Full Series Rebels 3.21-3.22 - Zero Hour (Season Finale!!) - Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

On the subject of killing off main characters, with the OT Lucas killed off Obi Wan, considered killing off Leia and was strongly looking at knocking off Han.

Star Wars never shied away from killing off main characters.

 

About the prophecy of the Bendu...

Spoiler

Because the Bendu’s vision made me laugh in a way, I couldn’t help imagining Thrawn chased by fans trying to catch him for a hug. That’s your fate, Thrawn, if you ever meet your fans

 

Lol well he didn't kill Han and Leia, and Obi-Wan had been around for about 40 minutes. So..... Might want to try a different argument?

Killing off characters isn't always the solution. Not every show needs to be a bloodbath and if that's what you're looking for watch Game of Thrones or something. Jeez.

 

i kinda wish rebels was live action and was more like game of thrones.

 

I kinda wanna know who this

Spoiler

Commander Woldar

is that was credited in the episode. never heard of him until now.

 

I would love a live action show about the Rebellion (on Netflix please).

Game of Thrones is my favorite tv show. That said, I feel that it has had a negative effect in that now many people seem to think a show needs to be like Game of Thrones to be quality/have good story telling. It doesn't and if all shows were like Game of Thrones it would get old real fast.

A couple years back, everyone was obsessed with the idea that Ahsoka must die. Had that happened we would have missed out not only her goodbye to Anakin and the Order, but also her excellent Rebels story line. I've been saying for a whole now that I found a story line where we had to see Kallus adjust from Imperial to Rebel would be more interesting then a story where he was just killed off. I'm glad that they seem to have taken that route.

 

I was really expecting X-wings in the finale. I think Filoni had hinted that we might see them in Rebels.

Despite the lack of X-Wings I thought it was a great, albeit flawed, episode of Rebels. I am not familiar with Thrawn in legends, but I know that he has the reputation of a master tactician. After his bumbling efforts to find the rebel's base all season, I thought he might finally live up to his reputation and deliver a crushing blow to the group. I'll admit the sacrifice of Sato was effective, but I was disappointed to see the end result of the conflict be more or less a draw. Yes, the rebels lost several ships and several (literally) faceless soldiers, but Thrawn also made many critical tactical errors and was undermined by incompetent inferiors. For someone unfamiliar with his legends history I came into the season with no preconceived notions for how the character should be portrayed, but I have still felt disappointed with him at times. Maybe I should read Heir to the Empire finally.

Now on to the positives. The space battle was one of the best I have seen in Star Wars animation, including Clone Wars. The scale was greater than anything we have seen thus far in the show and was very well choreographed. The frigate being pulled from hyperspace by the interdictor and subsequently demolished was satisfying visually. It was great the finally see a large naval battle involving many capital ships form multiple rebel cells. I felt like we got a bit more Kanan than we had been getting in previous episodes. It is so disappointing that he has been sidelined for much of the season. As you can tell from my avatar I am a fan of his character.

This finale in combination with Twin Suns has revitalized my admittedly waning enthusiasm for the show. I am a bit more hopeful for season 4 than I was a month ago.

 

Well, he just confirmed in Rebels Recon that we'll see X-Wings in Season 4:

 

Now that spoiler tagging period is over (I'm too lazy), my thoughts.

I'm glad Thrawn got a victory out of this, even if none of the main cast were killed, and that any setbacks he suffered weren't his fault and weren't something any normal person could have predicted (even in Legends, Thrawn's understanding of the Force was limited). Still, Sato's sacrifice was awesome and it was appropriate that Konstantine die from his own idiocy after somehow lasting this long (Who wants to bet if Thrawn doesn't substitute him with a Pellaeon-like character, he gets replaced with Admiral Ozzel?).

And nice to see that the Bendu isn't exactly a good guy. He's just a grumpy, omnipotent hermit that wants the crazy people killing each other off his arid, spider-infested lawn. With him causing a Force lightning storm, I'm now joking about him causing the inconveniently-timed thunderstorms in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (apparently, I have that game on the brain right now).

It's not "Twilight of the Apprentice", but it was a good end to the season. And it's nice to know that Thrawn is alive and not relegated to "villain of the season" status.

 

Really great two-parter, I'll have to rewatch it later, but it was awesome. I marathoned all three seasons to lead up to it and I wasn't disappointed.

Observations:

Spoiler

Awesome fight between Thrawn and Kallus.
Poor Sato, we hardly knew ye. At least he went out as a hero. And Konstantine... yeah he's lucky he died in the crash, Thrawn would have made it so much worse.
Loved how Bendu really went all out on everyone, made it pretty clear he wanted to be left alone. And his parting words to Thrawn...
Nice to see General Dodanna, and voiced by Michael Bell too!
Epic action scenes, as always.
Great character moments, loved little bits like Kallus and Kanan at the end, making Kallus part of the family now, no more imperial uniform for him.

A good, bittersweet ending to a really great season of the show. Sure there were a few disappointments (Iron Squadron, Ezra's dark side story going nowhere), but I'm not deterred, I still highly enjoyed this season of the show and I expect great things from season 4 (a big focus of the Mando storyline obviously, Thrawn staying as a main villain, discovering what the Empire wants with Lothol (seriously, it couldn't have just been the TIE Defender Minister Tua was talking about), going to Yavin IV and Dantooine, and hopefully Hera and Kanan will finally just kiss for the love of...

 

I was just reading that Michael Bell, the actor who played Duke on the 80s GI Joe was the voice of Dodonna.

 

1) I can't believe how powerful an AT-AT's guns are.

2) Seeing the walkers go through the shield reminded me of in 'Phantom Menace' the droids walking through the shield.

 

Question. Didn't Filoni say at some point he would give a hint as to what happened to Ahsoka in series?
Unless I seriously missed something we haven't received that hint yet.
Perhaps he was alluding to season 4?

 

It was said that we have not seen the last of her. Insider just talked about the what is coming for Rebels season four and I do believe they mentioned her in that (sad I can't fully remember something I watched like 30 mins ago lol).

 

it's a logic fail.

if Kanan can so effortlessly destroy those AT-ATs then why does he run from them?
why are they a threat at all?

 

yeah, Luke could've cut through the legs which are around the same thickness. I remember took a good deal of effort in TPM to get through the blast doors. Yet these Jedi cutting through military armored tanks with relative ease and quickness, yet Vader could not cut off Kanan's arm back in season 2? The cartoon Jedi cut through enemy armor a little too easy even in TCW, but super Kanan is a bit much.

 

Sabine painted Zeb on Tristan's shoulder guard, btw. I'm surprised nobody mentioned it.

 

I wonder what Filoni was meaning when he said that we saw one of Thrawn's weaknesses.

 

Thrawn is probably fearful of the Bendu's prophecy. Bendu said Thrawn would be defeated and that's probably gonna mess with his head a little in season 4.

 

Obi Wan was originally meant to carry over into ESB until Lucas felt that not having any main characters die was too cheap.

When Lucas decided to wrap things up in one movie it didn't really matter if Han lived or died. Han eventually did die in TFA anyway.

it is Star "Wars".

Pryce should have shot Kallus dead on the bridge and told the troopers to send his dead body out the airlock, instead we get one of those dumb 3 Stooges moments typical of Rebels.

 

or why did Luke never do that in ESB? He needed a grenade to destroy an AT-AT.....

 

I hope Thrawn won't be in season 4, he deserves better than SW Rebels. I don't want him to come back to fail again to destroy the Rebels, as we know they will be fine in Rogue One.

Also, according to what someone else says in Rebel Recon, I would be more inclined to think that "Thrawn's weakness" is to rely too much on logic, analysis, and when it comes to the Force, it's non-predictable, and it will mess with his plans (like the Bendu did). I analyzed what they said and I think it's what they meant. Thrawn can master many things, but not the events due to the Force.

 

One thing I personally liked is how they dealt with the whole Bendu thing. I've never been fond of the "Grey" philosophy, finding the dark v light fight much more interesting. And I was terrified they would use Ezra and Kanan becoming "knights of Bendu" or something silly like that as a cop out of them being a Jedi in the dark times. Kanan rejecting the idea of that, and Bendu coming off as rather disturbingly dark in this episode gives me a renewed interest, and hope that that may find a satisfying conclusion to this loose end. We are getting close to the films timeline now, and I get the feeling season 4 will be a big one for all of that.

 

So yeah, I'm more or less fine with how things turned out. Thrawn would've pretty much had total victory if not for underling incompetence and divine intervention, and as it stands he pretty much accomplished his strategic goal of driving the rebels out of Lothal sector--more than what he ultimately achieved in TTT when you think about. That said:

Spoiler

-An infantry squad to disable an Interdictor? Really?

-That orbital bombardment was...erm...let's just say that I'm not asking for Star Destroyer guns to have zillions of megatons of firepower as some have insisted in the past, but they should do more than just be able to blow up speeder bikes. I liked the imagery though, we finally got to saw something like that on screen.

-The Mandos should be expecting Imperial reprisals very soon...

-Konstantine, though of course being a typical slimy Imperial officer, did come off as at least somewhat professional in prior episodes. And now he does something that'd have him face court martial and probable execution? The Imperial military isn't exactly a forgiving organization and he should know that.

-I was kinda hoping for the crackling Combine talk of the Death Troopers, but they have the excuse of having to do it while still wanting for details.

-Some people have complained about Thrawn changing track in demanding surrender, but he first does say 'I will not be accepting surrenders at this time'. So it seems he was basically trying to psyche out the rebels with some intimidation.

-It seems the elemental presence of the Bendu is still vulnerable to blaster fire, who knew.

Still, good to see Thrawn win, and eh, Rebels has kept me following for season 4.