Full Series Rebels 3.01-3.02 - Steps Into Shadow - Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

Spoiler

a good comparison would be toph from avatar since he " senses the vibration"

 

Now I'm sad we won't get to see the premiere over the summer like last year, but I can wait now because of that trailer.

 

Are you sure? Has that been confirmed officially?

 

Spoiler

The "giant" referred to upthread is the new character, Bendu, voiced by Tom Baker - Bendu explains that he represents the "middle way" of the Force. The best description I can give is that Bendu is a very large character who initially appears as part of the landscape (like a rock formation), but then stirs and it's clear he is a living creature. He rests on his knuckles but has kind of rocky scales/plates up his arms, shoulders and around his head.

Kanan is meditating at the perimeter of Chopper Base when he hears Bendu through the Force. (Bendu's voice to me sounds initially like Maul's voice). Kanan takes one of the sensor markers (to deter the krykana spiders) and leaves the base, making his way to Bendu.

Bendu destroys the sensor marker which Kanan has and does not physically restore Kanan's sight, but teaches Kanan to reach inside himself and "see" himself and the krykana through the Force, recognising his own fears for Ezra. This is made clear in the dialogue - Bendu says that he cannot heal Kanan's eyes.

Kanan also takes the Sith holocron with him on his journey to Bendu (he confiscates it from Ezra earlier in the episode) and leaves it with Bendu as a gift.

 

Well at the end of the trailer it says "This Fall", so I'm guessing that's how long we're gonna have to wait.

 

Spoiler

Brom Titus, the Imperial officer from Stealth Strike, reappears. Following the events of the previous episode, he has been demoted and is in charge of the junkyard facility which is the Rebels' target in these episodes. Ezra makes his way to the control room and is confronted by Titus, who hopes to be promoted by preventing the Rebels from succeeding. Ezra slashes and destroys the controls for the facility's engines, sending the junkyard (which is a floating facility in the same way as Cloud City) plummeting into the atmosphere. Ezra is rescued by the Ghost, which follows the junkyard into the atmosphere. Kanan hangs out of the airlock and tells Ezra to trust him and let go, grabbing Ezra as he leaps to the Ghost.

The exterior of the junkyard somewhat resembles the production painting which Ralph McQuarrie did of the Death Star under construction, although it has additional narrow gantries and as mentioned above is in the planet's atmosphere rather than in orbit. The Empire use Ugnaught workers to help run the junkyard and the Ugnaughts help the Rebels to achieve their mission.

 

The main plot has been revealed so I'm just going to say a few of my thoughts.

Spoiler

First of all, dark Ezra was really interesting. There were quite a few standout moments in this double length premiere. First is his ruthless rampage in the corridor that we first saw on the Star Wars Show. Next was his mind trick / controlling the Walker pilot to shoot at the other Stormtroopers and eventually walk itself off the edge of the platform into the abyss. That was particularly cold, and Zeb (I think, could have been Sabine) remarks "when did Kanan teach you that?" after clearly being quite stunned / shocked by what they saw. Ezra coldly replies, "He didn't." Ezra is really tapping into the Sith holocron and using it for guidance since Kanan has been isolating himself from the crew since Malachor and conversing / sharing his feelings and thoughts with Not-Ventress. Gets a bit like Ginny Weasley and Tom Riddle's diary. Ezra also has an outburst at Kanan saying he doesn't need him anymore as the teachings from the Sith holocron have been winning him lots of battles lately. Kanan then makes the predicted remark that the holocron offers quick rewards but it's a trap. It was really interesting watching moody teenage Ezra obsess over the holocron's teachings and believe that they are the key to victory. The other really cold dark Ezra moment was when he cut the power to the station - essentially Titus (demoted to running a junkyard, and yes, him and Ezra do briefly exchange banter) sabotaged the Y Wing release controls so that only cutting the power to the entire station would release them. Ezra doesn't even hesitate before going to slice the wall and cut the power, but Titus says "Wait! If you do that we'll all die, including your friends!" (rough wording) to which Ezra replies, "Hey, I have faith in my friends [to escape]. You on the other hand..." It was really callous and shows how ruthless he has become. I liked it.

Another small thing I liked in particular towards the end was when Hera said she had no choice but to temporarily suspend Ezra's command, Zeb pipes up and says "if you're punishing Ezra you should punish all of us, we went along with the plan." This really showed how far Zeb and Ezra's relationship has come in my opinion as that was genuine respect.

I will however say that the episodes are predictable in the sense that Kanan and Ezra learn their respective lessons by the end of the 44 minutes and Kanan ends up saving Ezra from the falling station after Ezra calls out and apologises to Kanan (BTW who was still en route to the sustem). But at the end Ezra is still interested in knowing what Kanan did with the holocron so expect this to be revisited later in the season.

Also, they went out of their way to make Governor Price emphasise how brilliantly intelligent Thrawn is and how every potential complication is part of his master plan. Even though the man himself wasn't there so it felt a bit contrived to the point that it became obvious that they were deperstrly trying to establish as soon as possible that Thrawn is this tactical genius that is several cuts above his colleagues. But without him there to physically oversee it on screen (he was consulted via holo and presumably he was responsible for e.g. ensuring the Y Wings had their hyper drives removed) it didn't really work for me.

But overall, I enjoyed the new episodes and I look forward go rewatching them later this year.

 

http://m.ign.com/articles/2016/07/1...016-star-wars-rebels-steps-into-shadow-review

 

Steps into shadows is a badass name.

 

The title is great!
Also big thanks to everyone who shared the spoilers!

I want to know one more thing - how big part of the trailer were those first two episodes?

 

Spoiler

I'd say 15-20

 

How long do we have to wait until this episode airs?

 

Seems like October

 

Balls

 

Does Hondo mention the events of Legends of the Lasat?

 

Spoiler

No

 

That's good to hear. Another episode to remove for my head canon.

 

I don't think them talking up Thrawn before showing him is a bad thing in this case; they're setting up for future events. And we will obviously see Thrawn in his badass glory. It's different from, say, the opening of AOTC. Anakin and Obi Wan talking about how great friends they are without showing, and then acting like enemies five seconds later, and the rest of the movie.
That was better in ROTS. They had the actual comedic chemistry and banter in the opening, setting up for the fall.

If they talk up thrawn as being so great then next week he becomes totally incompetent, THAT is a problem. I think most likely in this case you just gotta be patient for the payoff.

 

Any mention of Ahsoka or the events of the S2 finale?

 

Spoiler

Yes but just about Ezra blaming himself for what happened.

 

Is Ezra shown interacting at all with the holocron in this episode, and if so is it the same voice/presence he encountered in the temple?

 

I noticed on the wookieepedia article for this episode that AP-5 appears. Does he have any lines or is he just seen in the background?

 

So... you expect the characters to reference everything that's happened to them to confirm that those events actually did? Clearly you don't understand how TV shows or just plain quality fiction works. Most good creative teams prefer not to treat their audience like a bunch of drooling half-wits. It happened in the show. It's canon.

 

Jedi Knight Fett

So did they tone down Kanan's injuries or? Last I checked his eyes were totally gone.

Spoiler

Or is this what the Bendu did to him?

So I'm confused lol. Tho the bottom image is clearly enhanced and looks worse than what it is.

 

If I recall correctly

Spoiler

we don't see his eyes the entire episode