Rebel Rebel

A few months back, I wrote in praise of two Star Wars animated series: The Clone Wars and (especially) The Bad Batch. Now I'm back to voice support for the show that was made in between the two, but is set in the Star Wars chronology in the years before the original film.

Star Wars: Rebels centered on the adventures of a small Rebel band led by Hera Syndulla. Her crew included willful young Jedi trainee Ezra, his mentor Kanan, young Mandalorian warrior Sabine, bruiser-type alien Zeb, and trouble-making robot Chopper. Over the course of its four season run, this band brushed up against the people and events of the original Star Wars trilogy with increasing frequency.

It took me a while to warm up to the show. It focuses a lot on Ezra in the early episodes -- and he is very much a moody, exasperated (and exasperating) teenager in the beginning. Even as the focus began to widen, some episodes were better than others. Rebels really had the feeling of a show in which all the scripts were written by lifting the best bits from some ongoing RPG campaign that was being run and recorded somewhere. (Executive producer Dave Filoni's campaign, one might assume?)

Still, the show felt good enough to stick with, as it brushed up against characters and plot elements of the original Star Wars trilogy in fun ways. Yes, that too supported that feeling of it being a role-playing game, but now at least it was becoming a well-run campaign, a very effective nostalgia delivery system. By season two, the show had really hit its stride, boldly incorporating the voices of original Star Wars cast members, appearances of great characters from The Clone Wars series, and interesting stories about these new main characters themselves. Seasons two and three of Rebels really represent another great run of Star Wars.

The final season four is a bit of a step down again. Certainly not enough to undermine the project, but... endings are hard. Especially when, as an immediate prequel to Star Wars, Rebels was obligated to "clean up its room and put all its toys in exactly the right place." The last dozen-or-so installments are a highly serialized tightrope walk of trying to invest us in a particular story line that Rebels can resolve (because it doesn't impact the original trilogy), even as its trying to excite us with more classic characters and more lead-ups to A New Hope. The balance isn't always quite right, but at least this tightrope act is working with the big net of Star Wars to catch it.

The series as a whole is well worth watching for those middle two seasons. Overall, I'd give Star Wars: Rebels a B+. It has a solid voice cast, ever-improving animation, and its way of storytelling was a real forerunner for the current live-action Star Wars television we've been getting. If you're a Star Wars fan who hasn't checked it out, you'd probably enjoy it.

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As a footnote, what I absolutely cannot recommend is the next animated series in the Star Wars canon: Resistance. A prequel to The Force Awakens, I tried it and couldn't make it past the third episode. Its protagonist, Kaz, is a shocking dark horse contender for the most annoying character in the Star Wars universe. Yes, far more annoying that Ezra was on Rebels in the early going. Yes, as whiny as C-3PO. Yes, as big a stupid disaster magnet as Jar Jar Binks. With no other good points arriving immediately on the scene to balance that out, Resistance was utterly unwatchable. If you're reading this, and you actually watched all of Resistance... why? HOW?