Full Series Rebels 2.07 - Wings of the Master - Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

About the blockade. If the empire just got control of the entire planet they might have troops stationed everywhere except this one area the Rebels have their holdout. Maybe the holdout is underground and the empire does not know the exact location and don't want to destroy their own planet with orbital bombardment. So maybe the rebels we see takes the crates and because the blockade got destroyed they had time to escape to their underground base?

 

I like both. Both are good.

 

Same with Christophisis.

 

what is same with christophisis?

 

Oh sorry, I was talking about the fleets blocking the whole planet.

 

Oh. Now i understand. Yeah blockades in star wars really are weird, but i still like them.

 

Imagine an episode where your heroes just go round the otherside of a planet to avoid a blockade, have no confrontation and the rest of the episode is just rebels flying from one side of the planet to the other to deliver their ****. Itd be a 20 minute episode of Ezra and co sleeping and playing eye spy on a long flight. Im not really interested in a scene where they show in detail that the planet is completely surrounded by Imperial ships. There are a lot of things that 'just happen' to be because its makes for better storytelling. An alternative to Rex knowing an Engineer who can make them a decent starship, is having them meet another character who knows quarrie, or come across quarrie themselves. That means theyd have to give up on their mission and go somewhere else, which for me seems like a waste of an episode. They have to cram some kind of mission, action and character development into 25 minutes tops - giving a detailed, realistic and concise explanation for everything makes for a very slow adventure.

 

Why no trivia gallery, Starwars.com?

 

I assumed because they could detect the holo transmission they knew precisely where the Phoenix Squadron would emerge from hyperspace so even if they overshot them they'd just orbit the planet and intercept them before they could turn and reach orbit themselves.

Still think it was so Kallus could ambush the Rebels after all he could have let them reach orbit and do the Separatist trick of jumping in 3 more ships to reinforce his own and catch them during their delivery.

Meanwhile the rebels on world have a contingent of Storm troopers and other military units converging on their location even as Kallus is gloating on the rebels arriving in orbit.

Yes they haven't learnt from that mistake from TCW!

 

Nice episode- much like Galactic Civil War version of Storm over Ryloth which kinda suits to the situation since this is now all about Hera leading the story this time and she knows what it is to starve when planet is blockaded. As many have pointed out SW-blockades are bit weird but since hyperspace-technology allows quick jumps few ships can apparently blockade entire planet very easily by intercepting all incoming ships by quick jump.

What bothered me a bit was the fact that it was not mentioned (At least I didn't catch) the reason why Empire went this far on Ibaar (or whatever the starving world was- something like that)- were Ibaarian people somehow rebellious or defiant or did they fail to meet some level of productivity or something to deserve this as punishment (from imperial point of view)- now it looks like random act of evilness for the same of the story instead of actually reasonable (although harsh and inhumane) act to rule the planet and it's citizens....

Pros and cons:
+B-wing- definitely one of my favorite ship designs since I first saw it in Rotj- it is actually quite hard to see in the movie since it is seen very briefly in few scenes but not at all in action which is disappointing. Nice that this underused ship got it's own episode- hopefully Hera will have a chance to use her Blade-Wing again. (And that explains why the ship that is more like a shape of a cross is named B-Wing....)
+Nice space battle and rebels actually have some losses (that are not killed by Vader this time)
+Dactillions are cool animals- nice to see them flying with B-wing- funny OT meets PT moment.
+Dactillion weathercock is funny detail

- Another character named after Ralph McQuarrie- I understand that they want to honor the great work he did by designing the visual look of OT and all but since Ralph McQuarrie already has character in SW universe- Pharl McQuarrie- it's kinda unneeded to name more after him...

- If this supposedly was "the revelation of Hera's backstory and delving deeper in to her character" as kind of promised - it was very shallow and predictable really. She was on Ryloth during the Clone Wars and she likes flying is not really surprising since she is a Twi'lek (named Syndulla) and a pilot of her own starship. There was no time to tell more because it's only 22 minutes of episode and those starving people need their food. Quarrie was first reluctant to give his ship to them and then, after Hera says how much she likes to fly, Quarrie changes his mind and let them to use it. This entire concept didn't really work well because it all happened so fast due to time limitation of the episode.

- While there is supposedly thousands or even millions of planets in SW-galaxy I would rather see some places that are mentioned or seen in legends than having new planets used every time. Now when there is no longer canon-issues really they could use more places that are familiar from the legends material or mentioned in movies/TCW but never seen. Not exactly sure of these worlds but I think they are invented just for this episode. In legends material there are hundreds of worlds mentioned once or twice but never seen anywhere so it would be nice nod towards former Expanded Universe and recanonize some material from it.

 

That was a nice episode. I was disappointed that all of Hera’s backstory was summarized in one minute, but oh well. Still hoping to see Cham in Rebels one day.
Really enjoyed seeing the Empire wining, even if it was just for a short bit.
Dialogue was well-written, voice acting was superb.
And I loooove that B-Wing, though it was a bit OP. Love the design, the color, and the concept art is gorgeous.

I have some gripes with the episode though:
- Kanan volunteering Hera for a deadly mission.
- Again, no character development for Hera. She started as a great pilot/mom/leader, she ended this episode as a great pilot/mom/leader. No emotional struggles, no learning from mistakes, no nothing.
- Quarrie doesn’t fly. How does he test the ships again?
- Lol that "blockade". More like police patrol.

Re: blockades on planets.
The “blockade” in Stom Over Ryloth and in Cat and Mouse actually made sense to me. It shouldn’t have be called a blockade, but it made sense that they had to destroy it first before going through the mission. In both cases, the Separatists had bombers and they were attacking the population by air. So if they tried to fly around or sneak in, the enemy could just bombard their ships and they would’ve been surrounded.
In this episode it made no sense, because the Empire wasn’t even attacking the planet.

 

I'd also add the gripe that Sato listened to Kanan to promote her, when it has been clear that Hera outranks him and Kanan has groped about joining the rebels every step of the way.

True, hopefully her other episode will delve into that a bit more since this one was more of a showcase rather than development.

 

This episode would have been better if we would have seen the empire down on the planet aswell.

 

Kanan was just out of character in this episode.

And I find it funny that it was called a "promotion" - is Hera going to get a raise?

 

"Here's your red****s Captain Syndulla. Use them.... wisely."

 

Hera gets paid in red shirts? Lol

But it is Phoenix squadron, so each time they are killed more will rise to take their place.

 

Sure why not?

Phoenix Squadron is Hydra?! MIND BLOWN!

 

Hydra squadron is a pretty BAMF name.

 

I thought it was more like cat and mouse than ryloth. But moments from storm over ryloth was there too.

 

Filoni make it happen!

 

Or, for that matter, enter through the poles. They do realize space is 3 dimensional, correct? For some reason, blockades always surround the equator. :/

 

Maybe because the equators are where civilisations are?

 

Remember: space is 3-dimensional. You can enter through the poles, circumventing the equatorial blockade, and then fly through the atmosphere and make the drop, exiting outside the opposite pole and blasting into hyperspace, completely avoiding the blockage all together. For a truly effective planetary blockage, you'd have to have the ships in a spherical position, not a circular one.

 

They looked to me like they were aligned in a "ring," like Saturn, around the planet's equator. Which of course means that there were multiple other directions that you could fly in order to avoid them completely. For example, both of the poles look to be completely unguarded, so there's one possibility. Or taking a different angle of flight would let you avoid MOST of the blockade at least. Basically any direction besides "straight ahead," would be better, and that's true of most SW blockades.