Star Wars Rebels has returned with the two part episode, Ghosts of Geonosis!
The crew of the Ghost is sent to recover a Rebel team sent to investigate Geonosis, and
the team was led by none other than Saw Gerrera.
With Rogue One released, it looks like Rebels will be connecting very heavily with the film
by including elements of the film, as seen by the latest trailer.
The last time we saw Geonosis was in the episode the Honorable Ones, which took place three
years before the events of Rogue One.
There were construction modules and evidence of a massive project going on.
This episode takes place the following year, and by then all the equipment has been moved,
probably because the Empire knows some of the Rebels had seen it.
The biggest selling point of this episode is Saw’s inclusion.
It serves as a stepping stone between his appearance in the Clone Wars and Rogue One.
He’s not nearly as unhinged as he is on Jedha, but I wouldn’t exactly call him stable
either.
Even so, he’s already got a reputation for being extreme, and we can see that in his
treatment of their hostage Geonosian.
I mean, he was already reckless during the Clone Wars, and that behavior has clearly
been exaggerated by the loss of his sister.
He’s been holding onto her death for seventeen years.
Not that he’s not allowed to grieve, but he’s taken it to an unhealthy level.
His desire to fight the Empire and his hatred for the Separatists that killed his sister
clouds his judgement, affects his actions, and Ezra calls him out for being no better
than the Empire.
In the end we see he’s not too far gone, and he softens up, and I’ll cover more on
that in a second.
We also know why his health has degraded so much in two years.
The Ghost Crew and Saw find evidence that the Empire used poison gas to exterminate
the Geonosians.
The Rogue One Visual Guide tells us that Saw ingested the pesticide, which led to his respiratory
problems.
I was expecting to see something dramatic where he breathes a bunch of it in, but that
didn’t happen.
However we know that he was trapped on the planet for two cycles.
In Legends a cycle was a year, but we know that’s not possible, since Sato specifically
said Saw’s team was sent in after Hera’s report the previous year.
So I’m guessing they’re referring to a lunar cycle of some sort, meaning Saw would
have been there for about two months.
I’m sure breathing even slightly poisoned air for that long would cause some issues.
So speaking of the Geonosians, this episode is also a stepping stone for their species.
In the Darth Vader comic, we see a surviving Geonosian queen, and we now know exactly how
that came to be.
The Ghost Crew captures a single surviving Geonosian that is protecting the future of
his race, a queen egg.
That’s the catalyst for Saw’s arc in this story, where he threatens to destroy the egg,
but in the end realizes that the Geonosians are victims of the Empire, the same as him,
and they deserve a chance to rebuild.
The Rebels all hope for the best, but about two years later Darth Vader comes to Geonosis
and likely destroys any hope for future Geonosians.
Forest Whitaker has said that Saw and Vader are similar, but here is an example of how
they are definitely different.
As expected, we did get some hints regarding the Death Star, but since we as the audience
know all about it, the Rebels’ obliviousness was treated as kind of a running joke.
The Geonosian kept drawing the Death Star, and they misinterpreted it as the egg he was
protecting, the poison canisters, and even Geonosis itself.
At its conclusion, the Ghost Crew get off the planet with Saw, a shield generator, and
evidence of the Empire’s crimes that will help rally more systems to their cause.
I think the midseason trailer showed us that shield generator in action.
In a wide shot of the generator, we can see it looks very similar to the one used on Echo
Base.
All in all, I think this was a really solid episode.
If we didn’t already know so much about the Death Star and the future of the Rebellion,
it would have been more intriguing, but I liked the characterization of Saw a lot more
in this than I did in Rogue One, and the action and drama were handled very well.
Before I wrap up, here are just a few stray observations.
We got to see some rocket troopers in action.
They’ve already been introduced in Battlefront, but that was a really cool sequence that also
revealed that Sabine has had her own jetpack fixed.
I really liked Kanan’s solution to crossing that chasm by breaking another bridge and
using the Force to hold it in place.
It’s also nice to see that while Ezra needs some extra help jumping the gap, Kanan did
it with ease.
I just like that Kanan seems to be growing stronger.
Although Saw and Rex quip that he’s no Skywalker, which was funny.
The Ghost has started keeping track of its TIE Fighter kills.
That maybe already been seen, but this is the first time I noticed it.
Ezra’s scout trooper helmet has been painted by Sabine.
I wonder if she at least asks before painting all their captured Imperial equipment.
I think they have extra suits lying around, but it would be nice if they could keep something
for undercover missions.
Ezra’s solution to communicating with their captured Geonosian is to talk louder and slower
and to name him after the sounds he makes.
That seems kind of culturally insensitive to me, Ezra, but I get that they’re all
in a dangerous situation without much other choice.
That’s it for today!
If you want to check out my other Rebels season three episode reviews, they’re in this playlist
here.
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As always, thanks for watching, and may the Force be with you!