Star Wars Rebels

I first saw Star Wars in 1977, when I was eight years old. My parents took me to see it at the Coronet Theater in San Francisco, and it changed my life. I had loved other things—Sesame Street, Mister Rogers, I don’t even remember what else—but Star Wars was the first thing of which I became a passionate fan. Over the years, my interest waxed and waned; I drifted away after the first trilogy ended and came back when the second began. Now that we are getting annual Star Wars movies, I’m very much obsessed again. However, it may come as a surprise that my favorite iteration of Star Wars isn’t any of the nine movies (although I love them all, to a greater or lesser degree) but the animated TV series, Star Wars Rebels.

Rebels tells the story of the crew of the Ghost, a small crew of rebels fighting the Empire. Initially set five years before Episode IV, we first meet the crew through the eyes of Ezra Bridger, a fifteen-year-old Force-sensitive boy on the Empire-occupied planet of Lothal. Ezra’s parents are missing, and he is on his own. Until he meets Kanan Jarrus.

Kanan was a Jedi Padawan fighting alongside his Master in the Clone Wars until the infamous Order 66 all but eliminated the Jedi. Kanan (or Caleb Dume, his real name) escaped, and went on the run, hiding out until he met a Twi’lek woman named Hera, owner of the Ghost. Later, he and Hera were joined by a young Mandalorian warrior/artist named Sabine, an alien warrior named Zeb, and Chopper, a veteran astromech droid. The crew welcomes Ezra on board as part of their team, as they work towards freeing Lothal from the Empire. But it’s hardly a straight journey.

The early episodes introduce the Grand Inquisitor as a foil for the Ghost crew, voiced by Jason Isaacs. The Inquisitors, who debut in this series, aren’t Sith warriors, but they are described as Dark Side Force adepts. Isaacs was a great villain for the first season, but I preferred the two Inquisitors who showed up in the second season, Fifth Brother and Seventh Sister. 

The third and fourth seasons featured Grand Admiral Thrawn, a character who had been introduced in a series of Star Wars novels by Timothy Zahn back in the 90s. Since Lucasfilm has declared that those stories aren’t part of the official Star Wars continuity, this marks Thrawn’s first “real” appearance. He was intriguing as one of the few aliens we see in a command role in the Empire. As a master planner, he filled the role of a more intellectual villain, rather than one for the characters to get into physical fights with, as was often the case with the Inquisitors. At some points, he suffered the fate of most recurring villains: the more the rebels escaped his plans, the less clever he actually seemed, no matter how many times he justified those failures with some variation of, “I meant to do that,” or, “All part of my grand plan.” Ultimately, though, his big losses were played as sincere losses, and by ending the conflict with Thrawn—and, indeed, the series—with the conclusion of the fourth season, things didn’t feel too drawn out.

The series featured a lot of connections to the greater Star Wars universe of storytelling, as well. Beginning as early as the first season, and continuing throughout the series, we revisited familiar faces like Darth Vader—a cameo in the first episode, a major player in the second season—Lando Calrissian, Princess Leia, Rex and other surviving clone troopers from the Clone Wars, Darth Maul, Yoda, Saw Gererra, Mon Mothma, Artoo-Deetoo, See-Threpio, Princess Leia, and even Obi Wan Kenobi. Best of all, we saw the return of Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker’s padawan from the Clone Wars. While controversial amongst fans when introduced, her storyline in Clone Wars presented a unique, interesting arc, and I was very excited to see her still around, still in the fight.

Lest I make it sound as if Rebels was mainly a vehicle for guest appearances and wrapping up dangling stories from the Clone Wars, that was very much not the case. The connections to other Star Wars stories helped this feel like a piece of the whole, but Rebels very much told its own story. That story may have sometimes intersected with others in interesting ways—we saw connections to Rogue One, we saw the introductions of characters like Wedge Antilles and ships like the B-Wings and Y-Wings—but it was always in service to the adventures of the crew of the Ghost. However, it was also exciting to see the beginnings of the Rebel Alliance through their eyes. This is a show that rewards fans of the show, if this were the only ever Star Wars series they see, but also rewards fans of Star Wars in general, making all sorts of connections between the TV shows, movies, and books.

The adventures of the Ghost’s crew should feel familiar to Star Wars fans of any stripe. The episodes give us fast-paced adventure stories with a lot of action, a lot of suspense, a lot of drama, a lot of humor, and a lot of heart. For fans for whom Star Wars is spaceships blowing things up and guys fighting with laser swords, there’s plenty of that. For folks who love characters in cool armor like Boba Fett, there’s Sabine in her Mandalorian armor, equally at home creating art with her spray paint or destruction with her bombs. There’s badass banter with Zeb, Jedi philosophy with Kanan and Ezra, and, in Chopper, one of my favorite droids in Star Wars, right up there with Artoo-Deetoo and BB-8.

Because the seasons ran anywhere from twelve to twenty-one episodes per season, the show provided ample opportunity for character development. Consider that, say, Han Solo was in four two-hour movies (with a fifth coming up next month, I guess). That’s eight hours total, or as much screen time as a shorter season of Rebels. Rebels definitely took advantage of that time, and allowed the characters to grow and change over the course of the series. For example, some shows might have stretched out the mystery of what happened to Ezra’s parents over the course of the entire series. Instead, the show resolves that storyline part of the way through season two, but the effects of that resolution continue to have echoes right up to the end. 

I particularly loved the way Rebels depicted the Force, especially the way it connected to the natural world. While as far back as Episode IV we had been told that the Force is an energy field that surrounds and connects all living things, the movies and Clone Wars had basically depicted it as a way to throw people across rooms and—as Rey points out in The Last Jedi—to lift rocks. Rebels gives us a Force-sensitive mystical creature named the Bendu (voiced by Doctor Who star Tom Baker) who completely dismisses the notion of “light vs dark,” focusing instead on balance in a way we haven’t seen before. We also encounter Force-sensitive space whales called Purrgil, who can naturally travel through hyperspace (and may have been the inspiration for space travelers to develop hyperspace technology of their own). Finally, and perhaps most significantly, there are the Loth-Wolves of Lothal. These giant wolf-like beings play a key role in the resolution of the series that warmed my heart; to say too much about it would be a spoiler, I think, but trust me. It’s worth it.

The series was visually spectacular, as well. I have seen it dismissed out of hand because it is produced in 3-D CG animation instead of traditional cel animation (which, these days, is all done on a computer anyway). This, to me, feels like a spurious insult. The characters, backgrounds, storyboards, direction, and everything, are still done by human artists. Insisting that the art is somewhat lesser because they are using modern tools is like dismissing any art that wasn’t made by smearing mud and berry juice onto cave walls. 

The creators of Rebels based the look of the series primarily on the work of Ralph McQuarrie, key concept artist for the Star Wars movies. The style of the designs and settings are meant to specifically evoke the feel of his paintings. Many characters and designs are drawn from his work. For example Zeb is based on an early design concept for Chewbacca. Chopper’s arms are inspired by the arms Artoo displays in early concept paintings. When Leia shows up in an episode, her outfit is based on an early McQuarrie design. Even Darth Vader in the the show feels reminiscent of a McQuarrie painting, with the animators giving his mask a slightly more elongated look, rather than a photorealistic rendition based on the actual prop.

Perhaps the best compliment I can give the visuals of the show is to say that one of my favorite visual moments from any Star Wars story comes from the series finale. As the Ghost takes off to assist in the final battle, we see a pack of Loth-Wolves running along underneath it, keeping pace with the ship. To me, watching that moment in its context at that point in the series, it felt like the most beautiful Star Wars image I had ever seen, right up there with Luke watching the twin sunset in A New Hope.

There’s so much more to talk about with Rebels, i could go on forever. Writing this has inspired me to rewatch the show, and talk more about each episode in depth as I go. For those who are interested, the first three seasons are available on blu-ray, and all four seasons are available for purchase on iTunes, or on Amazon Prime. And all four seasons are available for streaming on the Disney Now app.

That’s it for this week. See you next week!