SPOILER Rebels Season 3 Ep 20 & 21 "Zero Hour" (Paul's Review)

Yeah, and I wish it were 11 double length episodes. The number doesn't matter as much as the runtime for keeping the crew together. Even for the finale, how much screen time/ lines of dialogue did Zeb get?

I think the crew figures it is better to give more significant interaction between just 2 or 3 characters for the 20 min runtime. That said, I'm 100% on your side. The two parters where the whole family interacts are generally far superior to the stand alones.

 

That's what I thought too, but the key difference was that Ezra told Kanan that even though he had taught him all he could in terms of becoming a Jedi, there was still plenty he could teach him about life and living, being a good person. It was such a beautiful moment and I feel that because of how natural the discussion felt it will be an extremely underrated moment in the franchise as a whole.

I feel like it certainly gives weight to the idea that Ezra doesn't care about becoming a Jedi, he just cares about being a good person and helping others, which ultimately was one of the catalysts for Anakin turning dark (he committed to this ideology to the point that he would do anything to control his own happiness, as well as others', which ultimately contributed to his downfall).

 

It was an exciting two-part finale for me.

I agree with @Hermann22 that the animation has been getting just better and better each passing episode. I truly enjoyed the space battles and the tactics and strategy of Thrawn. Also the role of Bendu as someone truly in the Middle. All hail the Light, the Dark and the Grey.

Agree with some other posts that maybe Admiral Raddus got the idea from Sato, and then Commodore Agate too in the Battle of Jakku.

*jumping with excitement*

Interesting that the three Season Finale episodes have involved a Fulcrum in some way. *crosses fingers so they bring Cassian into Season 4 - and Kaytoo too!*

(Can someone imagine K-2SO interacting with AP-5 and Chopper??)

I wanted to hug Ezra when he said so to Kanan. And the phrase at the end: "There a future for us, one where we're all free. But it's up to us to make it happen."

*sobs uncontrollably*

Well, as we discussed on Twin Suns (and someone pointed out on Twitter):



LOL. But yeah, I guess they have to keep it subtle for the kids.

Agree, they work better together. Looking forward to Season 4!

 

While the battle sequences were fun enough, I felt this was a little lackluster overall. When watching it, I thought of Star Trek Deep Space Nine's "Sacrifice of Angels" episode. Space battles, and the threat of overall imposing force and impossible odds to be solved by a deus ex machina. Captain Sisko had to appeal to the "wormhole alien gods" who turn the tide and eliminate the threat.

The question is, if the series wasn't renewed for another season, would this have been a decent series finale? Obviously, not everything could be wrapped up, but each character got a moment to shine and I really think this finale was hedging it's bets in case it wasn't renewed.

 

No it wouldn't have. It would have left open questions about the ultimate fate of most of the Ghost crew, the civil war on Mandalore, and the Bendu's foresight into Thrawn's eventual defeat, with two of those being created by the episode itself.

Which proves S4 was never really in question internally with the creative team. Had it been that episode would have been structured to convey a little more finality.

 

I didn't notice it. But haven't they been a couple the whole time?

There was a similarly subtle scene in Batman: mask of the phantasm when I was a kid. Where the couple kiss, and they jump immediately to the next morning. I didn't notice she was wearing Bruce's shirt. Safe for kids, tells a lot to the adults.

 

All this filth in kids shows. Disgusting.

 

Hera can't go immediately but that doesn't mean Ezra and Kanan wont.

 

To use the terminology of the collider crew....If you read "A new dawn" it seems like Hera and Kanan have been *holding hands* for years. I wonder why the room switch so late in the game?

 

Oh man I loved that show it was great, and that was a great episode. They do a lot of callbacks to other sci-fi shows. Although this was pretty unique in the fact Benndy was taking shots at everybody. A force wielding Mr. Wilson.

 

That Leffe though. You ever tried "Leffe Ruby" - it's beautiful. Tesco import them but they're normally only available in France & Belgium.

Anywho's... I like this episode. I didn't love it, but I liked it. I'm always late to the Rebels party so most of my thoughts have been covered but here's some quick hitters for me:

- I preferred Part 1 to Part 2.
- I thought Thrawn could've done more damage.
- I'm really not a fan of Bendu. I don't really get what he brings to the table... he just isn't important to the overall story.
- This season of Rebels has looked BEAUTIFUL. I really do gasp at some scenes.

 

Kanan: Hey, Bendu. I know you’ve spent this last season helping us out and you’ve never really demonstrated any ability beyond keen insight - but how’s ‘bout you get off your lazy ass and lend us a hand with this problem that’s totally not your problem?
Bendu: What are you stupid or something? I’m the neutral guy. Remember? That’s kind of my whole deal. I don’t take sides. I feel like I say this every time I see you. Now buzz off so I can continue being unshakably pleasant and harmonious.
Kanan: Pfft, pussy.
Bendu: HOW DARE YOU!! I’LL KILL YOU!! I’LL KILL YOU ALL!!!!! RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!!! - Not until it’s the most dramatically appropriate for plot purposes of course - but then, RAAAAAAAAAAAR!!!!
Me: Wait, did Kanan just ‘what’s the matter, chicken’ the Bendu into being the smoke monster from Lost?

Otherwise, pretty solid finale. Looking forward to season 4

 

Haha! Exactly. It isn't neutral to kill everyone around.

When I was a kid I thought "balance to the force" meant 2 jedi and 2 sith were left. But Lucas states that "the dark side is cancer and balance can only be achieved when the dark side is wiped out".

Neutral and balanced wouldn't be someone doing an equal number of good and bad things. When you start down the dark path forever will it dominate your destiny.

To paraphrase a joke. "You *hug* one sheep and everyone in town knows you as the sheep *hugger*. I do plenty of other things. I support my family and donate to charity but all people can worry about is how I once *hugged* a sheep".

 

The Bendu stuff reminded me a lot of the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Both the Bendu and Tia Dalma are built up to be relatively deep, interesting characters. Then, in the final battle, their characters drastically change in a way that doesn't make a lot of sense and ends up shoehorning them into the action, when it probably would have been preferable to have seen others fight without them.

I really liked the Bendu, and I was hoping they would do something interesting with him, but I personally felt pretty let down by how it resolved.

 

Wow that Bendu looked like that scene out of the Lion king.

 

I really liked this finale and I cannot wait for the next season to come!

 

Agreed, it's gonna be great.

 

This post has some interesting nuggets in it. I'm kinda all over the place with what I think of Bendu, so this gives me more to consider.

I too have thought that maybe what is going on with Bendu is that we have misunderstood what he was actually saying all along. Instead of giving insight into some newish higher form of gray force usage, he just gave Kanan lessons in how to be apathetic. Being "in the middle" was more "I want to be left alone" than it was "I am in harmonic balance with all things". I kinda thought this after watching the episode, but after seeing Recon, I think even moreso because Filoni mentions that basically Bendu just wants to go back to sleep.

As some have said, if he was truly neutral in nature, he would be less likely to have gotten mad - but then again neutrality doesn't necessarily mean pacifism.

I did like that it was a slight twist on the normal trope of a character who is staying out of it, but finally learns to value in fighting for what's right (Han Solo, etc) and instead went a different way. I also liked that a major character flat out got it wrong when dealing with another character, and it almost cost him.

It would be interesting if they go the route of having Bendu communicate from the beyond, but then again maybe it would be better for Bendu to just be a side story for this season only. I was a little worried he was to become Kanan's Yoda, but it looks like he was just a red herring to greater enlightenment, and was in fact just a old beach bum.

 

I realized I never gave my overall impressions of the season finale as a whole:

I enjoyed this finale, but it lacked the emotional punch of previous seasons. I think that has more to do with the fact that this season seems to have been more mechanical in trying to get us to a specific place within the Rebellion more than with our Rebels crew overall.

Random notes:

• Tarkin - I enjoyed his role in this episode, as slight as it was. It showed that Thrawn is in fact tied into the larger Imperial structure in a way that has been missing so far. It also allowed the writers to have a reason for Thrawn to have to be face to face with the Rebels, beyond just simple mind games.

• Konstantine - Similar to Tarkin, Konstantine's role allows for Thrawn's plans to be softened up a bit, while still keeping Thrawn himself an imposing threat. It doens't matter how good the leader is, there is still room for the other humans involved to get in the way of perfect planning.

• Orbital Bombardment - This was fantastic to see. The concept has been thrown around before, but I enjoyed that they saw this in action.

• Shield Generator - This was one of many of the things brought up in earlier episodes, that played into this finale. As much as others complain about fillers, I love that the writers have many things introduced throughout the season in those "filler" episodes that later play a part toward the season finale. In season One it was the stolen TIE, and there are several other examples throughout the series.

• Sabine and the Mandos to the rescue- I can't put my finger on it, but somehow this didn't work for me. Maybe it was just too soon, but it just came off as contrived - especially the scene with the whole family essentially sitting in their throne room, discussing how they are in the middle of a civil war, but it sure didn't look like anything more than them sitting around in their vacation home. It ust didn't feel like there was enough time for us to say "it was good to see Sabine again"

• Sato and the Phoenix Nest carrier go bye-bye - I liked how they handled the Sato sacrifice, but I am especially glad to see that weird carrier ship destroyed - it never felt Star Wars to me.

• Maul's Ship - I like the subtle continuity of Ezra commandeering Maul's ship as a way to get off of Tatooine - which also allows for the Rebels to have a cool new ship for this episode. I could see this becoming "Ezra's" ship going forward - maybe not all the time, but if he and/or Kanan ever separate from the crew for an extended period, it would make for a nice ship.

• Bendu Ex Machina - As mentioned in the post above, I'm so all over the place on what I think of Bendu in general now that we have seen the entire season, and especially with his role in this episode. My take (I think) on him is that he was never meant to be a new Yoda for Kanan, but to be a red herring. While he does give Kanan some insight along the way, I'm not sure if that was his intent. He's just spouting off his beliefs like a guy on the street corner, and it just happend to help Kanan at one point of the season, but when he later follows up, he realizes that being "in the middle" really just means "it's all about me, so leave me alone"

• Ezra - I am disappointed that there have been no references to Ezra's struggle with the Dark Side since early this season. Nothing in "Twin Suns" and nothing in these episodes. He's mostly just coasted through most the season, and it's odd. There were several conversations Ezra had with others in this episode that, while good, could have somehow referenced his struggles and been so much better.

Again, I think this was an odd season, but I really think that has to do with the writers being in a weird place. I've always assumed that this show would show the building of the Rebellion, and it has, but I think having to juggle Rogue One in with this season and the overlapping timeframes of production got in the way of things a bit. Season 3 is often an off season for shows, and add to that Rogue One coming out during this season, and the hoops I'm sure they had to go through to ensure that story beats aired after the movie came out (Saw Guererra, etc), while also having assets from Rogue One they could use (Death Troopers, etc) to weave into continuity but the crew was hamstrung by them not being fully determined for Rogue One before they had to be finalized for this season.

I'm hoping that with this setback, the Rebellion will 'settle in" on Yavin, and mostly just regroup for Rogue One in the background. This will allow our crew to go off on their own a bit more and let the stories focus on them again. Where this season had the Alliance-to-be in quite a bit of motion, maybe next season they can be more of a grounding element for the Ghost Crew to work from.