course the episodes.
I was surprised as he Rook apparently died definitely thought that he would have more of a role in Thrawn's future. I was also
surprised to see the Purrgil plays such a enormous part in the Battle of Lothal.
I think that's something that will be a little bit controversial amongst the community. I wasn't really a huge fan of it
it was basically the definition of a... (whatever he says) . I didn't hate it, but I certainly didn't love it
I probably my most oh crap moment of the episode though is when Thrawn said Pellaeon's
name. For those who don't know Pellaeon is a very major character in the Star Wars Expanded Universe.
It seems like they might have introduced him just to kill him off.
I really hope that's not the case if they've killed Pellaeon after five seconds of screen time
and we don't even get to see him...
...I'll be so disappointed. There were of course other significant lore implications for the episode the first and most major one is that Thrawn is
probably not dead yes, Ezra and Thrawn went through hyperspace with the Purrgil,
but I'd be really surprised if that was the end of our favorite Chiss.
It could actually be a good thing hyperspace weirdness
or you know just being lost could be the reason why Thrawn is not present for most of the original trilogy
He could now pop up afterwards,
he could do sort of a warlord thing or he could still be a part of the First Order really I would be surprised if
Thrawn was dead, and I will be actually very angry if Thrawn is dead
and he's killed in such a sort of silly manner.
We also know that ahsoka is still alive after the Battle of Endor which is obviously very significant.
Where was she during the major events of the Galactic Civil War who knows?
She's got some time-skip weirdness going on too, but I'm happy that there's still stories to be told from her life.
I'd be very surprised though, if she's still alive by the time of the sequel trilogy.
We've also confirmed now that Rex was at the Battle of Endor that was a fan theory for a long time then David Filoni and
the rest of the Rebels guys kind of teased at it,
but now we know for sure I mean we don't know if it's definitely that one white haired bearded man
but let's just say that it was. And then the
strangest and most unexpected moment for me was the reveal of Jason Syndulla (idk). I expected Hera
to actually been pregnant in and I expected them to have a child but for it to be named Jason the clear reference to the
Expanded Universe in Jacen and Jaina Solo it was just like I was not expecting that in my notes. I wrote Jason Syndulla
Haha, lol wut and I think that well encapsulates. It's how I feel, but I liked it.
I didn't have closed captions on I don't know if it's spelt
JaSON or JaCEN
I will say though if they've named the character the same way as Jacen Solo. They better not waste them. Also Ezra is
probably alive I guess?
We're not really sure but we know that
that's likely what some of the Rebels crew are doing after the Battle of Endor they're looking for him.
I don't know like why they waited so long to actually you know set out for him whether they've got a message or something,
but, I'm, again...I didn't love Ezra as a character although.
He did grow on me, so I'm not sure how I feel about him still being in Canon.
I definitely would have preferred if very clearly in the episode he died, but Thrawn survived. All in all though
I thought the finale was enjoyable again. They killed Rook
I'm fine with that because I didn't really love Thrawn's death in Legends.
I get that it was artfully done and that it kind of represented his one failure with the
misunderstanding of the No Tree People (i tried), but it's interesting now that canon will have to do something else with him.
Otherwise the changes are the additions to the universe I think we're all pretty well done.
I'd rate the first episode a 6 out of 10 just because it spent too much time meandering when
We're running out of screen time, but the last two which I'm going to kind of combine as one,
I'd give a solid 8.5 in my version. We'd get a little bit more substantial of a battle,
we wouldn't have the space wales although. You know what it's weird, but fine.
Thrawn would bombard the planet from orbit, and it would be a lot more devastating and Ezra clearly dies well Thrawn survives.
Also, give me Pellaeon and I won't, I need him in the flesh
it's it's been too long.
But, uh, but still very good episode very good way to end the series. In my opinion Rebels
did, y'know it's was I think it was a bit more kid-friendly than the Clone Wars was I think the action in particular especially.
Well, not especially on the ground on, the ground in space was a step down as was the animation,
But I think some of the things they did for the plot was pretty brave.
I wish that we would have got a bit more of the mortis family.
We had them referenced, but they didn't appear to the degree that I expected they would although we probably saw the daughter,
but you know what I'm happy that the show you know existed.
And I'm excited to see what Dave Filoni only and the rest of the Star Wars animation team have for the future
Anyways guys this has been a EckhartsLadder. Let me know down in the comments
what you thought of the episode what you want to see for the next Star Wars animated series and
I guess what your favorite Star Wars Rebels episode ever was and what your favorite moment from the last three was.
Thanks for watching guys until next time may the force be with you.