Full Series Grade the Episode 1.03: "Droids in Distress" (Spoilers)

Have you watched "Droids in Distress" yet? Did you like it? Did you hate it? Did you not give a **** at all? Let us know! Click your grade and if you want, be a critic and let us know why!

Note: This poll will close by the airing of next week's episode. ​

 

9/10 - Thought C-3P0's performance was just a little bit over the top. He seems like more a parody of himself.

Otherwise very solid episode and very enjoyable.

 

8/10. Zeb was really good in this episode and his duel with Agent Kallus was quite good.

 

8/10- The inclusion of our two favorite Star Wars droids, Chopper and Artoo acting like Garfield and Odie while C-3PO is like John, Zeb's past brought up, Kallus battling Zeb, Bail Organa, Tantive IV, the way the sphere of planet, Garell, looks like Coruscant and the development of Sabine.

 

I loved this episode. I purchased the DVD with the first two episodes on it and was really surprised to not see any "original" characters. Once I heard about this episode I was hooked and watched it at like 2AM at school.

10/10 for me. I thought it was a fun episode, would get kids involved, and hit the spot for an older population of fans. I am very much looking forward to the rest of this show to come out.

 

Bail Organa was a fun little cameo at the end.

 

Solid episode. Especially the ending. I can't wait for more! 8/10.

 

7/10. I think it's a bit too early to be using major characters like Threepio and Artoo; at this early point it seems like simply a ratings grab. And the episode as a whole felt very rushed; as several have said in the episode thread, it would have benefited from being stretched and split into two parts.

Otherwise, I liked it. The duel between Zeb and Kallus was great, and we learn a lot more about Zeb's backstory through this episode. I hope we get similar backstory exploration episodes for the other members of the team. And I think Ezra's Force push, while clearly unintentional, will go a long way in helping him and Zeb come to an understanding (and the preview of the next episode that we got at the end of this one suggests we'll get more of Ezra and Zeb next week).

 

Anybody else see Organa becoming a silent benefactor for the crew of the Ghost? I'm still wondering who Vizago was working for..unless I just missed that..

 

9/10

Loved Maketh Tua, loved Paul Ruben, loved Sabine, loved Kallus, loved Hera.

Pretty freaking awesome episode.

 

Misread the topic, sorry. 8/10..

 

I had my issues with this episode. A somewhat confused narrative, that Lothal crime boss seems to be a poor man's Hondo (a character who desperately needs to reappear on Rebels) a TON of commercial breaks (this is Disney XD's fault of course) and the fact untrained Ezra seems to be more powerful than either Anakin or Luke at this point in their development. But damn, did they ever deliver with that Bail Organa scene at the end. I like the silent benefactor possibility that was raised and how Organa regards Artoo as an old friend and operative. Really terrific stuff there.

The rest of the episode wasn't bad either. We learn some good info on Zeb and he has a pretty cool fight with Kallus. Like the planetary designs too.

 

Star Wars: Rebels returns for its first regular episode of the week and it’s a solid outing, if staying short of greatness. The animation at the beginning of the episode is phenomenally stunning and the shots of Garel’s landscapes (with that Cloud City vibe) are incredible. There’s a subtle quality of the visual palette that allows the colors to vibrantly contrast. That animation smoothness still does not translate down as effectively to the characters and their moments, however. But I won’t chase after the show on that front unless there’s something absolutely glaring like the Wookies last week. Just a slight nitpick, but they really need to figure out the logo thing. Just have it pop up at the beginning instead of having it cut through a random shot. It’s annoying.

Anyhow, the episode. The crew is short on money and they cut to an Imperial arms deal on Lothal that they could smuggle out for their own sake. They get on a train that leads them to the hangars, where they run into a female Imperial Minister whose involvement in the illegal arms sale is clearly telegraphed from the beginning. On the train (driven by Star Tours’ Rex!), they run into our favorite droids C-3P0 and R2-D2, who in a nice twist are presented as Imperials. In all fairness, it shouldn’t really come as a surprise that our beloved droids work for the Imperials considering where they are in A New Hope. The banter between them and the crew of the Ghost is well done, especially the antagonism between the two astromechs.

Sabine as a linguist was an interesting touch and it certainly adds more personality to her besides “I’m the cool Mandalorian girl with explosive paint.” Her treachery with the Imperial Minister was clever in its sheer simplicity. This is why language skills are important, children. The heist itself is interrupted, which makes sense although the lax guarding of the hangar itself is irritating. Last week they got to the Star Destroyer with ease but that could be explained by it being a trap. If the hangar was going to be the site of an Imperial arms exchange, how could a ragtag group get so close to it so easily?

Zeb benefits a lot this week, as we learn that the weapons in the hangar were used as a genocide tool against his people by Agent Kallus. It’s a horrifying revelation that immediately makes Agent Kallus (still hate the name) a much more terrifying villain while adding in layers to Zeb’s characterization. Their fight is thrillingly choreographed, balancing action and dialogue incredibly well. I love that Zeb lost the fight and was just about to die before Ezra’s sudden burst of Force power sent Kallus flying through the air. They escape yet again, but barely so in a tradition that is hopefully truncated soon. The episode comes to a wonderful close with Kanan delivering C-3PO and R2-D2 to Senator Bail Organa. “A simple gesutre of kindness can fill a galaxy with hope,” Bail says as a thank you. Kanan departs, with Bail quietly getting information from R2 on the rebel group he just encountered. I’m intrigued to see where this goes.

Great Moments Not Mentioned Above:

+Ezra: “Was there ever any doubt?”; Everyone else: “Yes.”
+Missing the shot joke
+“I didn’t know there were any Lasats left.”
+The opening shot of the Imperial Star Destroyer was nicely juxtaposed with the final shot of the Tantive IV
+The music was an improvement over last week

-Yet the music at some points was overbearing in references

8/10

 

I think it was a really good episode. The plotline about stealing the disruptors to sell them to Vizago and C-3PO and R2-D2 ending up in the middle of the conflict between the crew and the Empire was quite enjoyable and had both some good action and humor (and a good ending reveal where Bail makes an apperance). I perhaps especially like the heavily Zeb-centric tone of it, with the disruptor thing hitting him extremely close to home and finding out that Kallus was the one that gave the order to use the disruptors on the Lasat people (which now is essentially extinct); him fighting off the stormtroopers and taking on Kallus, both on his own, were great sequences (and it was interesting that he didn't win the last one, which saw some good development for Ezra who ended up saving him by force pushing Kallus; judging by the look Zeb gave Ezra afterwards, I think it's safe to say that he's gotten some respect for the new guy). I don't know a lot about Star Tours but I know enough to get the references; it was a fun inclusion.

Other than that, the animation was really good (that first shot of Garel City looked quite nice), Chopper butting domes with R2 was quite funny (there should have been more of that), it was great to see the AT-DP walkers in action and I kinda liked the new villainess, minister Tua (but she really needed to lose that dumb hat and perhaps also the colors of the clothes to look less like a civilian from the previous entry in the series; I had to remind myself that she was an Imperial). The only major negatives is the fast pacing which is still an issue, but I'm hopeful they will work that one out (I also noticed some OT music but there wasn't as much of it as in the previous one where it was a bit much). Overall, it's a solid enough episode that improved on some of the stuff from the pilot episode and delivered a good story with some character development (mainly for Zeb).

8/10

 

This was so much better than the pilot, even if it still suffers from some of the same issues.

The less is more approach will work so much better for this show.

7/10

 

The whole Firefly cartoon vibe didn't do it for me. Not really digging the animation style either, feels a lot less "cinematic" than TCW. Chopper is pretty cool, though. 4/10

 

I love that Kanan was still willing to sell the weapons - adds a nice edginess to the characters.

Was he aware that Zeb was upset? Only Hera seemed to know but made no effort to either comfort him or change Kanan's mind.

What was that one?

 

8/10
Hera's whole loving momma persona isn't clicking with me, but other than that I'm loving the child-friendly Firefly vibe this show is giving off. Also, the fighting animation was wonderfully smooth and I can't wait to see more of that.
Off to a good start I'd say

 

I liked this episode.

7/10.

Pros:
- solid first half, I loved how the crew conned the Minister and the other Imperials
- the animation was very well done
- Zeb's backstory (though something tells me we'll see tragic backstories for the rest of the crew as well)
- I really liked Ezra in this episode
- Zeb vs. Kallus
- I liked that self-important Imperial bureaucrat, she showed a slightly different side to the Empire

Cons:
- the second half didn't click with me for some reason. I guess after the quirky first half, the second felt a little bland.
- why did we need R2D2 and C3PO for this episode? Threepio was even more annoying then usual.
- the Stormtroopers are way too incompetent. well, I guess that ship has already sailed in the Battle of Endor.
- I greatly disliked the music, either it was pulled straight from the movies (literally comes across as the poor man's version of John Williams) or it was waaaay too overbearing when it was original. The Clone Wars score was much superior
- so Agent Kallus had had a hand in Zeb's tragic backstory. it's a very small galaxy, isn't it? (I bet there will be an episode where Zeb and Kallus will have to work together against a common threat)

All in all, I sort of like Rebels so far. It's a little bland for me for some reason, even though I really want to love this show. Maybe it will grow on me, I mean I thought the same about The Clone Wars movie (which is basically 4-5 episodes cobbled together), but then it got good with Ambush and the Malevolence arc.

 

It seems perfectly reasonable to me that if an ISB agent had a major role in the genocide of the Lasats, then when Aresko (offscreen in Spark of Rebellion) contacted the ISB about the rebels and mentioned a Lasat being part of the group, the people in charge of the ISB would decide to assign the same agent to that case due to his familiarity with Lasats.

 

Okay, that's a good explanation, I can accept that. Kallus is the Lasat specialist, the Inquisitor is the Jedi specialist.

Kallus should have exploited Zeb's rage in the pilot episode when he set the trap with the Wookie transport. Oh well, we don't like him because of his brains.

 

Yeah, kind of like the farm boy from a backwater desert planet turning out to be a messiah, and one of the major rebel leaders turning out to be his twin sister that neither of them knew about, oh and the Emperor's right hand man turning out to be his dad that he thought was dead. Frankly, Kallus being involved in what was presumably a major military operation is much less of a massive coincidence than those other things.

 

I assume the whole ISB was involved in the extermination of an entire race.