Star Wars: Rebels Review
October 22, 2014
When it comes to Star Wars, I’m pretty easy to please: it’s got to feel like Star Wars (AKA A New Hope), be fun, and not be horrible.
That leaves out the pre-sequels. Hey-Oh!
The trailers for Star Wars: Rebels made it seem like my kind of series. I really enjoyed the Clone Wars, and Rebels seemed to have the quality level of Clone Wars but be set in the A New Hope universe. There were TIE fighters! Stormtroopers! Star Destroyers!
Then again, that might all be window dressing on a condemned building.
I got the chance to watch the pilot recently, and I am pleased to say it kept all its promises. This really felt like Star Wars. Even better, it felt like Firefly in the Star Wars universe. I have no idea if this was intentional or conscious on any level, but that’s how it felt to me, and I loved it.
Listen, the writing isn’t the best, and it still has so many of those logical inconsistencies so prevalent in the movies that made it much more a planetary fantasy than science fiction – whatever those terms might mean to you – but I don’t care. It was fun to watch, I liked the characters, and the voice-acting was good. The story was exciting, a souped-up freighter used its turrets to smoke some TIEs, the Imperials spoke with Brit accents and had 70s facial hair, and there were a couple of jumps to light speed.
So far, no midiclorians, stalker love stories, or economic blockades. I think we’re good.
I give Star Wars: Rebels 4 mutton-chopped Imperials out of 5.