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Characters and Imperial Ineptitude

Discussion in 'Star Wars: Rebels' started by Embo and His Pet Anooba, May 15, 2021.

  1. Embo and His Pet Anooba

    Embo and His Pet Anooba Jedi Commander

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    I was thinking to myself why I like TCW more than Rebels. It's two things that put Rebels under for me, that being the characters and the imperials. I'll probably write about imperials in another post, but first about the characters. All the main jedi in TCW are fleshed out, obviously. Aside from Rex(and Hunter and Omega but they're not in TCW really), the other clones don't get major character moments aside from Fives and to a lesser extent, Echo. However, we got to see them throughout the war, and their reactions to everything. We also got to know their personalities, quirk and traits, and all clones did get some good time in the Umbara arc, especially in the scene where they realize they are fighting each other, take of their helmets, and then we pan out to about all the named clones in the series standing in a line, each with their distinctive markings and features. I guess maybe I would have liked that in Rebels, maybe to know more about some of the other rebel guys.
    Now to the characters of Rebels. Kanan and Hera are amazing, and I wish the show was just them and Chopper. Chopper is a comic relief droid, and he has his personality. The other three, being Zeb, Ezra and Sabine, are the ones I have problems with. From least hated to most hated:

    Sabine: When I first saw Sabine is seasons 1 and 2 of Rebels, I was sort of disappointed with her writing. She was only an action figure in 1 and 2. While only being 16, she had cool armor, was an expert artist, demolitionist, inventor, mechanic, pilot, hand to hand combatant, and she could use guns too. The only character trait I could think of in those seasons was feisty, I guess. Then in S3 in one of my favorite episodes, Trials of the Darksaber, we get some good development out of her. I liked how it was simple and resolved quickly, and was feasible, from what her previous character had been, who was just running away from the past. But, then she never got any more development. The arc in S4 was more about Mandalore than her. Still, unlike our next two entries, I do not find her annoying, and while simple, her story had a good conclusion. She hid her turmoil with her past, and held it in until Darksaber, in which she stopped running. Then, she reconciled with her family and entrusted Mandalore to Bo-Katan. It works, but I expected more from the writers.

    EZRAAA: My dislike for Ezra is well known. In S1 and S2, he is quite shifty. Sometimes, he will go all out wanting to help people from Imperial mistreatment, but other times, in similar situations, he chickens out, and protests. He acts quite like the plot needs him to. Again like Sabine, in S1 and S2 he has very little development. The one arc in S1 about his parents, while not enjoyed by me, was appreciated. However, he has no other development. Most of the time he just runs away, and his main thing is training with Kanan and Ahsoka, and learning Jedi-helpful lessons from Rex. But they aren't character driven lessons. What happens every episode is that Ezra will either be training with a lightsaber or the force. Ezra fails horribly, Kanan yells at him, and Ezra gives up. Then, Kanan talks with Hera or Ahsoka who tell him to be patient, and he goes back and teaches Ezra a jedi skill. The thing is, Ezra doesn't learn anything here, only Kanan does. Then in S3, my favorite Ezra moment, when he turns emo and generally murderous. I love this version of Ezra, because this is the logical progression of Ezra as a jedi, since Street Orphan Ezra is shifty, impulsive, and impatient. Emo Ezra is arrogant, expressive and trigger happy. And at the end of the arc, we get a good character moment with Kanan and Ezra. While I was disappointed as I wanted insane Emo Ezra to last longer, having him exist was a pleasant surprise. After this, he just goes back to normal Ezra, except less cowardly and more confident, until Dume, and then he turns into wise Ezra until the end of the series. Going on a tangent, I hate how every jedi we see starts off impulsive and eventually becomes very calm and wise. The only jedi that was different was katooni, from the youngling arc. She starts out calm and patient, but is overthinking and preparing, which I thought was an interesting development. And tying this to Ezra, every jedi who ends up all wise learns to be this way, from Ahsoka losing her squadron, to luke in cloud city, to anakin getting his legs chopped off(vader was more patient). However, Ezra doesn't have a logical progression to this point. All his jedi development in S1 and S2 wasn't his, it was Kanan's, and the one in S3 was just about the dark side, not being arrogant and murderous, and to trust Kanan. He shouldn't just become a jedi master overnight. The only way that makes sense is that after Kanan's death, he decides to honor his master and become like him, but that just seems lazy to me, and Ezra never learns.

    Zeb: I don't know why Zeb exists. He's just a tough guy character, he is based off Chewbacca, his species are less developed Wookies, and personally I find him annoying. But the worst is that he has no development throughout the entire show. He has the one episode with Kallus, but this just gives character to his people, that they are honorable, as he has no character of his own. The only other significant episode with him just elaborates more on his dumb Chiktabba species. And unlike Chewie, he has no on to play off of. He has no relationship with anyone besides from a limited one with Kallus which is not explored much, and that he is annoyed with Ezra and Chopper. I would have just replaced him with Rex from the start.

    Anyway, what happens is that we have three characters that have very little character moments, so they all become comic relief characters, steal from Kanan and Hera time, and tonally screw up the show, creating why people always say Rebels is childish. Additionally since there are many filler episodes because of this, the filler episodes are almost always the same, they make a plan to either steal weapons, generators, or information, the plan fails, they improvise and get the things, but there is no development.

    The other reasons that people label this show as childish when it really isn't any more childish than clone wars is imperials being stupid. And that I will cover in my next ted talk because I want to take a nap.
     
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  2. The Hero With No Fear

    The Hero With No Fear Resident Sand Hater

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    I hard disagree on most of these. While I like The Clone Wars more overall, I think Rebels is more consistent in quality and I’m more invested in the characters. Of all the Star Wars shows so far, live-action and animated, I think Rebels has done the best job handling its cast of characters.

    We agree Hera, Kanan and Chopper are great so I want to talk about the rest of the Ghost crew specifically.
    • Sabine: She sorta starts off as your stereotypical badass warrior girl but throughout the first two seasons, we get dropped hints about her backstory via us learning about her trust issues with Hera and her past with Ketsu Onya. By Seasons 3 and 4, we learn what happened with her family and her time at the Imperial Academy and we see her grow past her trauma and make amends for her mistakes. The episode where she trains with the darksaber is legitimately my favorite episode of the show outside of Twilight of the Apprentice. I also think her affinity for art was a cool, unique trait to give her, especially compared to other Mandalorians who seek to conquer, not create.
    • Ezra: He can be a bit grating at times, particularly in Season 3 when they drop his flirtation with the dark side, but he has a great arc in the show. He starts off selfish and jaded from being alone as a street orphan but finding the Ghost Crew gave him a family and were able to teach him to be a better person. He’s not as wise or powerful as Luke or Ahsoka, but he grows so much as a person over the course of the series. There’s even a moment in Season 3 where he says that that was more important than any Jedi training he received from Kanan. And that’s the real-world parallel to becoming a Jedi; growing and becoming a more compassionate, selfless person. He’s young and has had a rough past, so it’s natural that he’s impulsive and makes stupid decisions at times, but he also does everything with the altruistic goal of stopping the Empire from hurting or oppressing others. His heroism is what lets him amass a group of freedom fighters to save his home world. The Ezra we met in Season One never would have made the ultimate sacrifice he did at the end of Season Four, but over the course of the series, he learns how to be a true Jedi and sacrifice himself. As excited as I am to see where his and Thrawn’s stories go, part of me honestly wishes that he did truly die when doing the hyperspace jump to make it even more poignant.
    • Zeb: He’s a fairly static character I’ll grant you but he did get some chances to shine. The episode with Kallus that you mentioned is another one of my series favorites and there’s an earlier one where he finds some of his kind and puts his trust into faith to find Lira San. He’s not a great character but his bromance with Kallus and his older brother dynamic with Ezra and Sabine are fantastic.
    The Imperials can be pretty incompetent in this series but I think they’re about on par with the battle droids from The Clone Wars, who are also treated as comic relief. And honestly, I think that the stormtroopers were more of a joke in Mandalorian but it still didn’t even bother me that much.

    So yeah, I’m a bit of a Rebels fan. ;)

    (ezra)(sabine)(kanan)(hera)(zeb)(chopper)
     
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  3. Jedi Knight Fett

    Jedi Knight Fett Jedi General

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    The imperials are inept in everything except when the plot demands it. They are the bad guys. Most of the time the hero’s will win
     
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