Star Wars Rebels (2014-2018) TV Show Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm good. Sorry this review is a day late, but I decided to take yesterday to think about how I wanted to do this review. As you can see from the title of this post, I'm taking a look at Star Wars Rebels as a whole, since I've already done individual reviews of all four seasons, all of them relatively spoiler free. I toyed with the idea of going super indepth about all of the main characters, the major storylines, and the production history of the series from start to finish, but since this is a wrap up for the series as a whole, I'm still gonna go spoiler free, as much as possible anyway, and just give my final thoughts on the show as a whole now that I'm finished the entire thing. I'm also going to talk a little bit about where Star Wars was as a franchise when Rebels started in 2014. So let's get into it.

 2014 was an interesting year for the franchise. Disney had already owned it for two years at this point and everyone was waiting for the first movie in Disney's planned Sequel Trilogy. The Clone Wars which had started back in 2008 with George Lucas and, then newcomer, Dave Filoni producing it, had been canceled the year before, but Netflix had dropped a surprise sixth season, dubbed "The Lost Missions" in March of that year. Also the final novels in the original Expanded Universe continuity, rebranded as Legends in early 2014, were being published, ending a continuity that had been going on longer than the movies had been, as the novelization of the original 1977 movie was the first thing to come out that had the title "Star Wars" on it. 

In doing some research for this review, I discovered that fans hated this show before it had even come out. The Clone Wars had been so beloved and it had been the entryway for a whole new generation of fans as the Prequel Trilogy and the Star Wars Trilogy Special Editions had been for people born in the early '90s had been and the 1995 VHS release of the Original Trilogy had been for my generation. But Disney canceled it, though, as I already mentioned, they produced a thirteen episode sixth season for Netflix, though it was far from completing the series as Filoni and Lucas still had several unproduced scripts left. I think part of the reason that The Clone Wars was canceled is that the show aired on Cartoon Network, which is owned by Warner Bros., and streaming services were just starting to come into prominence with Netflix, though it would still be a year before Marvel's own Netflix sensation, Daredevil (2015-2018) would debut, and two years before Stranger Things (2016-present) would really popularize original programming for streaming platforms. And because of that weird ownership where The Clone Wars was now owned by Disney, but airing on a network owned by Warner Bros., I think Disney just wanted to start anew with a series on one of their own networks, Disney XD, which was relatively new at the time, having been launched in 2009 following the closure of its predecessor, Toon Disney.

The idea for Rebels came from co-creator, Carrie Beck, though it mirrors an idea that Filoni originally came up with for The Clone Wars in either 2006 or 2007. A group of characters on a Millennium Falcon type ship, causing problems for the Empire. That idea morphed and changed until it essentially became the story of the birth of the Rebel Alliance and the people who aren't Princess Leia, Bail Organa, and Mon Mothma, though all three characters make appearances on the show. In a way it's almost like the X-Wing book series by Michael A. Stackpole and Aaron Allston in that it focuses on the normal, every day people who fight for the Alliance, rather than the highest ranking leaders of the Rebellion. 

I said this in my season 1 review, but it bears repeating here. While I knew about the show as I kept up with its production through Star Wars Insider magazine, I didn't have access to it as Disney XD was simply a spin-off of Family Channel, both owned by DHX Media, and we wouldn't get Rebels here in Canada until Disney Channel Canada began airing it in 2015, with it bouncing back and forth between Disney Channel and Disney XD throughout its run. Even if that hadn't been the case, I wasn't watching a whole lot of cable television in the mid to late 2010s, outside of the DC Comics based Arrowverse shows, Star Trek shows, and The Orville (first two seasons only, it moved to Disney+ in 2022), and I wasn't as interested in modern animated shows as I felt many of them talked down to their audience and felt completely aimed at children, compared to the majority of the animated shows that I watched when I was a kid, growing up in the '90s. And because Rebels looks cheap compared to what we'd been getting in The Clone Wars, it kinda turned me off of it a little bit. It was made even worse when I finally got around to watching the first season when my buddy, Jonathan, lent it to me on DVD back in 2018 or 2019 because that first season feels more aimed at children than the first season of The Clone Wars had in 2008-2009. 

The first season is still really good, don't get me wrong, but given that the show apparently had half the budget that The Clone Wars had, even in its early seasons, Filoni and his crew had to make sacrifices when it came to the animation and the design of the characters. Yet, things got better as the series went on because by season 2 I kept having to remind myself that this is an animated show, as many of the scenes looked like they'd been filmed in live action, particularly the space battle scenes.

I think the more child friendly version of Star Wars that we see with Rebels is a good move for the franchise. George Lucas always intended the movies to be for kids. He had ten to twelve year olds in mind when he made Star Wars in the '70s and again when he made the prequels in the mid '90s to mid 2000s, yet so many other creators, including Dave Filoni and George himself, made the franchise for everyone, no matter how old you are. Though many modern incarnations of the franchise, particularly the Sequel Trilogy, Rogue One, Solo, and the Disney+ shows The Mandalorian, Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Bad Batch, The Clone Wars, The Book of Boba Fett, and Andor have all been aimed at older audiences. In a way it kind of started with Revenge of the Sith in 2005 as that was a much more intense and brutal film than the previous movies in the franchise had been up to that point. Though I think most people will agree that The Empire Strikes Back is a darker, more intense, film than Star Wars had been too.

While The Clone Wars recontextualizes the Prequel Trilogy and is so inherently connected to it, Rebels stands on its own as a complete story within the Star Wars Universe. While well known characters from the movies like Leia, Lando, R2-D2, C-3PO, Wedge, Hobbie, Mon Mothma, and Bail Organa show up, and Ahsoka, Captain Rex, and Bo-Katan Kryze from The Clone Wars also make appearances, Rebels isn't about them. It's about Kanan, Ezra, Hera, Sabine, Zeb, and Chopper and their roles in the fledgling Rebel Alliance. The pre-established characters serve as guides for each main character and their respective journeys. Which I really appreciate because when legacy characters are in play, no matter what the show or movie is, they tend to overshadow the new characters, no matter how long the legacy character is part of the story for.

I love the fact that for the ship and some of the character designs, Filoni and his team went right to Ralph McQuarrie's designs, which are featured in the book, The Art of Star Wars. In one of the DVD bonus features, which I watched on YouTube for research purposes, Filoni is even shown holding a copy of The Art of Star Wars and explaining WHY he made that design choice. And you know what? It makes sense. Kind of. It makes sense for the ships, and Chopper and Zeb, but for Vader, it doesn't. Only because we've seen Vader in movies, and shows, set prior to the beginning of Rebels with Revenge of the Sith and Obi-Wan Kenobi, where he's wearing the final design of his helmet, while here he's wearing a slightly older version taken directly from McQuarrie's design sketches, so it's a bit harder to line up with the other movies and shows. HOWEVER, because Vader is only in a few episodes of the second season, it's not a bad design choice for him, it just feels weird when you compare it to Vader's appearances in the rest of the franchise.

I also love that they drew elements from Legends for this show too. Aside from Thrawn, his TIE Defender project was from Legends, as were his assassin, Rukh, and Pellaeon, though we only hear Pellaeon, we don't actually see him like we did in season 3 of The Mandalorian. 

Of the main characters, I don't think there is a single one who didn't get a rich and interesting backstory and didn't get something to do in every season. And all of them aren't just likeable, they're all lovable too. Even the little psychopath, Chopper. I know I brought this up in my season 1 review, but I could not believe that Chopper has the highest body count of all of the characters and that he has a higher bodycount than R2-D2 does. That's even with us seeing R2 roasting a couple of Super Battle Droids in Revenge of the Sith. And of course, his dynamic with AP-5 in seasons 2 and 3. According to Wookieepedia, AP-5's voice and personality, provided by voice actor Stephen Stanton, was based on Alan Rickman, his name is a tribute to producer Athena Portillo's name and height. Only Dave Filoni could get away with such a thing. I love little behind the scenes facts like that. Speaking of fun behind the scenes facts, Athena Portillo also contributed to the 20th Anniversary of Star Wars article in issue #32 of Star Wars Insider all the way back in 1997, before she'd been hired by Dave Filoni in 2006 or 2007 to be a line producer on The Clone Wars, which is pretty cool.

I think I've gushed about this show enough. If you have never watched Rebels before, even if you're not a Star Wars fan, I highly, HIGHLY recommend doing so. Even if you're not doing it in preparation for Ahsoka to come out in August. The only reason I decided to go ahead and watch it is because elements from this show have appeared in The Mandalorian, particularly seasons 2 and 3, and many things will be followed up on in Ahsoka, and being that, aside from season 3 of Superman & Lois, none of my other shows are on right now, I decided to take the opportunity to watch Rebels and I am very glad I did. Not only did it introduce me to new characters and their stories, but it also introduced me to a whole new generation of Star Wars creators at Lucasfilm Animation. Some of their names were familiar from when The Clone Wars was in production back in the late 2000s and early 2010s, but there were still a bunch of them that I was unfamiliar with or didn't remember from those Star Wars Insider interviews from before the show started airing in 2014.

And that my friends is it for me for today. Thank you for sticking with me through these Rebels reviews. Someday I'll go back and go through The Clone Wars because I haven't seen anything from halfway through season 2 all the way to season 7, which came out in 2020. I know bits and pieces thanks to the internet and Star Wars Insider, but I haven't seen anything since 2009. I also have other reviews and posts coming up next week. So until then have a great rest of your weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.