Full Series Official Star Wars Rebels Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

Just keep giving us single episodes as well. Need a nice balance.

 

Is anybody else finding the pacing of the episodes on the side of break-neck speeds?

 

It's problematic. Droids in Distress has major pacing problems as we spend almost 15 minutes setting up the major players then getting into the heist. Agent Kallus seems like an afterthought as if someone realized, "Hey this is getting kind of old with the good guys just mowing down the bad guys.... HEY I KNOW!!! Let's bring in Agent Kallus at the end!!!" This really should have been a two part story with the heroes getting away with the goods at the end of the episode and Kallus being alerted, and part 2 being Kallus hunting down the crew with a big battle to finish it off.

It would have allowed for time to flesh out Zeb's backstory and given a little more weight to Kallus history with the Lesat. As it is Kallus' line that he

Spoiler

killed Zeb's people

almost seems like a throw away.

Yancy

 

I did feel Droids in Distress suffered from too many things going on. I wish this series had longer episode times.

 

Zeb's back story and over all demeanor reminds me a lot of this guy....

Spoiler

 

My bet is the Vader thing will only be a very short preview teaser from an upcoming episode tacked on to a commercial break or at the end of Spark of Rebellion like this....

 

It will mostly likely be him muttering about finding Obi-wan.

 

DanielUK
Can Vader mutter?

 

The Dark Lord can do anything.

 

No, there is a mutter...

 

Engelhast

 

A negative from the change in art style from TCW to Rebels.....they do not have a library of designs to fill in the background...same people in Lothal's Capitol, Tarkintown, and Gurrell....as well, only seeing a limited number fo ship types flying in and out of star ports.

 

I think they built up a nice selection of generic designs. Although I've seen the Rodian citizen 3 times already.

 

Clone Wars was same way in the beginning, they will after Season 1 when they build more models.

 

I see you joined last thursday, welcome Kentoa! Plus TCW had a movie to make tons of character models for.

 

Doop and Kentoa...my point is if they kept the Clone Wars art style they would have had all the background they need going in.

 

They would. But I think that Dave and co wanted to distinguish this show from TCW.

 

Watching Droids in Distress again, I noticed that on Kanan's shoulder pad, under the white claw-symbol thing, there is a little "02." I'm assuming this is because Kanan is Specter 2? I wonder if the others have a number on their gear somewhere and we haven't noticed them yet–It'll be fun to find them!

 

What are people's thoughts on the aspect ratio and how Rebels isn't afraid to be a TV series?

In terms of the aspect ratio, I'm split. I really liked how TCW came close to being 1:1 when it came to comparing screenshots from the show to the live action movies:




Of course, it helped that we had characters and environments from the movies in TCW, but I felt that the cinematic lighting and 2.35 : 1 ratio helped elevate the series. Rebels, by comparison, is framed for 16:9 TVs and there is no indication that there is a wider version of the episodes. Don't get me wrong, the show looks nice, but the lack of cinematic ratio makes the series seem smaller. As though TCW was a TV series trying to be mini movies, where as Rebels is a TV series being a TV series.

I'll admit, it's nice to know what what we see on TV isn't being cropped and that the eventual home video release will have the full image, and working in 16:9 allows the team to properly fill the frame. Just for fun, a little comparison of Rebels in 16:9 and cropped to the Saga and TCW ratio:






The cold opens and quick cuts to the Rebels logo is going to take some getting used to, and I think it's a weak way to start each episode. I don't want the return of the fortune cookie, but I would have liked Rebels opening with the standard Star Wars sort of intro, minus the news reel. Also, from what I've seen in the Rebels mini-movie DVD, they are not going to try and mask the commercial breaks like TCW did.

 

Darth_Harmon

What do you mean by not masking the commericals?

 

TCW typically had a wipe if a scene on TV went from one location to another after ads, or a cut if a scene continued after a commercial break. I believe some episodes on blu-ray did not not do this for every ad break, but as the series went on they did. On the Rebels DVD, I noted cuts to black where the ads would usually be.

 

Thanks

 

Now I see what you're talking about.

 

I do miss TCW's cinematic edge. The aspect ration that matched the SW Saga really did help. But I feel as TCW continued a large part of why TCW felt so cinematic was more down to the quality of the animation. TCW great enough animation the season 4 and 5 blu-rays are great choices if your want to show off how good a picture your HDTV has. Rebels animation is fine but I put it more on the same level as Transformers Prime and if I had an uber expensive tops of the line HDTV I wouldn't be using Rebels to show it off.

 

Honestly the only thing that kind of threw me off at first in the opening in the first episode was that there is no opening narration by Tom Kane. I mean I know why there isn't because Tom's narration in Clone Wars was meant to be a tribute to old WWII radio announcers who when you turn the news on would recap what's been happening in the war which is what they did for Clone Wars giving a show recap but honestly having some kind of recap would help a little bit for people coming in late for an episode especially if its a two-parter or whatever.