Star Wars Rebels Season Three (spoilers)

[Reverend]

Bit of a low-key premier compared to last year's, but it seems appropriate given the upheavals of the finale to take a little breather to show how things have begun to settle.

I actually liked how low key Thrawn's introduction was. Felt very in character. He's a very different adversary to Tarkin, Vader or the Grand Inquisitor. Much more contemplative, deliberate and a much colder brand of cunning ruthlessness. He has a chess player's mindset and a cobra's reflexes. He'll spend the next few encounters putting his pawns into position and allowing the Rebels to position themselves as best suits him before making a decisive strike.

Bendu's introduction was similarly low key and also seems to befit his character. I stand by my initial impression that there's more than a little of Tom Bombadil about him as well as a fair amount of Lion Turtle from 'The Last Airbender'. It's curious how they just so happen to set up a base on his world and no too far from where he was slumbering. Possibly a co-incidence, or the will of the force?
Interesting that according to Hidalgo his kind of force wielder actually predate the Jedi and may no be the only ones. However, his familiarity with both the Jedi and Sith indicates he's been awake at least some time in the interim.

Small detail, but am I crazy, or did Commander Sato's voice seem a little weird during the briefing? It's like the voice actor forgot which character he was voicing mid-sentence.

 

[JD]

I haven't seen the episode, so I don't have the full context for the stuff with Bendu, but when I saw people saying he was on the same planet as their base, I find it hard to believe that is a coincidence. They could have ended up there through The Will of the Force. When it comes to Jedi and Force stuff, there are very few coincidences.

 

[nx1701g]

I haven't got a chance to watch the full episode. I hope to watch tomorrow.

 

[tharpdevenport]

Bendu kind of looks like he's formed from a hill, maybe he didn't happen to conveniently be on the same planet but manifests himself where needed. A Yoda that makes house calls.

Maybe. Notice how that still-to-be-explained owl creature flew to and landed on one of the antler things on Bendu. I think there's more to this than we know.

The guy who voices Kanan said all the people making these Star Wars films for Disney, are talking to each other, sharing ideas, what they are doing, so froth and so on. I sense a larger scale of thigns coming into view.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Some random thoughts on the episode.

- The Ghost team looks great.

- Yeah, I expect the "coincidence" of the Bendu being on Atollon will turn out not to be a coincidence at all. Also, the spider creatures seem to be Force-sensitive, and there might be a connection involving them.

- I thought that Tom Baker's voice work was outstanding, by the way.

- It was cute how the dismantler droids looked like miniature versions of Reklam Station.

- I can't say that I was remotely surprised that Hondo would split.

- There really has to be some sort of pushback from the Force that keeps stormtroopers from aiming straight at our team.

- I like how they aren't trying to milk any suspense out of whether Kanan will find out that Ezra opened the holocron. That's all out in the open now, which is good.

- I hope we see more of Titus.

 

[Reverend]

I may be missing something, but I'm not sure where some of you are getting the impression that the stormtroopers are especially poor shots in this episode. I mean sure, they never hit anything, but that's more or less how they've always been. Plus I thought in this episode Ezra and Sabine (and Hondo) were just dispatching them so fast, the ones at close rage bare got any shots off.

 

[Mr Light]

The stormtroopers were REALLY CLOSE to them in this episode's opening though

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Imperial troops with poor aim is a running gag that was old by the time of Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back, and it's still going.

 

[Reverend]

The way I look at it is that Stormtroopers aren't really soldiers, they're more like paramilitary police and for the most part their training is about what you'd expect from a conscript army that mostly depends on intimidation, overwhelming numbers and firepower whenever it can. Often it seems with the cheapest possible equipment.

That's more than enough to oppress civilians, keep the local criminal elements in line (more or less) and put down the occasional riot if things ever got that far. But the rank-and-file we've seen clearly are not trained in counter-insurgency or it seems any squad based tactics beyond "shoot in that general direction."

It's actually pretty telling that their standard issue rifle has a folding stock and targeting sight, neither of which I've ever seen them use so far as I can recall. Add to that the fact that you're not going to get the brightest sparks assigned to outer rim guard duty and all of a sudden, it make sense that the ones we see are mostly the dregs.

Even Vader's boarding troops at the beginning ANH weren't terribly effective. Practically running headlong into gunfire with little regard for their own safety. It seems like they just overrun the Alderaanian security team by sheer force of numbers.

There is actually some logic to this since the Emperor would never want to find himself in the very same trap he used to wipe out the Jedi: surrounded by an army of highly trained and proficient battle hardened soldiers who's loyalty could be swayed against him. Indeed, note that even the TIEs don't have shields or hyperdrives so this doctrine apply to the star fleet too.
Instead he protects himself with a force of disposable assets, making the point of leverage the officers, who exist in a system designed to prevent to over ambitions from advancing too far.

I am curious what the deal is with the Royal Guard though. You have to think they're at least on the level of clone commandos and somehow engineered, indoctrinated or otherwise altered for unquestioning loyalty. Or they could just be for show as Sidious is more than capable of looking after himself. Either way as Yoda easily proved they're no match for a trained force user.

 

[JD]

The guy who voices Kanan said all the people making these Star Wars films for Disney, are talking to each other, sharing ideas, what they are doing, so froth and so on. I sense a larger scale of thigns coming into view.

Sure, that's the whole point of the Story Group, it works on everything together. I believe there were some plot points in Bloodline that came from EPVIII director Rian Johnson.

 

[The Wormhole]

I'm kind of surprised, what with all the criticisms Rex has made about Stormtroopers being inferior to Clone, he hasn't made a comment yet, "at least Clones hit their targets."

 

[Reverend]

^IIRC I think he did complain about the weapon's lousy accuracy.

 

[Ithekro]

He said it was the helmet, "I can't see". After removing the helmet he started hitting stormtroopers again.

 

[JD]

Funko is going to releasing Rebels Pop!s. They'll have Ezra with long hair and the blaster/lightsaber, Kanan, Sabine with blue hair, Hera, Zeb, and Chopper. They'll also be releasing Ahsoka as a Hot Topic exclusive, and a helmeted Sabine as a Walgreens exclusive. I'm surprised to see that this is the first Ahsoka product Funko has released.

 

[Ithekro]

It appears that it has been only six months since the events at Malachor. So it should be roughly two years before the Battle of Yavin now during this season of Rebels.

We now have knowledge of the existence of at least five rebel cells with Ghost cell being the smallest originally. Thrawn seems to have knowledge about their being the potential of a larger rebel fleet than what we have seen with Phoenix group. Could that potentally show us the Mon Cala rebel cell with a few star cruisers? Or a former Separatist holdout cell that still has some old Clone Wars era capital ships and battle droids fighting the Empire?

 

[JD]

According to Ranking Rebels: 10 Highlights from Steps Into Shadow on StarWars.com there was a refence to General Dodonna, so we can assume his cell would be one of those. Is Mon Mothma part of Dodonna's cell or would she be part of another?

 

[nx1701g]

Funko is going to releasing Rebels Pop!s. They'll have Ezra with long hair and the blaster/lightsaber, Kanan, Sabine with blue hair, Hera, Zeb, and Chopper. They'll also be releasing Ahsoka as a Hot Topic exclusive, and a helmeted Sabine as a Walgreens exclusive. I'm surprised to see that this is the first Ahsoka product Funko has released.

I will be picking up Ahsoka.

This will also be the first Funko Star Wars character I buy.

 

[Reverend]

Well this is interesting.

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After reading the backstory novel and the comics, it somehow feels weird hearing Kanan's real name out loud.

Also, I may be reading too much into it, but does anyone else think Hera's reaction looked like even she didn't know his real name? I don't remember if he told her in the books or not, but I don't think so...

It appears that it has been only six months since the events at Malachor. So it should be roughly two years before the Battle of Yavin now during this season of Rebels.

Have they actually specified what the passage of time has been on the show to date? It seems they generally like to be pretty vague about such things.

We now have knowledge of the existence of at least five rebel cells with Ghost cell being the smallest originally. Thrawn seems to have knowledge about their being the potential of a larger rebel fleet than what we have seen with Phoenix group. Could that potentally show us the Mon Cala rebel cell with a few star cruisers? Or a former Separatist holdout cell that still has some old Clone Wars era capital ships and battle droids fighting the Empire?

Mon Cala would be very cool, but I suspect that'd be a little too much too soon at this point, though the only other capital ships we've seen the rebellion use are the Nebulon-B frigates.
I suppose it's possible they got their hands on an old Seperatist warship. One imagines that since most of them were entirely crewed by droids, many of those that survived the Battle of Coruscant would have been left fairly intact. Maybe one was somehow overlooked by imperial salvagers and was recovered?

What would be cool is if they somehow got their hands on an old Jedi Venator. It's extensive hanger facilities would certainly work in favour of the rebellion's necessary reliance on fighters over ships of the line.

According to Ranking Rebels: 10 Highlights from Steps Into Shadow on StarWars.com there was a refence to General Dodonna, so we can assume his cell would be one of those. Is Mon Mothma part of Dodonna's cell or would she be part of another?

If I had to guess I'd say she's not "with" that cell anymore than Bail is "with" Phoenix squadron. For now it seems as though the Rebel leadership are working to coordinate these cells at a strategic level. From the Rogue One trailer it's clear was is/was/will be at the Massassi temple (alongside Bail it seems) just before ANH, but that's still several years out. Indeed, I doubt Dodanna's forces are even on Yavin IV yet.

 

[kirk55555]

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If that clip proves nothing else, its that having Maul be the "strong, silent type" in TPM was a good idea, and he just doesn't work when he's just chatting (TCW had a similar problem, but the whole "resurrecting maul" thing was stupid in the first place, so I guess it doesn't matter that he's barely connected to TPM character at this point).

 

[Reverend]

^Interesting points but you seem to think everything you watch is either stupid, or a bad idea, so I'm going to take clearly well considered opinion that with a nice big dump truck full of sodium chloride.