Discussion My first impressions of Star Wars: Rebels

I should first explain that I am a big fan and supporter of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the animated TV series made to bridge the gaps between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. For a show that was originally meant to get kids interested in the franchise, it had a surprising amount of mature content, characters, and themes. For me, everything onward from the beginning of Season 3 was very interesting, and made me think about many of the things that I didn't understand about the time period. Things like the individual personalities of the Clone soldiers, the extent of Sith control over every aspect of the war, and how the war affected those caught in the crossfire. It didn't have a problem with killing off main characters, and I actually felt bad when they died. I even felt bad when Clones died, after seeing them in this new light. I shed a tear or two when my favorite characters were killed. There was an amount of maturity that isn't always present in Star Wars, and it was a welcome change.

Now, Star Wars: Rebels... the show that was started when Disney came to influence the franchise in a big way, the show that demanded a stop to Clone Wars while it was still in production (Season 6 was thankfully released on Netflix, but Season 7 was being worked on, and was cancelled). While basically the same team that worked on Clone Wars is now part of the Rebels production team, they are extremely different. Clone Wars differed from the original trilogy, making a story more based on the effects of war, rather than the heroes fighting it. Rebels appears to be returning to the idea of the original trilogy, an adventure story featuring a crew of seemingly invincible heroes.

First of all, I've noticed quite a few similarities between the original trilogy and Rebels. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that I've seen copied material from the original trilogy. The crew of the Millennium Falcon and the crew of the Totally-Not-The-Millennium-Falcon, the Ghost, can be compared to find quite a few similarities. We have the pilot (Han/Hera), the self-exiled Jedi (Obi-Wan/Kanan), the brute (Chewbacca/Zeb), the force-sensitive rebellious kid (Luke/Ezra), and the droid (R2-D2/Chopper). Sabine, the Mandalorian explosives expert/graffiti artist (don't even get me started on that...), seems to be the only original character, unless you find a way to compare her to Leia. Maybe she turns out to be Mandalorian royalty or something... The main villain, the Inquisitor, can easily be related to Darth Vader, and Agent Kallus could probably be compared to Tarkin. The similarities are even more obvious when you consider that the Ralph Mcquarrie concept art for R2-D2 (a shorter astromech with arms on the "head") was used for Chopper's design, and the concept art for Chewbacca (a race called the Lasan, which was replaced by the Wookies) was used as the design for Zeb. It appears that they're new obsession with using old Mcquarrie concepts for the "new" franchise has continued in this.

Secondly, and more importantly, I've noticed that this is not at all like Clone Wars in terms of maturity. So far, all I've seen from the previews is childish dialogue and trivial conflict. It's like they abandoned everything about making it more intelligent or mature, and have elected to make a cartoon about heroes fighting mindless drones. I've heard the production team say that they want the new crew to be challenged by their enemies, but all I've seen is a single Sith as the primary villain, who seems to be a challenge, and a single Imperial officer as a secondary villain. The rest are pompous officers and mindless squads of stormtroopers. It's almost like they took the personalities of the battle droids from Clone Wars and gave them to the stormtroopers. They're dimwits who can't hit the broad side of a barn, basically living up to their joke reputation from the movies. I've seen no indication that this show will have any type of deep story for those of us who put time into thinking about the stories that we enjoy. So far, it's been nothing but invincible heroes blasting their way through drone after drone in an attempt to piss off the Empire. Honestly, I would send someone to kill them too, they're a damn nuisance. One of them blew up a squad of stormtroopers... with PAINT!

In conclusion, based on what I've seen from trailers and previews, this will be nothing more than a Saturday morning superhero cartoon, or the Star Wars equivalent to it. It's displayed no maturity, no originality, and nothing to interest the older fans like myself. I mean, I'm 19, and I still think this is nothing but childish crap. The visual quality is not that great either, considering that that the team that worked on this made the amazing animation and models of the last seasons of Clone Wars.

Now, I cannot stress this enough. These are my first impressions SO FAR. I haven't seen a full episode yet, and I will watch the show when it comes out to give it a fair judgement, as I did with Clone Wars (that sure paid off). I thought I'd give my opinion beforehand, in the hope (and likely, future disappointment) that my feedback will help change it for the better.

If you have anything to add, anything I missed, or any opinion on my opinion, I'd like to hear the impressions of others on this issue.

 

Mostly because after I saw the title I knew it didn't belong here, try the TV forum instead.