Chris Cooper reviews the eleventh and twelfth episodes of Star Wars Rebels season 3…
Hopefully you all had a good New Year and have seen Rogue One. I’ll be touching on some details from it so if you’re dead against even small spoilers (none are story related) then this is your warning.
The trailer for the back end of Season 3 was staggering. If it was possible to actually blow someone’s mind then I would have been all over the walls such was the level of awesome content on display. Star Wars Rebels has been a bit guilty of shoving a load of footage from the end of the season period into these trailers before, leaving us all hankering and frustrated.
So I’ll be honest, Ghosts of Geonosis is a good couple of episodes to open up the year with, containing some interesting story points, but it’s not got the really cool things you might be wanting to see.
It does however have Forest Whitaker!
Disney is impressing me greatly with how they’re integrating Star Wars across different media. First of all we see Chopper and the Ghost in Rogue One. There’s something greatly legitimising about seeing these animated characters (yes the Ghost is a character) in the ‘real’ setting of a film. Plus it’s really damn cool.
Now Rebels is returning the favour. Of course Saw Gerrera has been seen in animated form before in The Clone Wars, but here he is directly linked to his film version. Getting in Whitaker is a marvellous touch. An Oscar winning actor in a kids show! Not only does the voice match but they’ve even included Whitaker’s left eye ptosis. He might not be in the same state as in Rogue One, there are a few years to go after all, but this provides a great link from his previous form to what we see on the big screen. He’s well written too, showing all the signs of what makes him a more extreme rebel but not fully unhinged yet.
Without blowing open the story he’s the biggest point to talk about. There is a lot to take in throughout both episodes for those on the lookout. Rex makes mention of something in particular that I had never thought about and will change how I view certain aspects of the films moving forward.
I do have one question. Is Zeb pointless now? He never really does anything. I wonder if perhaps he’ll become more useful if we more of Agent Kallus in the future? I guess I’ll see.
With Rebels tying itself further into both Rogue One and The Clone Wars I can’t help but be excited to see what else will crossover. More and more seems to be fair game now. My only concern is how much could end up going through the crew of the Ghost. Surely the other Rebel cells have to do something!
A solid start to the year.
Chris Cooper
Originally published January 7, 2017. Updated December 16, 2019.
