Hey youtubers it’s Charlie and the first episode of Rebels just posted, so this will
be my non spoilery review.
I’m expecting that most of you won’t have seen it yet, so when they air it on tv I’ll
do a top 10 video with spoilers next week.
I will be doing weekly videos for all the episodes, so if you like talking about star
wars please subscribe to get everything.
It’s an amazing show, anyone who liked the clone wars is going to love rebels.
The episode is called Spark of Rebellion and it introduces all the big heroes and villains
along with explaining the state of the galaxy.
The series takes place 5 years before Episode 4.
So presumably when they end the series.
It will be just as Princess Leia is getting chased down by the star destroyer in the opening
moments of the movie.
The cast has a lot of familiar faces and the production crew is the exact same group of
people that did Clone Wars.
Simon Kinberg is also writing for the series.
He’s one of the people working on the new Star Wars movies.
So there’s a lot of overlap between tv show people and movie people.
And you can see it in the writing.
I really want to talk about the voice cast first.
The most recognizable people are Steven Blum, Vanessa Marshall and Freddie Prinze Jr., if
you’re a big fan of Young Justice, Legend of Korra, Cowboy Bebop or you were a human
being in the 90s who watched movies.
You will instantly recognize those voices.
Jason Isaacs character we only meet briefly, so I’m not going to talk as much about him
until he gets some more screen time.
Even if you haven’t seen the episode, you could look at these people and assume it’s
going to be good.
Thankfully that is the case.
Freddie Prinze Jr was a ton of fun as the main character, he’s filling the Obi-Wan
Role, he’ll be mentoring slash training Ezra, played by Taylor Gray when their team
is in between missions.
They’re like a loveable band of rogues that are part scoundrel part hero.
They’d be boring if they never broke the law.
Freddie Prinze gets this really iconic Obi-Wan Kenobi speech that I
think serves as a good test for him as a voice actor.
I think
based on the characters he’s played before, being the loveable scoundrel will come a lot
easier than playing the jedi master.
I thought he nailed it and I’m looking forward to more Jedi - Padawan moments.
It’s really easy for someone to sound silly while they’re trying to speechify in jedi
mode.
Alec Guiness for instance, was totally believable as a Jedi Master, you took him very seriously.
And were still able to chuckle when he made a subtle turn of phrase.
The rest of the voice cast didn’t get quite as much screen time, but people like Steve
Blum and the other really notable people I mentioned are always amazing
Most of the time when we’re watching the show I think we’ll be focusing on the star
wars specific things, like the plot, the sights, the sounds and the giant Death Star looming
in the distance.
Speaking of the stories, you guys will be happy to know that Rebels will be canon, so
things that happen on the show will affect events during the movies.
And you don’t have to have watched Clone Wars to understand what’s going on, but
there is a very notable appearance from James Taylor as Obi Wan Kenobi.
The Disney people said that they officially consider Clone Wars as canon.
Maybe not a 100 percent, but for all intents and purposes Ashoka and everyone else are
canon.
I don’t know if they have any plans to include those characters in Rebels, but they included
Obi-Wan, so maybe.
The state of the galaxy is a big deal in the episode.
This is a time period we haven’t seen yet but it’s instantly recognizable even if
you haven’t been watching the cartoons.
The animation bears some similarities to the computer animation style of Clone Wars, but
all the textures look like they’re cranked to 11.
I don’t know if it’s just because the animation software has gotten more sophisticated
or if it was just a creative decision but everything looks much more steampunk-y and
Episode 4-ish.
Like all the lines are clean and everything pops with amazing color but it still bears
a lot of visual influence from the original trilogy.
I think this is because of the new films and JJ Abrams decisions to go with a more classic
visual style.
I say classic just to differentiate the visual style of the original trilogy with the prequels.
The episode itself structures most of it’s biggest scenes around the big WTF moments
of the original trilogy.
Like we see a really bad ass speeder bike chase that hits all the same beats of the
one in Episode 6 and we see a very familiar prison block scene.
Even the hyperspace sequences look very similar to the ones in the movies.
Part of me feels like they turned this into a love letter to the original trilogy because
the love it and part of me feels like they’re doing it to prepare us for the visual style
of the JJ Abrams Star Wars Universe.
If you haven’t seen the Episode 7 supposed Storm Trooper helmets, they look like they
could be future versions of the helmets we see in the episode.
So it seems like they’re making minor adjustments to things so that it all fits together logically
in the canon.
So when you see the episode, just be on the look out for big movie moments done with the
tv show characters.
They’re all really easy to spot.
There’s a certain amount of subtext but the show is written so that a young child
could follow the broad themes.
Older fans will enjoy a few well placed willhelm screams.
And that’s another thing I really noticed.
None of the dialogue or ‘star wars specific’ sound effects tripped over each other.
Everything was very distinct, I could follow all the dialogue and the sound effects at
the same time.
It’s just a Star Wars geek thing I’ve always done since before the Prequels.
It’s like a game, “where did this sound effect first appear”.
Or which scene did this noise come from?
If you really want to be hardcore about it, you’ll have a lot of fun.
There are also a lot of familiar music cues from episode 4.
The whole story structure of the episode mostly takes from episode 4, but there are a few
epic Empire Strikes back and Jedi moments.
I think they only thing I have to complain about is that one, it’s too short.
I understand the demands of animation make half hour shows less cumbersome to produce,
and two.
The Disney XD app and website where you can watch this for free, doesn’t let you watch
it unless you get Disney XD as part of your cable tv subscription.
That’s not the bad part, not all the cable providers they list on their website are part
of the deal.
So if you have Time Warner, you can’t watch this.
Even if you pay for the Disney XD channel.
That’s really the only actual complaint.
The episode will be on television October 3rd if you have to wait.
But like I said, you can watch it right now, so don’t wait.
Since that’s next friday my next Rebels video will be my top 10 favorite moments from
the episode with spoilers.
And after Friday, On October 13th the show moves to Monday Nights at 9PM eastern time.
What I’m going to do is because Gotham airs before it, I’ll be posting Gotham videos
Monday Night and my Rebels videos Tuesday Morning.
I’ll still try to live tweet as much as possible while it’s on tv, if you want to
play along you can find all my social links down in the description.
I’m also pretty good about giving updates on when videos are coming on twitter and Facebook.
I’m putting all my Rebels videos in my big Star Wars everything playlist, you can click
here to watch movie related and rebels videos.
and you can click here for my Korra book 4 trailer breakdown.
Hot off the presses.
Thanks for watching, now everybody high five and let’s meetup tomorrow for Doctor Who!