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Star Wars Rebels. No colon, hyphen, or comma here. (spoilers in the future)
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Nim: [QB] Having watched up until episode 4, I have to say Rebels feels more mature than CW ever was. It has less cuddling, higher stakes, and more dramatic heft to it, ANH-style, with a stronger emphasis on the characters and the budding story. The birth of the Rebellion has a lot more potential for landgrabs and milestones, than to see the slow dismantling of the Republic in CW. Very early on, CW detached itself from being a personal story to which people could relate, in several ways; narrative focus never stayed on one person for long, jumping between Ahsoka, Anakin, Obi-Wan, the droids, Padme, even frigging Jar-Jar. It felt to me like an ensemble failure, just like TPM was; lots of babbling heads but no star. The time span of being set between AOTC and ROTS was also very limiting and frustrating ("soon all this will burn"). Secondly, I could never get over that corny announcer's voice used to catch people up to speed, it made all the events and plots sound undramatic and humdrum, like "Ahsoka must try to escape her 20th kidnapping", followed by "We now follow Ventress, who's having a monumental crisis of faith", and then "Will the droids be able to find enough fruit for Padme's party", all in the same 1970's Game Show Host voice. Reminds me of that awful and irritating [URL=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6c3B18gAJyc#t=1m09s]"Star Wars Christmas Special " voice[/URL]. That voice represents everything Star Wars tried not to be; folksy and wholesome. Thirdly, if Ahsoka was supposed to be the main character, or the "everyman" character through whose eyes viewers could view and understand the universe (like Samwise or Bilbo), she failed massively; by being very alien-looking and with a Rumpelstiltskin appearance, and jumping from dutiful, virtuous girlscout to incorrigible, scampering runt several times even in a single episode. Only a very small segment of the audience could identify with her (adolescent girls and some boys, between 9-15) or take interest in her miniscule and almost invisible character development (her head tufts grew a bit between seasons, and she broke down in tears less often). More importantly, she was introduced when she had already passed all the Temple tests and built her saber, the only things many fans were interested in. Instead she was trudging along as a witless Padawan scribe/assistant. No one knows what a Jedi cadet goes through, or how they start out (Yoda's regimen in TESB was a crash-course) and the ships Ahsoka flew had neither character, sentimental value, nor interesting features. In the case of "Rebels", not only do they emulate the sound effects and special effects of ANH, but also the power balance and narrative focus of characters; Ezra is the thieving orphan, we see him coming, he also has Force potential, but he has a long journey ahead of him, full of interesting exploration and Jedi learning, and he gets to hang out in an analogue of The Falcon, every fan's dream. Long story short: for now, I'm giving this show a hopeful thumbs-up. I have had to amend my opinion on the visual look and aesthetics of Rebels, I think the new rendition effects such as glistening Stormtrooper armor and detailed ship interiors actually are better made than in CW (all armor looked made of rubber), and facial expressions/non-verbal communication has stepped up a notch. Some characters, though, like Sabine, still have faces which are a bit [URL=http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140908145726/disney/images/0/02/Sabine-Wren-2.png]expressionless and static[/URL] to be able to read. She works better with helmet on, in my opinion. I also thought Jason Isaacs made the Inquisitor a formidable antagonist, not too glib like Ventress of CW season 1-4, nor one-dimensional/boring/stuffy like Dooku, CW all seasons. The Inquisitor seems to prefer some of that gentleman irony of Vader's in ANH/TESB, with a little aristocratic derision borrowed from Lucius Malfoy, no doubt. And his weird lightsaber actually has useful features, which is a nice change. I really enjoy the overall thinner lightsaber blades, like in ANH, feels more dangerous. The thick, rubbery blades in CW could sometimes make a duel seem like a fight between airstrip signal men. Although the Stormtroopers are very weak and easily disposable, instead of bleeding and suffering, at least they are people, and not Temuera Morrison bores. And, most importantly, not slapstick battle droids. The Ghost also grew on me fast, the front silhouette of the canopies and the beefy bow section give it a very imposing look when landing, and the fact that it can pick up cargo with loading clamps is very useful in past and future scenes. Sure, the show can still go down in flames due to mismanagement, but I think it has a much greater chance of going somewhere than sputtering out in a confused, aimless whimper, like CW. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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