Star Wars Rebels: How Does the Force Really Work? (spoilers for everything Star Wars)

[Jaxom 1974]

Somehow, they'e going to connect something from Lothal to the Death Star and get that info to the guy who gets shot by the Other Rebel at the start of Rogue One...

[PetyrPunkinhead]

On 11/7/2017 at 4:44 PM, Corvinus said:

I bet Hera's attack on Lothal is what gets her promoted to general.

And it does seem more and more that Kanan's fate is sealed. Though I have feeling he might remain on Lothal for the rest of the war.

Also, I think because Rukh was introduced, that Thrawn will survive Rebels, survive the Galactic Civil War, and that he will re-appear in the next animated series, where his fate will be similar to Zahn's trilogy.

I hope you're right about Her. It'd be nice to see Hera promoted and referred to as General Sendulla in the actual show and not have it just be a throw away line in Rogue One.

I think you're on to something with Thrawn. Seeing the Zahn stories in animated form would be awesome, but I don't think Disney would go for it.

On 11/7/2017 at 4:52 PM, Myrddin said:

I agree about Kanan. His fate was sealed with that kiss.

Doooooom.

On 11/7/2017 at 9:28 AM, Myrddin said:

I just realized we're almost halfway through the season. They are really flying through the story.

When I saw only Hera and Chopper get on the shuttle, I wondered if that's the last time she sees Kanan and Co, as those two are the only ones mentioned in Rogue One...

As for the last episode, does anyone else see Ezra's choice to not act even worse than using his lightsaber to end the fight?

Good points. I think this very well could be the end of the OG Phoenix Squadron. I kinda wonder if all the Lothal team might die now and not just the jedi.

And we've discussed in this thread before that this show is very odd in how it handles killing. As soon as I saw that contraption I knew that's how the Mining Guild captain would die. I Honestly would've found it more interesting if Ezra had force pushed him in there. But the tripping on the saber gag followed by Ezra's reaction to his death was just weird. They made it a comedic moment. So bizarre. 

[Jaxom 1974]

Damn. Why does this show have to end...?

[Myrddin]

My Google skills have failed me. When does Rebels return?

[Jaxom 1974]

6 hours ago, Myrddin said:

My Google skills have failed me. When does Rebels return?

About 6 weeks ago...

[Corvinus85]

Was there only one episode released last night?

[Myrddin]

1 hour ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

About 6 weeks ago...

I mean the rest of the season. Do they split up seasons usually or run straight through?

This is the first time I've watched it "live" and the list of episodes doesn't have release dates for the remaining episodes.

[PetyrPunkinhead]

20 hours ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

About 6 weeks ago...

They're talking about the return after the mid-season finale, which apparently won't be until January 2018. Makes sense from a marketing perspective to starve fans of Star Wars content to prime them to see Episode VIII a few times in the theaters.

19 hours ago, Corvinus said:

Was there only one episode released last night?

Yep. It was technically the mid-season finale. I just found out myself that S4 is truncated to only 15 episodes.

19 hours ago, Myrddin said:

I mean the rest of the season. Do they split up seasons usually or run straight through?

This is the first time I've watched it "live" and the list of episodes doesn't have release dates for the remaining episodes.

They were very coy in the latest Rebels Recon about when exactly the show will return. Hostess Andi G. said it'll return "in a few weeks." But this article I read says at the very end the show won't return until "early 2018."

 

But as for the episode itself, S4E9 was fantastic! The X-Wing opening alone was worth it, and on top of that we get Gen. Sendulla saying, "Lock S-foils in attack position." Yaaaasss, General!!!

Predictions for the last episodes:

I think they're telegraphing pretty hard to expect Kanan to never leave Lothal alive. Safe bet is he dies while rescuing Hera. Ruhk likely gets injured, but not killed. Gov. Price and Kanan die in the TIE Interceptor factory explosion. Thrawn, Ezra, and the rest of the Ghost crew survive the REBELS series into Dave Filoni's next animated series.

Filoni is precious about his characters, so I don't think we'll see both Kanan and Ezra go. After Rogue One, I was kinda hoping we'd see the whole Ghost crew (save for Chopper & Hera) go out in a blaze of glory. But after seeing how things unfolded this season, and how death is handled in general on the series, I don't think we'll see any major characters besides Kanan die. We didn't see Ahsoka killed by Vader, so there's the whole "Ahsoka lives" thing still going on. (Still not 100% convinced she isn't connected to the loth wolf.) Maul survived way longer than anyone expected. (Maul got a great final episode though.) So two major character deaths in three seasons doesn't really point to a Red Wedding style death toll for REBELS S4.

[Jaxom 1974]

Ah. I missed that that was a midseason finale.  Sorry.

But it was a pretty awesome episode.  I know some have commented on the change in approach with lightsabers and what Ezra and Kanan are doing with them, but despite that, the last couple episodes have really amped the stakes and drama for this show.

Would that we'd seen Hera get the promotion...

[Corvinus85]

2 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Would that we'd seen Hera get the promotion...

Agreed. We also never got an X-wing oriented episode, like we got the one when they stole those Y-wing bombers. We kept seeing A-wings, and suddenly, look X-wings!

[HokieStone]

So, I was able to finally catch up on the season.  Lots of positive reviews here...it seems I might be in the minority in seeing some negative things.  I was baffled by the whole thing with the Loth-wolf transporting them to the other side of the planet.  Not by the transporting itself (although that seems a little outside the realm of what we're used to with the Force...but ok) - but they appear in some sort of ancient dwelling on the other side of the planet - and Sabine is able to cobble together some sort of transmitter.  From what?  And then they hop in a speeder of some sort to ride out to the mining ship - where did that speeder come from? 

Then there's Hera's attack - about 15 or so X-Wings against what...a dozen or more Star Destroyers?  Each of which holds hundreds of TIE fighters.  There's stretching credulity...and then there's completely breaking it.  Although, they did have her lose in the end...but it didn't seem like some elaborate trap by Thrawn - he expressed disappointment that they were able to break through the initial blockade.

Introducing X-Wings was a great scene...but it just reinforces something that's bothered me about the whole series.  They've been flying A-Wings for a while, and they even had that episode where Hera smuggled out the B-Wing prototype.  I was always of the impression that A-Wings and B-Wings were developed sometime between A New Hope and Return of the Jedi.  Oh...and another nitpick about the X-Wings...I don't think they can fire when the wings are closed!

Last complaint for the night...Chopper and his rocket engine - he's essentially a levitating droid at this point.  That thing puts out a lot flame, but he just lights it up no matter where he is to just float around. 

 

Bah...get off my lawn, Rebels!

[Corvinus85]

41 minutes ago, HokieStone said:

So, I was able to finally catch up on the season.  Lots of positive reviews here...it seems I might be in the minority in seeing some negative things.  I was baffled by the whole thing with the Loth-wolf transporting them to the other side of the planet.  Not by the transporting itself (although that seems a little outside the realm of what we're used to with the Force...but ok) - but they appear in some sort of ancient dwelling on the other side of the planet - and Sabine is able to cobble together some sort of transmitter.  From what?  And then they hop in a speeder of some sort to ride out to the mining ship - where did that speeder come from? 

Then there's Hera's attack - about 15 or so X-Wings against what...a dozen or more Star Destroyers?  Each of which holds hundreds of TIE fighters.  There's stretching credulity...and then there's completely breaking it.  Although, they did have her lose in the end...but it didn't seem like some elaborate trap by Thrawn - he expressed disappointment that they were able to break through the initial blockade.

Introducing X-Wings was a great scene...but it just reinforces something that's bothered me about the whole series.  They've been flying A-Wings for a while, and they even had that episode where Hera smuggled out the B-Wing prototype.  I was always of the impression that A-Wings and B-Wings were developed sometime between A New Hope and Return of the Jedi.  Oh...and another nitpick about the X-Wings...I don't think they can fire when the wings are closed!

Last complaint for the night...Chopper and his rocket engine - he's essentially a levitating droid at this point.  That thing puts out a lot flame, but he just lights it up no matter where he is to just float around. 

 

Bah...get off my lawn, Rebels!

Do you remember when fast rotating lightsabers could make someone fly? Yeah, all these you mentioned are trifles.

[RumHam]

55 minutes ago, HokieStone said:

Oh...and another nitpick about the X-Wings...I don't think they can fire when the wings are closed!

Yeah I don't think they can. I know they can't in the video games. I think there's a line like "assuming attack formation" just before they open the foils in one of the movies? but that could have been from one of the games also. 

[felice]

1 hour ago, HokieStone said:

I was baffled by the whole thing with the Loth-wolf transporting them to the other side of the planet.  Not by the transporting itself (although that seems a little outside the realm of what we're used to with the Force...but ok) - but they appear in some sort of ancient dwelling on the other side of the planet - and Sabine is able to cobble together some sort of transmitter.  From what?  And then they hop in a speeder of some sort to ride out to the mining ship - where did that speeder come from? 

The cave paintings were presumably ancient, but that doesn't mean nobody's been there since they were made. The awnings out front look recent if not high-tech, and it's not exactly a carefully hidden location. Maybe it's been visited by lots of archaeologists or tourists, or maybe people actually live there (or did before the Empire showed up). The transporting doesn't seem out of keeping with some of the stranger Force stuff we've seen in the animated shows previously, though I agree it would seem out of place in the movies.

1 hour ago, HokieStone said:

Then there's Hera's attack - about 15 or so X-Wings against what...a dozen or more Star Destroyers?  Each of which holds hundreds of TIE fighters.  There's stretching credulity...and then there's completely breaking it.

Yes, that was pushing it a bit far, though it was cool.

1 hour ago, HokieStone said:

I was always of the impression that A-Wings and B-Wings were developed sometime between A New Hope and Return of the Jedi.  Oh...and another nitpick about the X-Wings...I don't think they can fire when the wings are closed!

All that's news to me, and not being able to fire with wings close would be a really dumb design decision. Different cells use different fighters, and they all come together in RotJ. Though it is likely that mass-produced B-Wings aren't ready until after A New Hope.

On 15/11/2017 at 11:28 PM, PetyrPunkinhead said:

After Rogue One, I was kinda hoping we'd see the whole Ghost crew (save for Chopper & Hera) go out in a blaze of glory. But after seeing how things unfolded this season, and how death is handled in general on the series, I don't think we'll see any major characters besides Kanan die.

I don't know... they're stuck on on Lothal without the Ghost (which was left in Rex's hands), Chopper's antenna no longer matches that of the C1-series droid we see on Yavin in Rogue One, and there's already a General Syndulla around while Hera doesn't have that rank. It seems very unlikely that Disney would be willing to go for a TPK in a cartoon, but it does kind of feel like they're setting that up.

[HokieStone]

8 hours ago, Corvinus said:

Do you remember when fast rotating lightsabers could make someone fly? Yeah, all these you mentioned are trifles.

Hahah...I'd actually forgotten about that one.  Yeah...that was pretty dumb.

[Myrddin]

11 hours ago, HokieStone said:

Then there's Hera's attack - about 15 or so X-Wings against what...a dozen or more Star Destroyers?  Each of which holds hundreds of TIE fighters.  There's stretching credulity...and then there's completely breaking it. 

 

To be fair, they attacked the Death Star with not that many more ships.

[Yukle]

How to annoy Star Wars fans:

Midichlorians.

 

My work here is done.

[GallowKnight]

I'm not sure why, but I'm really not feeling this season of Rebels.

[HokieStone]

On 11/17/2017 at 9:42 AM, Myrddin said:

To be fair, they attacked the Death Star with not that many more ships.

True...but at least they gave a bit of a justification on that - and I imagine were playing to Tarkin's overconfidence.  Thrawn is supposed to be Mr. Tactical Genius.  I'm happy that Thrawn did at least win the battle.

[PetyrPunkinhead]

On 11/17/2017 at 0:24 AM, felice said:

...I don't know... they're stuck on on Lothal without the Ghost (which was left in Rex's hands), Chopper's antenna no longer matches that of the C1-series droid we see on Yavin in Rogue One, and there's already a General Syndulla around while Hera doesn't have that rank. It seems very unlikely that Disney would be willing to go for a TPK in a cartoon, but it does kind of feel like they're setting that up.

Au contraire mon frère! Hera does indeed have the rank of general now in the show! I'm not sure if I missed or forgot her official promotion, but in S4E9 Mart clearly calls Hera "General" after she rescues him from the stormtroopers at the site of his crashed X-Wing. It's around the 13:10min mark in the episode. (I know because I just rewatched to make sure before I posted this.)

And I don't any longer believe we're going to see the whole Ghost crew go out in Rebels like in R1. (Had to google "TPK" BTW. I'm obviously not a gamer.) Hera and Chopper obviously make it outta the series, but as I said in a previous post, I now think it'll likely just be Kanan that gets murked in S4 and the rest of the crew will escape Lothol.

On 11/18/2017 at 2:37 AM, Yukle said:

How to annoy Star Wars fans:

Midichlorians.

 

My work here is done.

Damn your eyes!

*shakes fist angrily*

On 11/18/2017 at 6:54 AM, GallowKnight said:

I'm not sure why, but I'm really not feeling this season of Rebels.

I can support you on the first two episodes, but ever since then it's been all systems go for me. And if that last episode (S4E9) didn't get your fanboy engine in gear then I don't know what will. I think I've watched that episode three times already. (Those S-foils, yo!)

However, I do see how knowing this is the last season there doesn't seem to be quite as much urgency as there should be, but again, things definitely went into high gear with the latest episode. And I'm betting that sense of urgency will be maintained and all come to a head in these last six episodes.