Star Wars Rebels Season 3 (2016) TV Show Review

 Hey everyone, how were your weekends? Mine was good. I'm back to talk more Star Wars Rebels as I finished season 3 last night. Like with my reviews of the previous two seasons there won't be too many spoilers, but there will be some as there are a few things I want to talk about, but can't with some spoilers. So, with that out of the way, let's get into it.

Season 3 is the season where alot of elements from The Mandalorian come from. Mainly from episodes 15 and 16, which I'll get to a little later in this review. It was kinda nice to have context for things like the Darksaber, and the Mandalorian involvement in the Galactic Civil War. We got hints of that in seasons 2 and 3 of The Mandalorian, but it was nice to actually see it for myself in this show finally.

I think I said this in one of my previous reviews, and I know I've said it to my friend, Aaron, but I went into this show almost completely blind. Aside from reading non-spoiler interviews in Star Wars Insider magazine when the first season was about to start airing, I didn't follow this show at all while it was airing on TV. I knew that Darth Vader, Bo Katan Kryze, Grand Admiral Thrawn, Ahsoka, Captain Rex, and Darth Maul made appearances in this show, and I knew that both Thrawn and Maul appeared in this season as I actually have the season's poster hanging up on my wall down here in the Geek Cave, but that's all I knew. And most of that came from seeing images online. So I was pleasantly surprised to see what is basically the birth of the Rebel Alliance in this season.

There are several appearances in this season from the old Expanded Universe novels, comics, and video games, now all under the Legends banner. The biggest one is Thrawn, voiced by Lars Mikkelsen. He was originally created by author Timothy Zahn for the 1991 novel, Heir to the Empire, as a worthy antagonist for Han, Luke, and Leia since the book was set after Return of the Jedi (1983), which meant the Emperor and Darth Vader couldn't be used. He was killed in the final book of what is now known as the Thrawn Trilogy, The Last Command, but Zahn continued to use the character in books set before Heir to the Empire. In fact, Thrawn is either shown or mentioned in every Star Wars novel that was written by Zahn, both in Legends and Canon. Other authors mentioned him in their books too, especially during the '90s when Bantam Spectra had the Star Wars novel license. However he wasn't the only Legends element to appear in this season.

Thrawn's flagship in this season is the Chimaera, which was his flagship in the Thrawn Trilogy and remained the flagship of the Imperial Navy through most of the post-Return of the Jedi Bantam era novels that were set after The Last Command. Though Captain Pellaeon, the Star Destroyer's commanding officer, doesn't appear in this season. The other Legends element that I noticed in this season is the TIE Defender, was originally created for the 1994 PC game, Star Wars: TIE Fighter, which was a sequel to the 1993 game, Star Wars: X-Wing. The TIE Defender also made appearances in Legends novels including the final two books in the X-Wing series by Michael A. Stackpole and Aaron Allston, and the New Jedi Order series, again in the final two books in the series.

While the previous two seasons focused heavily on Ezra and Kanan, they took a bit of a backseat this season, allowing Hera, Sabine, and Chopper to have some great episodes. Ezra centric episodes focused on his connection to Maul, but Kanan didn't really have much to do this season once they dealt with him being blinded by Maul during their lightsaber fight in the season 2 finale. Which is fine, because, again, it allowed Hera, Sabine, and Chopper to shine.

Speaking of my little murderous Droid, I am so glad the writers teamed Chopper up with the inventory Droid, AP-5, who defected to the Rebellion last season. Their dynamic is so similar to Artoo and Threepio's in the movies, and yet, is so completely different, as I'm not really sure if AP and Chopper actually like each other the way Artoo and Threepio do. Mainly because there are several points where either Chopper or AP are going to be destroyed, and they each wait until the last second to save the other, and only do so either at the urging of Ezra, Zeb, or Hera, or one of them saves whichever Droid is in danger of being destroyed. 

My favourite episodes this season are "Trials of the Darksaber" (3x15), and "Legacy of Mandalore" (3x16). This is a pair of Sabine focused episodes that takes us to the Mandalorian world of  Krownest, where Sabine's family, Clan Wren, of the House Vizla, lives. Aside from getting a bunch of Imperial era Mandalorian stuff, including the Darksaber, which I really only got hints of from The Mandalorian, they really filled in Sabine's backstory, which I appreciated because Sabine is my favourite character in this show. 

Another episode that I really enjoyed is "The Antilles Extraction" (3x4), which is another Sabine episode. In this one, Sabine infiltrates the Imperial training facility, Skystrike Academy, to extract two defecting Imperial pilots, Wedge Antilles, and Derek "Hobbie" Klivian. Yep, Misters "Look at the size of that thing!" and "Two fighters against a Star Destroyer?" themselves debut in this episode. But, more than that, it really deals with Sabine's time at the Imperial Academy, adding even more to her as a character.

Overall, this was another excellent season. While many shows were moving to streaming around this time (2016-2017), many of them were still on traditional television, with 20 to 23 episode seasons. Most live action shows were struggling to keep a season going for 20 to 23 episodes every year. Rebels managed to pull off two consecutive 22 episode seasons and did both of them pretty well. 

That's going to be it for me for today. I might be back with a comic book review tomorrow, or maybe on Thursday. We'll see what happens. I'm also a little more than halfway through my most recent readthrough of A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin and when I'm finished reading it, I'll have a review up for you. Until then have a great rest of the day and I will talk to you all later. Take care.