What They Say:
Rise of the Old Masters – The Rebels undergo a daring rescue mission, only to find themselves facing a powerful foe.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
While I’m enjoying Star Wars Rebels overall, it’s easy to be a little wary of it even as it does do a lot of things right. There’s the easy aspect of going to the well with familiar cues and the like from sayings to events, but also the problem in that you do kind of expect something bigger and more interesting to be told, even this early on in the show. The Clone Wars series did its standalone stuff to be sure, but it was set against a much larger context of a war to work with. Here, with the very early stages of a rebellion, it’s naturally more unfocused. Thankfully, this episode starts off with a little Jedi material as we see Kanan training Ezra in a familiar but more comical way. Kanan certainly isn’t Obi-wan, that’s for sure.
One of the things we’ve seen over the years is tha tnot all Jedi are cut out to be teachers and Kanan certainly has that feeling. Part of the problem of course is one where Ezra is older than most trainees used to be and he’s got a lot of issues. There’s some good stuff that we get with this and some of what’s causing the rift between Ezra and Kanan. What helps to set things in motion in a more interesting way though is when a pirate transmission in the news hits and they learn that another Jedi master has been discovered alive and is now in the custody of the Empire. She’s being kept in the Stygeon prison in the system there that’s heavily defended by a lot of what the Empire has there. Kanan’s obviously intent on getting her out since she’s a really high level established Jedi, and one that could provide the kind of teaching that Ezra needs. Ezra doesn’t take too kindly to the idea of being pawned off on Luminara though, especially as they’re all slowly becoming a family of sorts.
The incursion into the prison has a good mix of humor, action and stress along the way, especially as Kana is losing his cool a bit and Ezra is doing his best to follow Kanan’s lead in general, which in turn gets him into more trouble. Hera has problems of her own in the shuttle though, which isn’t exactly Mynocks but you can get a similar feeling as she has to deal with large, local creatures causing a lot of problems with trying to mate with the ship. While there’s some fun stuff with this, it takes a darker turn as it progresses into an area we’ve needed. When they do find Luminara, she’s not exactly “right” in a way and we see that she’s actually dead inside carbonite, hence why Kanan was unable to really sense her in full but could feel her bones and presence in that.
But what’s worse is that we finally get to see the Inquisitor, as he’s made his appearance here having thought that someone might try and rescue her. He brings a good bit of action to the episode and seeing him going up against Kanan and Ezra shows the two of them working well together. But the Inquisitor is intriguing as he knows a whole lot about the Jedi and uses it to tweak Kanan in some pretty neat ways while also trying to tempt Ezra to the dark side, pointing that as the only real path open to him other than death. The Inquisitor brings a pretty good weapon to the game, familiar but fresh in its own way, and he also has some sharp words that has you re-evaluating Kanan as well with just what kind of Jedi he is. It’s a strong piece of action, even if we do get the Inquisitor doing a lot of walking rather than running while chasing the team, but it all comes together well that uses parts of both the original trilogy and the prequels in a surprisingly fun way.
In Summary:
I’ve enjoyed what we’ve gotten so far from Star Wars Rebels, but this episode is where it feels like some things are starting to click better. We’re still not getting a big picture storyline yet, and I’m not too surprised for a first season, but I’ll admit I was hoping for better and strong story threads from the get go. This episode does some good stuff with the Kanan and Ezra relationship that helps to put them on the right path and establishes things well for them. The rest of the team certainly have their moments and I like what they did in bringing another Jedi into things for a bit with Luminara. The Inquisitor material is definitely the strongest part of it overall though and that really hit all the right spots for the action, the creepy factor and the kind of back story to be told that could make him a strong villain in the long term. I’m not really wary with the series as a whole, having loved what Clone Wars became, but I’ll admit I’m in a bit of that whole “hurry it up” mode to getting to some of the stronger pieces.
Grade: B+
