I really enjoyed this one! WARNING: there’s a Force Awakens spoiler below… I assume you’ve seen TFA if you’re watching Rebels, but if for some reason you haven’t, do not read.
I’m genuinely rather skeptical of these ‘stunt casting’ episodes (that bring back old characters) for two reasons. One, they build towards a problematic ‘small universe.’ That’s less of a concern in Star Wars, where these characters are all living through these mythic strokes and likely should be greatly connected… but it’s still a little frustrating thinking that Kanan and crew happen to independently meet every other Star Wars character for unconnected reasons.
But far more important is two: they’re usually pretty good episodes… which means they’re almost exclusively reminders that Star Wars characters you like better are off doing more interesting things. Lando is having high stakes gambling adventures! Leia is secretly forming a rebellion! Hondo is stealing spaceships! And you just end up asking yourself: why aren’t we watching THEIR show?
As for this episode, though, it passed my biggest test: Ezra did not get captured. Whenever they can write a Rebels episode where Ezra isn’t taken prisoner, I’m usually sold. It’s like Wing Commander Academy episodes where they don’t come up with an excuse to have Blair ejecting so he’s stuck on an alien planet. It’s a crutch the writers room needs taken from them.
I liked confident teenage Leia quite a bit, and was very glad they didn’t go with the typical ‘she needs a boost to decide what’s right and then she’ll become the character we know!’… she came in confident, with guns blazing and that’s great. Loved the slight ticks the voice actress gave her to remind us of her formal princess speech (there’s one pronunciation that was just perfect… I need to watch it again to pick it out.) I know Kathleen Kennedy has been going on about how Star Wars needs more strong female characters, but she’s absolutely wrong: Leia has been the smartest person in the room kicking ass since 1977, and nothing of her character in this episode is ‘modernized.’
Oh and teenage Leia’s slight, innocent flirting with Ezra at the very end was my favorite.! There’s this one shot of the two of them together that really hit me about the value of a massive shared continuity like this… it’s not just something that’s fun to organize, it’s genuinely interesting that Leia can simultaneously be this innocent teenage princess and a grieving widow/military commander and everything in between, all at once. Positively Tralfamadorian!
And going back to my ‘playing with Kenner toys’ view of the series, the climax was absolutely that. In a world where you can render ten billion TIE Fighters with no skin off your back, the fact that the impossible odds they had to face was that there were TWO walkers was very nice. Can’t you just imagine it? Tommy brought over his Star Wars toys for a battle and he has TWO AT-ATs!
Finally, I like that we’re getting arc-y-er about Ezra, from the characters consoling him about his parents to his clear descent into confusion (which of course leads to hate, anger and the Dark Side.)
(Also -- this was FUN! We should have more threads like this. Is anyone reading the Star Wars comics? We could do a thread like this for them, too...)