Wow...Siege of Lothal was Vaderiffic! Every bit as awesome as imagined. Worthy of a double viewing for sure. This will make the wait for the regular season bearable. JEJ was on point... I don't see where some take exception to his voice work on Rebels so far - he sounds perfectly OT to me. Did anyone else check it out? Was I the only one who stayed home on a Saturday night to watch Vader personally destroy a fleet of R-22 Spearheads (pre-Yavin IV A-Wings) by himself? Apparently they have hyperdrives. And Vader's TIE has a NuBSG: Viper setting! Such carnage. Space battle fans are going to devour this episode.
I stayed home to watch it too. Excellent episode. JEJs voice work was definitely good. The writing for Vader was also good. I was worried about that. They certainly made Vader menacing and in control of the situation. Liked how he seemed really eager to find Obi Wan I believe Ahsoka does realize Vader is Anakin after doing the mind meld, regardless what she told Kanan. Really looking forward the inevitable duel with Vader.
Excellent premiere!!! Season Two is going to be so much better!!! I guess I'm in the minority, I thought James Earl Jones sounded very weak and unconvincing in this episode. And yes Ahsoka clearly detected Anakin there and lied about it. Frankly I was shocked she didn't ALREADY know in the intervening 15 years. Why the hell were Hera and Kanan giving orders on the Rebel bridge?! Ahsoka and Captain Sato were right there and they're clearly the Rebel leaders!
^I get the impression that Ahsoka isn't a military leader in this rebellion, but an agent and advisor. Hence why as Fulcrum she was co-ordinating isolated cells and not leading guerilla strikes herself. Perhaps she and perhaps Bail don't want to repeat the mistakes of the Clone Wars by having Jedi as front line commanders, especially since they have so few of them left. Granted, Ahsoka isn't technically a Jedi, but I think the point is valid. Personally I'm not 100% sure Ahsoka *knows* who Vader is. She obviously made a connection, but it's not clear how recognisable his presence would be to her now. At the very least she may suspect or at least sense *something* familiar about him and is clearly troubled by it. I guess I just don't think she'd have a reason to outright lie about it at this point. You'd think it would be obvious for her to put 2-and-2 together but remember that she would only have had Imperial propaganda and whatever Bail may have told her regarding what happened to specific Jedi. Bail could easily think Anakin died on Mustafar as we don't know for sure that Yoda and Kenobi ever mentioned his Sith name. Plus given that there could literally be hundreds of Jedi as yet unaccounted for, he could be almost any one of them for all Ahsoka knows. As for why Hera was giving orders...heat of the moment? Plus she had more idea of what they were dealing with than Sato and every second counted. No idea where the criticism of JEJ is coming from. He was on form as ever and I was impressed at how well the writer(s?) managed to match his dialogue to the OT. He didn't just sound like Vader, he also spoke like him. Very subtle work on the animation too. I like how during the fight he kept mostly still, using only minimal effort to parry Kanan's blows. It was pretty evident he could have cut them all down if he'd wanted to, but clearly he wants Kanan & Ezra alive. There was also a touch an Anakin in there too, especially the way he twisted and grabbed Kanan's sword hand mid-thrust. Lucky for Sabine she was wearing a helmet and breast plate. I think in future she'll think twice about taking pot shots at a Sith Lord.
I just felt like Vader's voice was weak (not deep enough) and he was too fast and talky. Vader is a man of few words.
I thought he was direct and to the point. Also keep in mind the plot on this show moved at a lightning pace compared to the movies, so you certainly saw him a lot more frequently, but taking each scene in isolation, I felt it was on par with his mode of speaking in the OT. I think part of it may be an element of misremembering directness combined with an implacable visage with terseness . Remember this is they person who said: I'd call that fairly "chatty" as fighting talk goes, no? Indeed, I'm pretty sure he spoke way more than both Luke and Kenobi during his respective duels with them. Hell, in both the fights with Luke he was talking almost the whole time, trying to antagonize and seduce him to the dark side. Apropos of nothing, but major props to Sam Witwer who continues to impress. I thought his performance as Palpatine was a considerable improvement over when he'd played him in 'The Force Unleashed' game. FYI, he also played Lando's droid in this, which I'm assuming is a pastiche on the "sleazy used car salesman" direction Lucas had originally intended to go with 3PO before Daniels convinced him to use his voice instead, which makes the use of the McQuarrie concept droid especially appropriate.
I did think his fighting motion was perfect though. It looked straight out of the Star Wars arcade game from the 90s. The way he was stiff and didn't even move until he did a single powerful (forceful!) strike.
That wasn't an attempted decapitation, that was holding him down with menace. Fostering fear and panic. If he wanted him dead, he'd be dead.Unless you seriously think that Ezra is really strong enough to resist Vader even for those few seconds? Remember, the point of that whole exercise was to get them to take the shuttle with the tracking beacon back to the Rebel fleet. He was manipulating them the whole time. He may have even threatened Minister Tua knowing full well she'd try to defect rather than face him again, making her credible bait for an ambush. Even without his ability to foresee things through the force, despite all of his reckless impatience, Anakin was still a master strategist. He's quite adept at thinking twelve steps ahead. The only reason he's still the apprentice and not the master is because Palpatine thinks 120 steps ahead.
At first, I thought I was going to have trouble seeing the episode properly. The version my DVR recorded from Disney XD wasn't in HD, and thus wasn't letterboxed on my old TV, and the HD version on the On Demand channel claimed to be 30 minutes long. And I can't watch it online since I'm not with one of the participating cable providers. So I decided, "Okay, I'll watch the first half On Demand, then the rest off the DVR." But the On Demand version was complete and commercial-free, and clearly longer than 30 minutes. So that was a relief. I'm disappointed that there was so little focus on Ahsoka, because I'm still just not particularly interested in this show's main cast, aside from Hera and Sabine. But I appreciate it that they're starting to go in a more serious direction and raise the stakes of the stories. Leaving Lothal behind is probably a plus. (The fate of Minister Tua was rather startling. Vader plays for keeps.) And boy, Darthie loves that "Let them escape and hide a tracking device on their ship" ploy, doesn't he? You'd think the rebels would've known better than to fall for it twice. I wouldn't say "very weak," but his delivery did seem somewhat lighter and less menacing than it should. I didn't get that impression. To me, her tone of voice and expression conveyed sensing something she hadn't quite figured out yet but was determined to follow up on, rather than knowing something that she was hiding from the others. Besides, it makes sense that they'd save that for later in the season, to give her more of a journey to go on. And it's basic dramatic logic to let the villains be a few steps ahead of the heroes, to keep the heroes at a disadvantage. Note that in Empire, Vader knew who Luke was well before Luke learned who Vader was. I don't see why she should. As far as anyone knows, Anakin Skywalker is dead. Heck, even Vader and the Emperor here spoke of Anakin in the third person. And she and Vader clearly haven't come into contact before. It seemed to me that they were only giving orders about matters that directly affected them, i.e. Chopper's message and the minister's plea. And Bail Organa is the rebel leader. Sato was the commander of the fleet, and Ahsoka's role in the hierarchy isn't clear yet. Her request to "tag along" with the Ghost crew suggests she didn't have a specific role to play within the fleet itself. Well, maybe he was more garrulous when he was a bit younger. But I had a similar issue with the animation -- he moves too much. He should be more still and controlled. That would've been out of character. As I mentioned, he speaks of Anakin as a different person. That part of his life is over, a memory. He is Darth Vader now, with none of Anakin's "weak" emotional attachments.
I thought Vader looked and sounded awesome in this episode. If it sounds "off" to some people I think that's probably because we've only heard the same lines of OT dialogue for all these years, and these are all new. But it still felt very in-character to me. If I have any complaint about this Vader, it's with how incredibly lean he is. That might be consistent with his appearance in ROTS, but I really wish they would bulk him up more to the David Prowse-level he was in ANH. Just because he's a heckuva lot more intimidating that way. And seriously, when are the rebels ever going to learn their lesson about the Empire and their tracking devices?? And if you're stealing one of their ships you have to KNOW they'll have some way of tracking it.
It's actually been a while since I've seen a Star Wars movie, so I'm not quite sure how similar or different he sounded. I keep meaning to try Machete Order one of these days. (Although the chronological obsessive in me would want to watch the entirety of The Clone Wars between Eps. II & III, but I think that would throw things off too much -- and take too long.) (Hey, that reminds me, I haven't watched that second unfinished storyline yet. What was it, "Bad Batch"?) I think it's more about matching the original McQuarrie concept art, as well as fitting the character design style of the show. Ahsoka also has a much thinner face than she used to. I was expecting those conveniently stealable shield generators to be a trap of some sort.
Could have something to do with the fact that he's 84 years old. BTW, Sam Witwer nailed Palpatine. That man is incredibly talented.
I'm glad someone finally came in and made that point. Yeesh. "When 84 years you reach, sound as good you will not."
i am well aware of his character. Vader was obviously conflicted and did hold some attachment to his old life. if not, he wouldn't have wanted Luke to join him.
And the Biggest Dick in the Episode prize goes to the Admiral. "It wasn't your fault officer. But Lord Vader won't know that."
Yeah, but he wasn't going around calling him "Lukey-Wukey." Consciously, he wanted to turn Luke because of the Dark-Side potential the boy had. Whatever residual fatherly connection was influencing him, it wasn't close to the surface. I mean, he chopped his own son's hand off. There isn't a lot of sentiment in the guy. That's the reason it took so long for Luke to convince Vader to turn on the Emperor -- because the Vader side of him had buried the Anakin side so deeply. He didn't really become Anakin again until he saw Luke being tortured and his rusty fatherly instincts reawakened. And that was his son, which is a much deeper bond than master-apprentice. So no, no way is Vader going to call Ahsoka "Snips." (Indeed, didn't someone point out above that he'd largely stopped using that nickname once she was older?)