Hey youtubers it’s Charlie and this week Disney posted the second episode of Rebels
early again on iTunes and the Disney XD website and it brought back a couple of old friends.
Also big heads up too, today at New York Comic Con, they announced that they’d also be
airing a Guardians of The Galaxy animated series on Disney XD next year.
This will just be a video for rebels, but I wanted to let you know about Guardians just
in case you didn’t see the news.
Careful for Rebels Spoilers if you haven’t seen the episode.
It’s free right now on itunes.
I’ll wait just a sec...okay, here we go Top 5 moments
Number 5 - The Star Tours Robot RX-24
Star Tours was a disneyland ride from 1987 to 2010.
I hope you got a chance to ride it, but it was like a virtual Star Wars adventure ride
that had a narrative and voice over work.
The droid that ushered you through everything was RX-24, this guy right here.
So his cameo is very similar to what he did and said on the disneyland ride.
The ship looks like the star tours ship too.
But you may recognize the voice being done by paul reubens, he’s the same guy that
did the voice for the original ride.
Here’s a little bit of the original audio from the ride.
It’s just awesome that they did this, it’s a huge easter egg for anyone that got to go
on the ride.
Just for reference, disneyland replaced Star Tours with an updated version of the ride
in 2011.
They brought a bunch of original cast members like Carrie Fisher to do voices for the new
ride and Paul Reubens to do this RX-24 guy again.
If any of you are Avatar Last Airbender or Legend Of Korra fans, Dee Bradley Baker does
the voice for Boba Fett.
Number 4 - Zeb Backstory
We learn a ton about Zeb’s history before the events on the show.
It’s a very similar story to what happened to the Wookies on Kashyyyk.
It turns out Agent Kallus ordered the use of these special disruptor guns on the Lasat
people during a big final assault on his home planet.
It sounds like most of his people were killed.
We also learn he was a member of the honor guard because of his special bow rifle.
Even though it looks like the staff weapons used by general grievous’ droids in revenge
of the sith, the name bow rifle reminds me of Chewbacca’s weapon, the bowcaster.
In case you didn’t see any of my other rebels videos.
Zeb’s race, the lasat is based on the original ralph mcquarrie concept drawings for Wookies.
So if you get chewbacca vibes from him.
It’s intentional.
Number 3 - C3PO & R2
It wouldn’t be Star Wars without a cameo from these guys.
Turns out they were secretly on a mission for bail organa, so they haven’t passed
into the service of Princess Leia yet.
In george lucas’ original story materials for episode 4, he describes her as being between
13 and 15, so I’d say right now where we are on the show, she’s only about 11.
In the expanded universe she became a senator at 16, so the timeline is a little fuzzy.
I’m not sure how long she had been a senator when episode 4 picks up.
This isn’t their show though, so I understand that they didn’t start the story with the
droids.
In the original trilogy, George Lucas used this old Akira Kurosawa technique to open
the movie with them.
Kurosawa would just open samurai films from the perspective of lesser characters and as
you started to learn about the story from them, they’d run into the main characters
and the perspective would shift.
It would have been cool if they did that in this episode.
But I get why they chose not to.
They did kind of end the episode on a moment like this when Bail Organa referred to them
as a couple of rebels.
Just making it seem like the crew of the ghost were a small blip on the galaxy’s radar.
Number 2 - Zeb vs kallus
This really did turn into a Zeb Episode, which is great.
It just means more Steven Blum.
We also found out that he and Kallus have unkown history.
Zeb was learning Kallus was behind the massacre on his home planet.
So what you’re seeing is the potential beginning of a blood feud that will run across the rest
of the season.
Kallus was almost able to Kill Zeb this time, so don’t be surprised if at some point Zeb
almost kills Kallus and it becomes an anakin skywalker type situation where he has to decide
whether to kill him and go super dark or take the high road and let him live, at the expense
of any future evil shennanigans Kallus might commit.
There’s always that moral throughline in star wars tv episodes, so if they chose the
right path in turning the guns over to Bail Organa, then of course they won’t chose
to kill anyone if given the chance.
and my Number 1 moment - Bail Organa’s Ship
You may have recognized him, but Phil Lamaar came back to do the voice for Bail.
He did the voice during Clone Wars.
In fact, so far, Rebels has used all the original Clone Wars voice actors to do characters in
the new series when they get cameos.
Like Obi-Wan.
It’s cute that Kanan leaves without knowing who Bail Organa is, but the really interesting
part was the last bit.
Him referring to the Ghost as a band of Rebels.
Disney was pretty clear that this tv series would be kind of an origin story for the rebellion.
It’s not really about the rebellion though.
It’s just about this small group of people.
But the whole Spark of Rebellion first episode implies that what they’ll be doing during
the tv series will inspire the people who do form the rebellion.
Just as a brush up on your expanded universe history.
The official leaders of the Rebellion were Bail Organa, Mon Mothma and Garm Bel Iblis.
The listed date of formation, when the rebellion officially became the rebel alliance was 2
years before episode 4.
So it might go down in a future season of rebels unless they mess with the timeline.
If we saw Bail Organa, there’s a good chance we’ll see the other leaders.
Let me know what your favorite moment was and did you ever go on the old star tours
ride or the new one?
Overall I gave the episode a solid B plus for amazing use of nostalgia.
It’s very hard to create dramatic tension when we already know what the endgame is,
so the work is really unfolding these stories in new an interesting ways.
If you ever feel like the camera is lingering on things for a long time, it’s probably
because they laid in some easter eggs, which is really what I spend a lot of my time during
episodes doing.
Playing the game where you see how many special things you can spot.
Like the landspeeder here.
This is the same model that was inside Owen and Beru Lars farm.
You see it in episode 4 when luke starts cleaning off 3PO and R2.
It’s a different color, but you get the idea.
Then there’s the Bow rifle and the bowcaster, there’s probably a ton of stuff I missed.
So if you spotted any objects or references just write them in the comments.
The series is offically going to premiere on Disney XD this monday, they’ll be airing
this episode.
It will be a monday night show from now on out, so my videos will always post by tuesday
morning.
Be sure to subscribe to get everything.
And yes, when the Guardians of The Galaxy Cartoon announces the cast and releases more
footage I’ll start doing videos for it too.
Right now click here for my Rebels Episode 1 video and click here to catch up on Legend
of Korra.
Thanks for watching, now let’s all high five and meet back up tomorrow, see ya guys!