Star Wars: Rebels

If there was going to be a major challenge for Star Wars animation, it would be trying to do better than The Clone Wars. Often considered as some of the greatest Star Wars content, following up an animated series which lasted from 2008 to 2014 (at least at the time before it returned in 2020 for a conclusive saga) would be an astronomical feat in itself, but the fact that it was tied to such a ‘held in high regard’ series like Star Wars often meant that expectations were higher than usual. Something like Star Wars: Rebels, which began in 2014 and ended in 2018, was received not as unanimously as its previous, and while it definitely had its share of success from critics and some audiences, in comparison to the Clone Wars, Rebels earned a lot more attention for its shortcomings rather its pros. Set during the Empire’s reign over the galaxy, a young street-rat named Ezra (voiced by Taylor Grey) finds a way to escape from his restrictive life on his home planet by getting involved with a rag-tag rebellion group who are working on overthrowing the empire. This includes pilot Hera (voiced by Vanessa Marshall), a Mandalorian warrior runaway named Sabine (voiced by Tiya Sircar), the brute and muscle of the team, Zeb (voiced by Steve Blum), a droid named Chopper, and a Jedi on the run named Kanan (voiced by Freddie Prince Jr) who sees the force connection that Ezra has and agrees to be his teacher even though his own training was cut short due to the Jedi purge. Together on their ship called the Ghost, this small team will clash with enemies from within the empire, like imperial Agent Kallus (voiced by David Oyelowo), Jedi hunters known as inquisitors led by the Grand Inquisitor (voiced by Jason Isaacs) and a highly decorated operative named Admiral Thrawn (voiced by Lars Mikkelsen), whose steely resolve and perfect strategic co-ordination is seriously threatening and has the potential to wipe them out of the galaxy once and for all. Rebels carries a lot of flaws from its beginning to its conclusion, but much like Clone Wars ,and even a good majority of Star Wars in general, its pros are truly striking and result in the series still being worth experiencing.

Literally coming out the same year Clone Wars was cancelled was going to leave the audience with a bad taste in their mouths, not helped out by the fact that this was technically Disney’s first solo series involved with Star Wars, and with the tone and visuals looking more downgraded from Clone Wars, it didn’t start people off in the best way. This is true in an overall sense as Season One doesn’t present itself very flatteringly. It’s not awful by any means,  but it definitely feels a lot more straightforward, generic, and even ‘’Disneyfied’’ in nature with the choice of narrative trajectory, the episodic nature, the real lack of an end goal and its child-like writing and presentation which can make things feel pretty annoying at times. It is a bit of a jarring change to go from something that while still catered towards kids and had a similar style of animation, was definitely different in tone, subject matter, and scale. Much like that show,  however, things only get better as it continues as the later seasons elevate the show greatly. While the final act does feel a little disjointed and messily put together as a conclusive arc for this story, Seasons 2 and 3 work relatively strongly and make this series feel like a fun addition to the Star Wars mythology. What started as a basic fun adventure suddenly turns into a proper battle against dark and light when it tackles much bigger stories, grander characters, and larger themes and concepts. When it reintroduces old characters, they honestly improve the series a huge deal with how their stories continue and evolve past what was already seen. With this in mind though, its nice to have a show that doesn’t feel restricted or held back due to not relying on older faces to lead it, it’s a new adventure with new characters in a familiar time, and although definitely flawed and arguably not strong enough without some of these components, its nice to see regardless. Both shows arguably have similar pros and cons, but what separates them is not only the tone and presentation, but the wartime setting and political angle of Clone Wars skewed its audience to favour the more aggressive storytelling against Rebels’  more kid-friendly approach. Rebels biggest flaw is how much of the series feels pretty aimless until the later half of its entire run, as up until then it was just a goofy episodic adventure story, with characters people didn’t entirely like and with a tone that was a little too regressed for its audience. The annoying stuff is spread evenly throughout the main cast and storylines, rather than just on side characters and filler plots, which results in a more consistent feeling of mediocrity throughout, but when the story does get going and it becomes a bit more focused, it is better handled, feels appropriately Star Wars, and more importantly, its own thing.

Star Wars is often run by its characters as while its world and mythology is filled with interesting and cool aspects, these aspects need likeable people to react to said elements so the audience feels like this environment is alive and real. While Star Wars hasn’t always handled this as consistently as it could, it has made some basic but likeable faces the audience can connect with, and the cast of Rebels does work well enough in that regard. Since it has the benefit of sticking with these six throughout the majority of the series as opposed to needing various perspective from different people, it gives more time to associate with these faces and it shows the characters grow into bigger, more fleshed out roles. This is pretty helpful as a majority of the crew are pretty basic and even lacking personality in the beginning and only really become good once the show gets going.  Ezra is kind of the basic lead of the story and while he is nothing special and feels pretty familiar to other roles (very clear Aladdin comparison due to Disney’s involvement), his growth is well shown, his struggle with the dark side is interesting (if underused and quickly forgotten about) and his conclusion is pretty cool for a series like this to close on. The rest of the crew all have moments as well; Kanan’s imperfect teacher-student relationship with Ezra allows him to grow as a mentor and as an individual character, Sabine’s ties to her family heritage and an ancient weapon are well handled, Zeb follows the ‘’muscle’’ archetype nicely and has some fun moments throughout, but his arc seems to close pretty early in the series so he feels kind of redundant halfway through, Hera actually grows from a pretty one-dimensional role into a very likeable character come its conclusion, and even the droid has so much personality without saying a single line, they become a surprisingly likeable group and while the voice acting can sometimes feel a little overly pronounced and slow (like it would be for a kiddie show) they manage to handle the soft and light stuff okay and even some of the emotional stuff as well. Much like its heroes, the villains of the show get progressively better as it continues. The characters known as Inquisitors are really lame in the earlier stages of the show with weak designs, zero personality and despite a cool concept behind their origins, don’t factor into much of anything, Kallus evolves from a pretty one-dimension threat into someone more important later on even though he is quickly forgotten about as well, but the character of Thrawn really makes things better. His cold, calculating and chillingly smart demeanor matched with this underlying sadism makes him a great villain as well as something completely new for Star Wars, having a bad guy not throw around a light saber and still be threatening is impressive.

Probably the biggest change from one show to another was the animation. While the story and characters were different in feel from Clone Wars, they did grow to become something more akin to what would be expected of that show and a lot of the strengths and weaknesses do overlap between each other, but the animation style is one that a lot of people did find it hard to overcome. While Clone Wars also had a cheap look to it that wasn’t always fantastic , it went for style over presentation, and it made the show feel completely its own and it led to some memorable angles, designs and scenes that could capture the creative imagery and weight of Star Wars. Rebels has a look that does definitely feel more targeted towards a younger demographic, with the softer color palette, smooth textures and often times overly lit environments. It raises another strange predicament with the show as it becomes overly clean and less gritty than a lot of the other Star Wars projects, even the Clone Wars did this with sketchier deigns and a darker color palette. Star Wars has often been more effective when it captures that beautiful, yet gritty feel to it and this show doesn’t have much of that thanks to this smoother style of animation, but this isn’t to say that it doesn’t look good in moments either. Its true that some of the textures can look odd and some familiar characters don’t look as good in this style, but it does still have good coloration, effective lighting, some really nice environment shots, and a lot of the creature and location designs are memorable and feel like they fit in Star Wars very nicely. It’s a shame that a lot of the fight sequences aren’t anything that spectacular, considering Star Wars is often known for its clashing duels, but much like older Star Wars, the fights work more in delivering on strong emotional storytelling as opposed to looking the cleanest and most realistically aggressive. They don’t look the most fluid or tight as the animation can be pretty frantic and fidgety in motion, but the weight of the story often times makes a lot of them more interesting and impactful and it feels like the best fights work more for their story and character significance rather than their intricate choreography (again the finale for Season 2 is impeccable). The writing can often times be a little too childish in nature and even a majority of the time, the writing isn’t anything dramatically clever or adult, but when it needs to have an emotional or quiet moment, the show is capable of pulling it off much better than anticipated. While it is child-oriented in nature, it isn’t condescending or painfully forced, it just feels like its intended for a younger audience.

Despite its obvious flaws, Star Wars: Rebels is honestly still worth a watch. This was still during the period when Star Wars was practically dead and after the Clone Wars finished, it didn’t really have anything else to keep the spirit of the name alive outside of books, comics and games (which even then weren’t always successful). Overall, it’s a flawed series that carries its own unique problems, but when it hits those right moments, it can reach levels that, while not to the same strength as previous projects, captures a close enough vibe that makes it worth sitting through. It gradually gets stronger as it continues, the eventual outcome is pretty unique for a series ending and ends on a wonderful open note, the newer characters eventually build their way into becoming pretty good and its handling of older characters can sometimes be really effective (Maul and Ahsoka just get better each time we see them) , the main villain is memorable and threatening, its extension to the universe of Star Wars is effective and breathes new life into the franchise, and while the visuals may take some getting used to and isn’t always effective, it doesn’t hamper the experience too strongly. You could probably just skip the first season and not really miss anything of worth, but if the annoyances don’t bother you too much, maybe you can get through it okay.