Star Wars Rebels - Spark of Rebellion [Review]

Finally: New Star Wars material.
This is one of the first BIG things to come from Disney and Lucasfilm since the acquistion! The new animated series started it's run with a 45 minutes pilot that introduced the world to a new batch of Star Wars heroes. And it delivered!

Before I start, I have to admit that I wasn't too interested in Rebels at first. Obviously, the setting between the prequel and original trilogies is super-interesting and hasn't been covered by too many books and comics yet. Since the new storygroup decided that everything we used to know no longer was canon, the creative freedom in this era is endless.
However, I was more interested in the development of Episode VII, so I was relatively spoiler-free when I started to watch the pilot.

First of all: The animations are so much better than it's predecessor The Clone Wars. The faces look more alive, the locations look like actual paintings from Ralph McQuarrie and the characters' movements are much more credible than in The Clone Wars.

The score was a huge fan-service and subconciously brought back the feelings we all had as little kids growing up with the original trilogy. Most of the tracks were taken almost 1:1 out of John William's repertoir. However, the music fit perfectly throughout the episode and didn't distract from what was happening on screen.

The characters are the biggest win of this new series. As a pen and paper RPG-player myself, I couldn't help but notice, that the crew of the Ghost is just like the fictional crews we played throughout our various campaigns. Every single one of them is loveable, memorable and interesting (with one exception). Kanan (voiced by Freddie Prinze Jr.) is one of those Jedi you would trust instantly and he looks kind of hot, too! Hera is the heart and soul of the ship, Sabine is the cunning warrior-chick with a soft spot and Zeb is the muscles of the team.
The only exception for me was Ezra. I didn't like him. He reminded me of Aladdin and his tendency of winning every situation and being the most clever child ever annoyed me a bit. Sure, it's a children's show and kids will probably be able to identify with him more, but I just couldn't stop thinking about the Mary-Sue effect.
In contrary to that, the antagonist, Imperial Agent Kallus was a blast! Lawful evil, perfect voice, kind of bad-boy-DILF-sexy, he was the perfect villain for the episode. Something about him gave me the impression that he won't stay on the Empire's side forever...

Last but not least, let's talk about the story: Ezra meets the crew, the Empire is established as being evil and mean and we find out that Kanan is a fugitive Jedi and Ezra a potential Padawan.
The producers played it safe with this basic, simple introduction to the new characters, that was delightfully entertaining and easy to follow troughout.

In conclusion: except for the main protagonist, this pilot was quite promising and it's no wonder that Rebels was already renewed for a second season. Keep it up!

Star Wars The Clone Wars Bonus Episodes 5-7 [Review]

This weekend, German television Channel "Super RTL" once again aired a missing story arc from the bonus episodes of Season 6 from The Clone Wars. This time the story centers around Senator Amidala, Anakin Skywalker and old frienemy Rush Clovis.

I really enjoyed the first one of the missing story-arcs, which was mainly about "Order 66". This one here focused once again on intergalactic politics, jealousy and scheming and was also quite impressive, however far from perfect.

The story was much quicker, left only little time for relaxed, fun moments, even though the action was quite impressive in this arc. Like last time I won't recount the story completely, rather than picking out highlights that I really enjoyed and things (if there are any) that I didn't like at all.

First of all, I loved the setting. Scipio is amazingly well-designed and the Banking-Clan buildings looked very cool and smoothly integrated into the planet's snowy mountains. In addition to that I really loved their means of transportation which highly reminded me of a mix between Jabba's Skiffs from Return of the Jedi and Santa's sleigh.
The bounty hunter the protagonists have to run from in the beginning is really cool and the downhill-chase is just thrillingly fun to watch - reminded me of a more mature version of the one in Ice Age ;-)
And then comes the dull part. Anakin and Amidala get in the middle of a big scheme: Palpatine/Sidious longs for power over the intergalactic banks and tries to use Clovis to achieve his goal.
Amidala gets entangled in the whole plot and makes Anakin jealous, since she gets quite close to Clovis in the process.

Don't get me wrong, I really liked the idea of seeing a jealous Jedi again, since that's the main reason why love is not allowed in this order, but for a 20-something-minutes TV episode it was a lot to swallow in terms of character development.
Best part about the the whole subplot is when Obi-Wan reminds his former Padawan about his blundering with Dutchess Satine and why it is so important for a Jedi to not give in to his feelings. Loved it.

Of course the whole situation gets solved and all we have is yet another really enjoyable Clone Wars Adventure (even though neither clones nor war is overly present in this one, which is fine by me).

I really do not miss Ahsoka so far and the quality of these stories is way higher than our average The Clone Wars episode. Now I totally understand why they didn't throw these stories away but wanted to show the audience what great plans they had for season 6.

I definitely enjoyed these three episodes, much more than the single Jar-Jar Episode they aired after that...

Star Wars The Clone Wars Bonus Episodes 1-4[Review]

Thank god for German television.
I never thought that we were going to get the new The Clone Wars bonus content before the U.S., but I guess I was wrong.
German TV-Channel "Super RTL" showed the first 4 episodes in a row and picked out the long awaited "Order 66"-arc for the "season"-premiere. So here's what I think about these 4 episodes...

Before I start, big "thank you" to the guys from Lucasfilm Animation who made this possible. It is not very common for a cancelled show to release new content after its cancellation (and I really enjoyed the end of season 5 when Ahsoka walks away from the Jedi Order), so the fact, that we have a whole set of new episodes is really awesome!

The first 4 of the new episodes were broadcast exclusivly at German TV Station "Super RTL", aiming for a younger audience. However they made the content available online after it aired so with a VPN even people not living in Germany (like me) got the chance to experience this chapter of this galaxy far, far away.

The plot was centered around clone-trooper Fives and his pal Tup, who was seemingly infected by a virus, making him murder one of the (previously unseen) Jedi generals (picture above) during a fight against the droid army.
After evil leader Count Dooku finds out about this betrayal he commands his troops to capture the seemingly sick clone and bring him before him, but Anakin Skywalker and Fives manage to free and safely return him to Kamino where further examination is being done.

However Fives - with the help of a very entertaining medical Droid AZ-3 - finds out, that the Kaminoans are planning to kill his friend in order to protect the secret of the built-in bio-chips every clone has in his brain. These chips  - of course - let the clones execute Order 66 (that's why the Clones start shooting at their Jedi friends in Episode III).

During the climax of the story-arc, Fives - unable to safe his friend, but equipped with the devastating truth - is hunted through the streets of Coruscant after being conned by Chancellor Palpatine aka Darth Sidious himself. The tragic ending makes sure, that the Jedi still have no clue about what's really going on...

The episodes were very entertaining and didn't feel like 4 single episodes, but like a solid, dark, interesting Star Wars movie.
The animations were even better than ever and the cast did an enourmosly good job. Especially the character of Fives (who we've met before during the regular run of the show) was incredibly deep and you would regularly forget that he's "just" a clone.
These 4 episodes also make a perfect lead-in to the final installment of the prequel trilogy, Revenge of the Sith, since Order 66 is explained and the Republic, as well as the Kaminoans are portrayed in a more shady and secretive way - slightly detached from the formerly all-powerful Jedi Order.

However, the episodes also have their downsides. Sometimes it seems like Fives is too strong and intelligent compared to the quickly-defeated clones and easily-tricked Kaminoans. Another thing that I didn't enjoy was the space station that surrounded a whole planet like a huge ring. They could have used it as a much more integral part of the plot, however it's like any other spacestation or starship - a mere stage to an exhaustingly repetetive fighting scene.
On the other hand the scenes, in which Anakin and the clones travel through the vacuum of space are intriguing and the death toll of Tup's kidnapping and rescue is quite high. The whole mission to rescue Tup positively reminded me of the scavenging done by the Crew from Firefly.

In conclusion, the good parts of the arc predominate the few weaker aspects and all you get is a great, actionpacked mini-movie worthy of its brand-name.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the rest of the bonus episodes.