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

I enjoyed the finale too.

Spoiler

After Thrawn brought him on the ship to attack the rebel base, I knew Kallus was going to survive. The involvement of the Bendu was interesting too. It seems to suggest (to me at least) that there is no middle in the conflict between the good and evil. I am sorry that Sato died, but someone had to. Otherwise it would not have been a loss to the Rebellion. However, we are getting awfully close to Rogue One and I think that Season 4 will therefore be the last one.

 

Spoiler

I enjoyed it. It doesn't come close to episodes like Twilight of the Apprentice, but it's definitely a worthy conclusion to the season.

The battle sequences were done really well, it felt like a big and important confrontation. I liked that the rebels lost a lot of troopers and ships. That gave the episode an emotional impact. Sato's sacrifice was the highlight.
The Kallus storyline was very compelling, I'm happy he made it out alive. He has really grown on me.
What they did with the Bendu was interesting. It's someting we haven't seen before.

I'm a little bummed that the Death Troopers were given nothing interesting to do. They didn't even "talk". They were written like regular Stormtroopers and unfortunately felt shoehorned in.

 

A really awesome episode, incredible 40+ mins of action.

 

Sadly lacked any emotional resonance. The pieces on the board moved, but in the end nothing really changed outside of perhaps

Spoiler: Spoiler

Phoenix squadron merging into the main Rebel fleet at the end. Also Konstantine's decision to go against Thrawn's orders due to glory made little sense as there was very little hint he was feeling jealous of Thrawn all season.

And lastly: It is WAY TOO EASY to bring down the ships in either fleet.

 

Spoiler: Spoiler

I AM THE BENDU! I BRING DEATH!

 

I was hoping Bendu would complete Kanan's training, but that seems unlikely now.

 

Yes. It's like none of them had any shields at all. Kinda weird.

I did appreciate the the inclusion of the concept of using multiple hyperspace jumps to cover your tracks. This is used several times in "Legends" novels.

 

That was a brilliant episode made in a way that somewhat recognises that some S4 news is just around the corner at Celebration. Honestly, though I know it's a two-part episode, I think it could have been paced better if extended to an hour in length, as I feel the last 15/20 minutes was perhaps a bit faster than the rest of the finale, and that is my only - albeit minor - complaint about this episode; the last three episodes of S3 have knocked it out of the park, in my opinion, on a level of animation and storytelling that we haven't witnessed in the animated space of SW since some of the later seasons of TCW.

Not so much a spoiler (but someone please point it out to me if it should be considered as such), but Kanan and Ezra's discussion at the start of Pt1 drew heavy parallels to Anakin and Obi-Wan's discussion in ROTS before Kenobi leaves for Utapau (both masters conceding to their pupil that they feel there is nothing left that they can teach them, and Ezra's answer to Kanan was a great moment for his character development).

 

i haven't been overly thrilled with how little thrawn has done this season, but this episode at least made me extremely happy. mainly because this, for the most part, was the thrawn i've been waiting for. completely in control and executing a battle plan like an exquisite dance. my only question is him leading the ground assault personally as the old thrawn would never do such a thing. but anyway, the action was top notch and thrilling. i hope that they can continue this pace into next season now that the galactic civil war is truly on.

 

Put a smile on many faces, no doubt. Finally brings those fans up to speed who were in denial about their relationship with one another and hadn't yet read A New Dawn

 

Yeah, I caught that too.

The more I think about it, the more I think being on Disney XD really inhibited some of the storytelling elements that the episode needed. I didn't hate the episode, it just felt lacking.

--- Double Post Merged, Mar 25, 2017, Original Post Date: Mar 25, 2017 ---

The only thing I can think is that a huge space battle was condensed into about 5 minutes, so its not happening in real time.

 

Because there will be a fourth season of Rebels, Thrawn could not have a complete win (destroying the Rebellion in its entirety). However, he must be seen as the most formidable foe of the Rebels. Failure therefore has to be blamed on others that either go against Thrawn's orders (Constantine) or have to make decisions while Thrawn is somewhere else (Price). Having Thrawn on the planet allows the Rebels to escape and the Bendu to predict Thrawn's demise.

 

He started to remind me of the force creatures from Mortis. They could take animal forms.

It would be great if Kanan was right and the Bendu was a coward and he had been holding on to his body instead of becoming one with the force like all the other Bendu. In next season he starts talking to Kanan thanks him and starts teaching him.

 

I think overall this season has been a bit of a failure. After the weak departure of Maul last week, I feel we have had too many repeat battles
and close escape episodes, with lots of filler in between. Overall, with the exception of Sabine, the main characters have not really progressed a
great deal.

Spoiler

On the forum yesterday I predicted Sato, Yavin 4 and Kallus going to the Rebellion. I am a bit disappointed that there were no real surprises and that's what we got. We all knew what was coming with Kallus. Sato isn't, in my opinion, developed anywhere near enough to the extent that I am going to care about his death, same for Konstantine.

The Bendu going? What a waste. He's barely done anything....albeit I don't think he is dead.

Plus, I thought the Rebels were supposed to suffer a major defeat? Granted they lose a few ships and had to move to another base, but all the main rebels once again escaped and they really didn't lose that much in terms of ships and strength. So it wasn't really a major Thrawn victory. It was more like a barely won battle. Plus, to be blunt, how many episodes this year have been space battles with Imperials? Every other episode seems to have one, which usually takes up most of an episode, so it's becoming old hat.

Shame. A lot of this season seems a wasted opportunity to me. Last year's finale was such a ride and set up so much that this episode, and indeed the whole season, just feels like an anti-climax and therefore is frankly a disappointment. Given the claim the other day that the fourth season is the last, hopefully they're saving the big stuff for next year and we get no more filler or repetitious content.

But then, as I always say, if the kids like it, that probably matters more than my opinion.

--- Double Post Merged, Mar 26, 2017, Original Post Date: Mar 26, 2017 ---

It was a sweet moment, and having not read the books it was probably the biggest surprise of the episode for me.