One of the shows I was most excited about as summer ends and fall begins was Star Wars Rebels, which continues to amaze and frustrate at the same time.
For those who don’t know the show, it’s now into its third season (first episode, a double feature, appeared on September 24, broadcast on Disney XD. It’s a children’s show to a certain point, but it’s still Star Wars, part of the new building canon, and has enough to offer adults who just can’t get enough of the mythology and history of this universe.
(For those who want to catch up, you can watch the complete Season 1 & Season 2 on DVD/Blu-Ray)
Episodes 1-2 of Season 3 weren’t the best this show has produced, but there were pretty damn good. The struggles in the two featured Jedis, Ezra and Kanan, is always fascinating to see.
Kanan Jarrus, blinded by Darth Maul on Malachor at the end of season 2, is dealing with compensating through the force for his loss of sight, and the growing distance between him and his apprentice, Ezra Bridger.
Ezra has always been partially fueled by anger, but an older him (some time has past between the season 2 finale and the season 3 opener) is a much more powerful him, not always drawing on the light side of the force.
Without diving into any details, I’ve always wanted to see a Jedi that is pragmatic. Which means is one of the good guys, but does some nasty stuff when he has to, like what Ezra did at the beginning of the episode in order to complete a mission. Death is never too explicit on the show, but you know when someone is done. Unfortunately, you never have a sense of risk or dread about the main characters, knowing they’re always safe, for now.
The series also ties in to the new Star Wars trilogy. The Snoke mystery? Some think he’s Ezra from the Rebels TV show, which can make sense if you twist a lot of things around, but Snoke is probably a character we haven’t seen before. It also helps fill in on what happened in the universe before we see it for the first time in Episode IV: A New Hope. The Rogue one film coming out soon will be a more closer tie-in to the original Death Star and the beginning of its destruction.
Rebels has managed to become it’s own thing with little intervention from the characters from the films, although the camoes by Darth Vader, Moff Tarkin, and now Grand Admiral Thrawn, improve the show, don’t take away from it. As someone who can never have enough of Star lore, myth and whatever it is the call Canon these days, here’s to another fantastic season, and maybe raising the ante a little bit.
