Enter the princess!
What They Say:
A Princess on Lothal – An aide to Bail Organa is sent to Lothal with ships for the rebel fleet, but an Imperial lockdown forces the rebels to come up with a new plan to steal the vehicles.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Star Wars Rebels returns from its holiday break and it comes with a couple of things in play. First, a whole lot of us got to see The Force Awakens and are ready to immerse ourselves into this world more now. Hopefully we’ll get a few more viewers for the show. The other is that we got a strong trailer for the upcoming episodes recently that really showcases a lot of neat things coming our way. Naturally, you know that it’s a high impact sizzle reel and we’re likely to still have a good bit of quiet material as well. I’m enjoying the show still but it really needs to start feeling more impactful and meaningful. And it really needs to utilize more of the main cast.
This episode gives us the one-off appearance this season of Princess Leia as she’s sent to Lothal by Bail to bring three transports to help the rebels there after some of their recent losses. She’s a few years younger than we saw her in the movie, by five years if the timeline is as talked about, so they capture that fairly well both in look and personality as she makes her way through the Imperial presence protecting the now off-limits system of Lothal. What her arrival provides is something to give Ezra a little focus as he’s really grappling with what he’s learned about his parents previously. Since both he and Kanan are pretty well known, they get to do the whole Stormtrooper disguise thing again. And that makes for some real fun when Leia keeps putting them in their place in her own way all while dealing with the roadblocks the Imperials keep throwing up against them.
The show does give us a good if mildly convoluted action sequence that brings Kanan, Ezra and Leia along with Ryder onto the Ghost amid an Imperial crackdown. While the action is fun and well executed, what I like is what we get afterward is Leia seeing the nature of this family-crew comforting Ezra as they find out how he’s handling things about his parents. It’s a more accessible outsiders view of what’s going since we know a lot about Leia down the line. Interestingly, Kanan nudges her to talk to him about things with what one must do to right the wrongs of the galaxy since they both struggle with responsibility and their respective ages. It’s a little hard to put Ezra at the same age level, but it does work for the most part and it’s a good reminder of Ezra’s own potential as well.
With that as a solid emotional interlude, the focus in the final act on securing the transports that have been locked down – and getting Ryder offworld – provides for the engaging third act. It’s a good moment for Leia to show her style of leadership even among this fairly tight knit family, and for that group as a whole to show how they can handle themselves and work with those outside of said group. With it utilizing not just the usual ships but the transports and some AT-AT’s as well, it has a fun and well executed feeling about it. It does go a little smoother in some ways than it should and not so smooth in others, but with the variety in cast and ships that’s employed we get to shift things around in a good way. Particularly since they manage to impress Leia along the way.
In Summary:
The season gets back underway and it works out pretty well for what it wants to accomplish. A good bit of the goal here is just to get everyone back on track with the larger mission while not making it all about Ezra. Which is good because there’s only so much angst I want for a show that’s as short as this. With Leia, I wasn’t exactly concerned about it but I wasn’t expecting all that much from it. It’s handled pretty well overall as I like the way we get a lot of her personality and style but not in the way we know her from the original trilogy or the new trilogy. It’s all the starting point material and it’s captured just right, within the framework and context of how this show is put together. I certainly won’t mind seeing her in the show again, but it’s something that should not be regular by any means.
Grade: B+
