Full Series 1.01-1.02 "Spark of the Rebellion" Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

Gallandro

Spoiler

I'm sure her voice acting will get better. But she sounded pretty good to me. But whatever; everyone see's/hears things differently. But with more practice she'll be better sure, I don't think they could have picked a better voice for Sabine.

In regards to the second spoiler...

They ignored that part. But Ezra sounded like he was going to get sick. So that's most likely why they burst into the room. Not because he said the Emperor was his uncle...

But yeah, the wookies looked kinda bad. Not gonna lie. It could just be the animation texture though. They kind of reminded me of Lego for some reason.

Anyway, I'm not trying to start an argument or anything. Just saying my opinion.

 

Also Gallandro

I laughed my butt off so hard at the scene you shook your head at that I actually had to pause the video. So how's that for strokes, folks, etc.


On the topic in general of Stormtroopers becoming bumblers, I say bring it on wholeheartedly. One of my many favorite parts of TCW was the idiot battledroids and their incapability of anything whatsoever, their absurd commentary on any given situation, their utterly ironic deathcries of "Oh my god!". If Imperial Nobodies like Stormtroopers or even ISD bridge officers become the new stand-ins for idiot battledroids, then I'll be grinning all the way to the series finale.

Don't care what the haters say.

 

Darth Eddie

Did you ever see the video where the stormtrooper hits his head in A New Hope?

Spoiler

Agent Kallus is pretty cool though.

 

Only about 500 times.

Spoiler

Ohmygosh the cooooooooleeesssssst! ...What if he displeases the Inquisitor and he kills him after one too many failures against our heroes? *gasp!* or Vader! I would despise the one who dispenses with Kallus... OR! - if he survives like Ventress did and then defects to the Rebellion... Cheezitz H Crackers, these scenarios write themselves!

So I guess there's no actual need for spoiler tags here unless I am in fact Nostradamus.

 

Gallandro Great review. I legitimately laughed out loud when you compared the Wookiee's to fudgsicles.

 

I liked the movie well enough. The crew is likable for the and there were quite a few tension-filled and even emotional moments. I feel like if I watch this a bunch of times, I will really get into this.

However, there are some gaping flaws there too. So I would give it a 7,5 of 10. ANH is still infinitely better.

Spoiler

The positive:

Ezra is, as surprising as that is, a pretty fun character. I like how he didn't immediately wanted to help the rebels crew and had to be convinced of it. But seeing how his life before was nothing but a lonely mess, it is convincing he would latch onto them. His journey was well-written and emotional and I think the movie would be far worse without it.
Hera is very good too. Down to earth while being pretty empathetic. I like that. It's interesting that Kanan as a Jedi seems more cold and selfish than her.
I like how TIE-Fighters are portrayed because they appear pretty deadly.
Agent Kallus is way cool. He doesn't seem so evil either.
At least the Empire doesn't suffer a total loss as they now know Kanan is a Jedi. There's hope they don't turn into the TF of TCW and win occasionally.
There was this moment when Kanan drew his lightsabers and all the Imperials were like wtf just happened? I think that was a really nice touch in a time when Jedi are extremely rare.

The negative:

You can just LAND on an imperial Star Destroyer? Seriously? Seriously?!? They don't have any precautions against other ships simply landing on them?? And what about inbuilt defense systems on the hangar? No? And how about shooting after a ship that is trying a getaway? The entire sequence is so dumb. The only saving grace is that at least the SD wasn't destroyed.
Zeb. First he is the dumb muscle guy and hates Ezra, then in the middle of the episode there's suddenly this complete turn and he is protective of Ezra.
Sabine is pretty one-note.

 

It was entertaining, mostly. I liked how it ended as some people pointed out and I wish that each of the characters all get pushed through incredible threats and obstacles that end up making us care and get excited about their respective character arcs much in the same way as Ashoka at the end of Season 5 of The Clone Wars. My only gripe is the one CG issue everyone else is talking about. 8/10

As for some saying that it started off weak,

Spoiler

wouldn't you say that it's that way is because we've seen the first minutes of that over and over again in released previews?

 

No, my comment about the first half being weak has nothing to do with me having seen the first 7 minutes before. It has more to do with some lazy script choices and sense the show was trying a little too hard to be like ANH rather than trying to find its own way, and its own voice.

My major problem with the first half is that everyone sounds alike. One area where the creative team completely misses the boat is their take on witty banter. They seem to have come away watching ANH with the sense that there's wall to wall jokes, and the entire cast is throwing around smart alecky quips at the drop of the hat. That's a pretty bad assessment of Star Wars.

Han certainly drops a sarcastic comment here and there, as does Leia from time to time, but Luke doesn't. He's more of the fish out of water/everyman. His humor comes from the situations he's in and the decisions he makes ("I think I just blasted it" referring to the bridge controls). Ben certainly isn't a quip machine... he may make an observation which elicits a chuckle, but he's a straight man through and through. 3PO's humor, like Luke's comes from his circumstances and his incessant fussiness. R2's humor comes from the fact that although we don't know what he's saying, we have a rough idea what we'd say to 3PO. And Chewie's a loveable furball who can appear fierce one minute, them whimper like a dog in the face of danger. Each character is distinct, their own individual.

Unfortunately EVERY character in Rebels during the first half of the episode is dropping sarcastic line after sarcastic line, or making. None of the characters had their own voice; they all sounded alike. That's gets real old real fast. Thankfully the second half of the episode dials back the snark, and there are some quiet moments where the characters find their voice.


Yancy

 

Yeah, like in that horrible entry to the series, ESB.

Spoiler

Seriously, though, they said the Ghost has a cloaking device that makes it harder to register. They could just have their shields down if they think there's no immediate threat.

 

Spoiler

Not a cloaking device, just countermeasures to make it hard to detect with sensors. Important distinction. If someone looked out the window they could see it.

 

Yes, but it's still a device for cloaking. I'm well aware it doesn't cover visuals. In this case, it's a ship packed with sensor-jammers and distorters. So it's not beyond credibility that they could just land like that. This is a time of peace, the Empire is not in a full-scale war with someone else. It's not like in TCW, where every clone was swarming the hangar bays ready to go out.

 

So I finished watching it a few hours ago myself. My thoughts:

As far as first episodes go while it was rushing a little too much in the beginning once it slowed down and took its time and spent time with Ezra and the other characters I began to get into it. Obviously not everything is revealed about our main heroes but enough about them is revealed that depending if you liked this your intrigued to know more and learn their back stories.

Performances are good too some of these people surprised me. Obviously Steve Blum and Vanessa Marshall being established voice actors can knock it out of the park but I didn't think Freddie Prince Jr was bad, I thought Taylor Gray for a guy who doesn't have much yet under his belt as an actor did well in his first real big role and David Oyelowo did good too.

At the end of the day the characters do learn something to some degree Ezra learns how living a life of loneliness and fighting for yourself is meaningless and if you have a gift then use it for greater purposes and the other characters learn to trust one another Zeb particularly who seems like he's a hiding a more softer kinder side behind his gruff and grumpy nature so I'm curious to see what drove him to have this attitude.

Action was fine and some animation choices were off like the Wookiees the child in particular but I guess that's a thing to get used to but it made up for it in the end when he was rescued and reunited with his father. It was nice to see Obi-Wan again with James Arnold Taylor reprising the role and I liked the message it does give a sense of optimism which I like in stories like he said in time a new hope will rise.

Overall I liked it. It had a lot of heart you can tell the family sort of dynamic and them looking out for one another is gonna be apart of the story that drives our characters at least I hope it does and while I'm on the fence about Ezra right now as a character he wasn't as annoying as he could have been and he got some smiles out of me but most of the laughs came from Steve Blum and that bit with Kallus when he knocked the Storm Trooper off was a kind of a douche move on his part but I did kind of chuckle at it same when the guy was knocked off himself and he did the Withelm scream.

Overall very much like Clone Wars when it started I can see why if anyone didn't like it but I can also see the potential for improvement and progression but I like it and I'm curious to see more and I wasn't one of those people who was dreading it I was cautiously optimistic but even when people who were like me saw some stuff that put them off I still decided I'd wait until I saw the whole thing before I commented and now that I have I can safely say I want to see more. Good job Rebels crew.

 

How are you guys watching this, I thought it was going to be released online on the 29th?

 

It's on the DisneyXD app (how I saw it), but your cable provider has to be authorized. Then there are.... shall we say.... less than legal means to get it.


Yancy

 

They moved it up to yesterday.

 

(Possibly very light spoiler)

Spoiler

I was kinda hoping for Kanan's lightsaber being taken apart after use and put back together before every use to be explained. Anyone have any ideas?

 

Oh, that's pretty obvious. It's so people won't recognize it as being a lightsaber when he's not using it.

 

I thought that at first, but it still seems like something like that would stand out. You're probably right, though.

 

This still doesn't explain why they weren't attacked by autoturrets in the hangar or why no tractor beam or turbolaser or TIE-Fighter caught them after leaving. I really liked the pilot, but the getaway from the SD was lazily written and far too easy.

 

Darth_Pevra

Now that you mention that, I'm wondering why there weren't better defense systems on that Star Destroyer too.

Spoiler

But didn't Hera mention something about the tractor beam?

 

It

It was released early. I can't get to it though.

 

Contrived and cookie-cutter are how I'd describe it.

Nooooo, the evil Empire is oppressing fruit peddlers!

I fail to see where they got that from the lore. In ANH, the Empire was ruthless, killing anyone and anything that got in the way of their grand goals (Jawas, Luke's carers, a planet of billions.... If you were lucky and completely pandered, they'd let you live in bondage, like Lando), not simple schoolyard bullying. The refugee camp is fine, and that's what they should have started it with -- showing how people's land was taken from them with real threat of death. Slave labor? That's ok too, though how it all plays out is contrived.

Characters are simple and generic. There's no fear being in life threatening situations. Just snarky and edgy banter by everyone.

And on that note, is there a need to have so many action scenes? Granted, I probably wouldn't mind if they weren't so contrived, unrealistic and plot driven, but it dilutes the seriousness of "action", and considering that the action was so boring anyway, it doesn't look good.

I'm not even going to mention the silliness of how pathetic the Empire appears to be. I have no idea how they can control Lothal at all, being so incompetent.

For some reason, I'm thinking George was the actual brains behind Clone Wars for its final aired product.

 

I'm encouraged that it took me this long to see even a single example of pure, vitriolic hate.

 

Spoiler

So, with Tarkintown...I suppose we can safely say that famine is apparent in the Empire. I mean, they kicked people out of their farms and took their land. Leaving these people to fend for themselves with no income. That's a heck of alot more dark then attacking fruit merchants.

 

Man, that movie was amazing! I loved it. Much better then the clone wars movie. Though I'll always foundly remember the battle droid commander yelling for the fallen battle droid to get back up here.

Quick question though, kinda off topic, I honestly had no idea New Dawn had come out already, and was wondering, is there like a list of the new star wars books and their release dates that I could save and regularly check for updates??