Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing okay. Today I'm here to review the first season of Star Wars Rebels, which I just finished watching on Disney+ this morning. There will be some spoilers as there are a few things I want to talk about so you know the drill. Let's get into it.
Star Wars Rebels is one of those rare shows that has an amazing first season that kept me interested throughout. It's also a show that I missed out on when it originally aired. I'll get into that a little later though.
One of the things I loved about this season is that it was very easy to get into. It was definitely aimed at a slightly younger audience than The Clone Wars had been, given that Rebels aired on Disney XD and The Clone Wars had aired on Cartoon Network (seasons 1-5), and then later Netflix (season 6) and Disney+ (season 7), but it doesn't feel like it was made for really little kids or anything like that. There does seem to be a bit more slapstick humour with Ezra, Zeb, and Chopper than there were with Anakin and Ahsoka, and the Battle Droids in The Clone Wars. And it doesn't feel out of place on this show.
Created by Dave Filoni, Carrie Beck, and Simon Kinberg, Rebels was developed from various concepts and elements from unproduced or early versions of existing Star Wars shows, ranging from Filoni's original concept for The Clone Wars to the late 2000s canceled live action series, Star Wars: Underworld. In fact the design for Zeb is based on an early sketch that Ralph McQuarrie did of Chewbacca for A New Hope in the '70s.
I honestly think this show handles its themes, and the overall themes of Star Wars, extremely well for an animated series made for Disney XD in 2014. Everything I criticized season 1 of Star Trek: Prodigy for, especially the second half of the season, Rebels season 1. It's never too childish, it never talks down to the audience, and it allows us to ask questions and immerse ourselves in this relatively untold (in canon) era of the Star Wars Universe without too much of the focus being on the familiar characters who show up throughout this season, such as Lando Calrissian, Senator Bail Organa, R2-D2, C-3PO, Grand Moff Tarkin, and Darth Vader. Which is really hard to do in Star Wars, as we've seen with the recent slate of shows on Disney+.
I won't talk about the Empire too much, but the Inquisitor is ten times more frightening of a character here than he was in Obi-Wan Kenobi. Probably because he was a genuine threat to our crew while he was basically a background character in Obi-Wan. In fact, some of my favourite action sequences this season are the lightsaber duels between Kanan and the Inquisitor. They're just so different than the duels in the movies and on The Clone Wars. And that's where it being an animated series has its advantages.
My favourite characters so far are Sabine Wren, voiced by Tiya Sircar, and Hera Syndulla, voiced by Vanessa Marshall. I think it's because they're both really awesome, and I have the most history with Hera, since she appears in Alphabet Squadron by Alexander Freed. But that's the thing about Star Wars, there's never really a bad character outside of the Sith and the Empire. I love the crew's dynamic with each other as it feels more like a family than the crew of a Rebel starship and that's what drew me into the show.
I love the Master/Apprentice dynamic between Kanan and Ezra. Ezra is this orphan kid, living on the streets of Lothal, dealing with so much anger and doubt, stemming from the loss of his parents 7 years earlier, and Kanan was only a Padawan himself when Order 66 happened, so he feels that he is so far removed from being qualified to train Ezra as a Jedi. It's almost similar to Anakin and Obi-Wan's dynamic at the end of The Phantom Menace, but it's also so unique at the same time that it's entertaining.
Kanan and Hera are like that couple who isn't actually a couple, but you know they probably should be, even if THEY don't realize it yet. They have the hots for each other, but they're both too independent and stubborn for either of them to make a move in that direction.
Zeb and Ezra are so much like the Thing and the Human Torch in the Fantastic Four it's not even funny. Every time they interacted with each other in the first five episodes, I kept thinking to myself that Filoni and company had to have been influenced by Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm in Fantastic Four a little bit.
Ezra and Sabine's relationship could either lean towards the romantic side of things, or they could be best friends. Either one is fine with me as their chemistry is perfect. I hope they get a mission together, just the two of them, in season 2.
The voice cast for this show is fantastic. Besides Tiya Sircar and Vanessa Marshall, you have Freddie Prinze Jr. as Kanan, which is something I don't hear people talk about that much, as if everybody forgot that Freddie Prinze Jr. is a member of the cast for this show, Steve Blum as Zeb, which is amazing, and Taylor Gray as Ezra. Steve Blum and Freddie Prinze Jr. are the cast members I'm the most familiar with since Freddie Prinze Jr. was pretty popular back in the '90s, and Steve Blum voiced Wolverine in Wolverine and the X-Men (2008-2009), Flamedramon, Raidramon, and Magnamon (among others) in the English dub of Digimon season 2/Digimon Adventure 02 (2000), and Guilmon, Growlmon, and many others in the English dub of Digimon season 3/Digimon Tamers (2001).
My favourite episodes in this season were episode 7, "Out of Darkness" where we get a bit about Sabine's background and start to get hints that there's more going on with Hera and her fight against the Empire than she's telling the rest of the crew, episode 10, "Path of the Jedi", where Kanan takes Ezra to a hidden Jedi Temple on Lothal and Ezra becomes a true Padawan, and episode 11, "Idiot's Array" where the crew takes on a job from Lando Calrissian after Zeb loses Chopper to Lando during a game of Sabacc.
As I mentioned earlier, I completely missed Rebels when it originally aired. We didn't have Disney XD as part of our cable package back in 2014 and unlike The Clone Wars, which aired on CTV for the first season and a half and then on Teletoon for the remainder of the show's run here in Canada, Rebels only aired on Disney XD. I was aware of it because I read the show's coverage in Star Wars Insider, though I skipped episode guides and other spoilery info that happened to be in interviews for the show once it started airing. However about four or five years ago, a buddy of mine lent me the first two seasons on DVD, and I watched the first season and I couldn't get into it. I just didn't get it. I don't know if that's because I hadn't seen The Clone Wars or if by the time I watched the first season DVD set I was just done with Star Wars. Not in the sense that I was no longer a fan, but 2018/2019 wasn't a great time to be part of the Star Wars fandom. This was in the wake of The Last Jedi and Solo: A Star Wars Story coming out, and the fandom was split as a result. Nobody knew if The Rise of Skywalker was going to be any good, and I don't think The Mandalorian had been announced yet, and I was just exhausted from all of it.
And even though I've been enjoying the Star Wars Disney+ shows, especially The Mandalorian and Obi-Wan Kenobi, I've kinda let my other fandoms overtake my Star Wars fandom. But ever since Star Wars Celebration Europe 2023 in April I was reminded that Star Wars isn't something I like. It's something I love. In fact, Star Wars and Star Trek are my favourite franchises of all time and I've been reminded of that alot lately. That's why I've done alot of Star Wars content here on the blog recently and why I'll be continuing to do lots of Star Wars and Star Trek content here. Not just reviews for seasons of the current shows either. Or reviews of novels either.
Overall, this is a great start to a 9 year old show. As I said to my buddy, Aaron, last night, I wish I'd gotten to watch this show when it first aired back in 2014. I recommend watching this season at the very least. Don't let it being an animated deter you from watching it. It's great. All four seasons are on Disney+, which is where I'm watching it.
Alright my friends, that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow for another Star Wars book review. Until then, have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.
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