Star Wars Rebels Season Two (spoilers)

[Mr Light]

Rebels 2X2 Relics of the Old Republic

I really loved having a cat and mouse chase in the middle of a sandstorm with AT-ATs! It looked gorgeous and it was really thrilling.

I do think the entire situation was completely artificial, though. The episode opens with a single TIE attacking them and managing to miss OVER AND OVER. And then the storm conveniently rolls in before a single other TIE can get over there? Really? And rather than sending more TIEs or just blasting them from orbit... they drop THREE AT-ATs? To handle one old rickety AT-TE? It doesn't make any sense.

BTW according to wikipedia the ratings were horrible for the season 2 premiere, a series low. But I guess it doesn't matter because they're already finished writing and recording the series, so presumably they're very far into the animation process already. I believe they said it only runs 4 years...? And then they're making a post ROTJ series.

 

[ALF]

Rebels 2X2 Relics of the Old Republic
I do think the entire situation was completely artificial, though. The episode opens with a single TIE attacking them and managing to miss OVER AND OVER. And then the storm conveniently rolls in before a single other TIE can get over there? Really? And rather than sending more TIEs or just blasting them from orbit... they drop THREE AT-ATs? To handle one old rickety AT-TE? It doesn't make any sense.

I agree, the suspension of disbelief was the highest on this episode. How they weren't blown away by all those tanks/TIEs is pretty difficult to swallow. Entertaining as hell, though.

As for the run of the show, I read the plan was orginally three but there was talk of maybe a fourth season. I think maybe the end of the series co-relates to Rouge One (exact same time period) so that's being released next year...

 

[davejames]

I do think the entire situation was completely artificial, though. The episode opens with a single TIE attacking them and managing to miss OVER AND OVER. And then the storm conveniently rolls in before a single other TIE can get over there? Really? And rather than sending more TIEs or just blasting them from orbit... they drop THREE AT-ATs? To handle one old rickety AT-TE? It doesn't make any sense.

I actually thought they did a decent job setting it up, by making it more of an ego thing for Agent Kallus after the clones completely disrespect and trash talk him. That pretty clearly got under his skin and so he decides to make it a huge display of force and show them just how big and powerful the Empire really is.

In any case though, it definitely made for the most visually impressive episode I think they've ever done, with those MacQuarrie-style AT-ATs marching through a sandstorm.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Should have been stormtrooper squads inside the AT-ATs that came out blasting when the walkers fell.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Should have been stormtrooper squads inside the AT-ATs that came out blasting when the walkers fell.

Thats assuming Kallus had troops loaded up in the things before hand, plus I'm pretty sure one of them exploded and the other one only had Kallus and the one guy coming out of it.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Should have been stormtrooper squads inside the AT-ATs that came out blasting when the walkers fell.

Thats assuming Kallus had troops loaded up in the things before hand, plus I'm pretty sure one of them exploded and the other one only had Kallus and the one guy coming out of it.

Yeah. Somehow my meaning doesn't seem to have been clear. Maybe someone else can get what I'm saying.

 

[ALF]

I'm calling Kallus the first to get force-choked by Vader in this series. T'was a spectacular fail on his part.

 

[Reverend]

I thought it was pretty obvious Kallus wanted the clones and the rebels alive, which is why he explicitly opted for a ground assault over and orbital bombardment. As for the TIE, keep in mind that thing is a tank, it's built to take a hit and it had two Jedi on top deflecting any blasted that got too close to the Phantom. Plus the TIE itself (which has no shields I might add) had to evade incoming fire from the ground, which makes precision a whole lot more tricky.

You could argue the dust storm was a little convenient, but so what? Any complication in a dramatic scene is contrived, that's how drama works. Plus, who's to say that dust storms on this planet aren't a daily occurrence?

 

[davejames]

Have to admit I was a bit annoyed at the end to see it was only another Inquisitor on the shuttle and not Vader, who they made it seem like it would be.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

I'm calling Kallus the first to get force-choked by Vader in this series. T'was a spectacular fail on his part.

On the other hand they were really only able to escape becuase the Star Destroyer in orbit that would have been blocking their escape route got called away to pick up another Inquisitor.

 

[Mr Light]

Maybe it's my faulty memory, but have the production values really improved this season? Not that the first season looked back, but it didn't look as good as Clone Wars. But the painted desert sky and the Howls' Moving AT-TE from last episode, and the AT-ATs in the sandstorm with the lights on... it's all been gorgeous!

 

[Captain Fine]

I found this episode did a LOT of callbacks to 1. The Empire Strikes Back and 2. Star Trek II (the sandstorm being the Mutara Nebula) and Star Trek Nemesis (Kanan being Troi trying to find the enemy who is cloaked/impossible to see)

 

[Reverend]

^I think you're stretching the comparison to Star Trek just a bit there....and by a bit I mean a lot.
Fighting blind and fleeing into a storm to even the odds while outnumbered and outgunned are very old naval fiction tropes (both in old mast and sail and submarine based stories) that Star Trek has borrowed more than once and so hardly have a monopoly on the concept.

Maybe it's my faulty memory, but have the production values really improved this season? Not that the first season looked back, but it didn't look as good as Clone Wars. But the painted desert sky and the Howls' Moving AT-TE from last episode, and the AT-ATs in the sandstorm with the lights on... it's all been gorgeous!

I think they have upped their game a bit. There's a clear move away from the almost pastel painting look to a more dimensional cinematic aesthetic with more use of atmospheric lighting, bloom and the like.
It's strange since they did the same thing in TCW. Look back at season 1 and it's all very clean and angular. Fast forward to the last season and they're clearly taking a more classical cinema-esq approach to staging and especially the lighting.

The only problem I have with this is that it make's Zeb's design stick out like a sour thumb. They may need to tweek his design a little so he's not quite so cartoony.

 

[ALF]

Got lots more Rebels goodness coming down the pipeline. I would have been thrilled to know that we're now getting Rebels episodes non-stop until The Force Awakens. But I can report that it will be very close... new episodes are as follows (from http://starwarsrebels.wikia.com/) and they may well run straight into TFA, we aren't sure yet, as episode 210 doesn't have a release date. Still, this is a pretty good look into what we are getting in the short-term. Rebels every week until December, Loth-Cats!!

Always Two There Are [ep.205] October 28, 2015
Brothers of the Broken Horn [ep.206] November 4, 2015
Wings of the Master [ep.207] November 11, 2015
Blood Sisters [ep.208] November 18, 2015
Stealth Strike [ep.209] November 25, 2015
The Lost Children [ep.210?] [TBA]

 

[CorporalClegg]

Great episode! SMG was fantastic. (As if I was expecting anything less.) But, as usual, I think the voice modulation was a bad idea. Her voice is nasally enough as it is.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Yeah, I enjoyed this one, too.

I wonder what that probe droid did to Chopper? Plant some spyware, perhaps?

 

[Mr Light]

203 was a good episode. I had no idea the new Inquisitors would be in this episode so that was a cool surprise. I like how easily they defeated Ezra et al and how hopeless it seemed for them. I was actually worried for them And the escape solution wasn't as artificially fake as I feared it would be.

I agree, I don't like the modulation on SMG's voice. If I didn't know it was her beforehand I might not even have recognized her!

 

[Christopher]

This was pretty good. It's the first time that Ezra, Zeb, and (just maybe) Chopper have felt to me like they were worth caring about rather than just being vaguely annoyed by. The solemn, desperate tone of the situation helped give them some emotional weight. And that was a neat trick of Zeb's in the climax there. It's so rare to see 3-dimensional thinking in space shows.

 

[Reverend]

Interesting tid-bit from this week's Rebel's Recon. Apparently we've seen the Grand Inquisitor before in TCW.
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tmb-rn8g-gM[/yt]

Not sure where that could have been. IIRC the force sensitive babies Cad Bade kidnapped for Sidious's junior enslavement and brain surgery camp on Mustafar were a Rodian and a Nautolan plus he made a failed attempt at a Gungan. No Pau'ans. Indeed off the top of my head I don't recall any Pau'ans showing up in TCW, other than that unfinished story reel with the kyber crystal and then I don't recall seeing any children.

 

[Mr Light]

Damn, I keep forgetting about those "Rebel Recon" things!