Rebels: intro and shorts
Sep. 1st, 2021 09:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urth posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
tori_reviewsAlright, I did write down some thoughts before I had started on Rebels, so it's kind of interesting to contrast with what I said in my retroactive introduction in the previous post.
----
So here’s the situation.
I have in mind that I want to review the first six Star Wars movies as well as the Clone Wars animated shorts.
However, movies are a lot more work to review than half hour TV episodes that I’ve already more or less given myself permission to be as wordy with episode reviews as I want to be or don’t want to be. Also the SW movies are among the most reviewed and analyzed movies out there, so I don’t know that there’s much for me to say on them.
So I’m going to move on to Rebels, but tentatively. I’m starting this show before I start the movie rewatch, but for all I know I’ve already been posting the movie reviews because within a couple days I decided to focus on the movies instead. (editing note: clearly not)
Going into this show I’m not sure how much I expect to like it. What little I know amounts to both positives and negatives and I don’t know what’s going to win out. I think either way I will probably be more passionate about it than I usually was about TCW, because one of the good things I know is that it’s not so tightly bound to movie events (not focusing on characters in them or tightly wedged between two close ones). Also, maybe I feel a bit like I’m…allowed to feel about this one however I end up feeling. TCW always had an element of feeling like I should like it a lot more than I did, but somehow I couldn’t just walk away from it even if I wasn’t ever fully into it.
----
Let’s see, according the Wikipedia (and probably Wookiepedia) this starts with some shorts. Are they worth talking about…
Surprisingly…kind of.
These are clearly snapshots meant to give us just a little bit of character introduction ahead of whatever’s going to bring the team members together in the actual episodes. There are only minor blips of plot, but they give me thing to talk about anyway.
To start off with the animation, I’m conflicted. It is objectively worse than TCW and I complained a fair amount about the animation in TCW even in the final season. And yet, I don’t hate the cartoony look so much here. I think it’s partly because these characters are starting out as animated characters instead of trying to see them as the same people as the characters played by actors. But also, oddly enough, it almost feels more real. It doesn’t look as good, by a long stretch, but I somehow buy it more. While I do know a couple of these characters end up being Jedi, so far they don’t move the way the Jedi characters so often did in TCW. We’ll see how this opinion evolves as we get into full episodes.
I’m shipper trash, and I can already tell I’m going to ship Kanan/Hera. I don’t love their dynamic in their short, it’s a bit more snappish than I like, but they also clearly like each other (in addition to probably -liking- each other) so I think I’m going get behind it. Also, I recently took a quiz about which SW animated ship you are and I ended up with them; seeing them in action…yeah probably.
I do not however like Chopper. I have a bad feeling I’m going to find him annoying.
I’m willing to be proven wrong, but Sabine did not make a good first impression. Technically I think it’s her second as I think she was one of the characters who was shown in the last Mandalor arc I just watched; though even if that’s true, this was made first and that was the retroactive continuity the put in TCW s7. But she doesn’t seem very pleasant to be around, like she and the show are way too convinced that she’s cool and I should like her. Like I said, I hope to be proven wrong as we actually get to know her, because Ahsoka had a bit of that early on too.
Zeb I have no idea how I feel about so far. He looks like comic relief and if that’s case, my opinion will largely depend on whether I like the comedy at various times. This was okay, but it could get old pretty fast if there’s nothing more to it.
Ezra…is somewhere between Sabine and Zeb. I definitely didn’t really like him in this one and I have a feeling he’s going to be the main character of the piece; and if he is, he’s going to need a lot of work as a character. If the show knows that then this is a fine starting point; if he’s generic protagonist #6 that we’re just supposed to like as is, I think this show is going to wear out its welcome real fast.
So I wrote almost a full review of the shorts, and it’s almost as long as some of my full arc reviews of TCW. But I’m not going to go too far with expectations yet, we’re meeting characters so there are things to note about them before they become familiar and don’t need comment very often. Still, not a bad sign (except for my mixed feelings on the characters that I’m reserving judgement on).
----
So here’s the situation.
I have in mind that I want to review the first six Star Wars movies as well as the Clone Wars animated shorts.
However, movies are a lot more work to review than half hour TV episodes that I’ve already more or less given myself permission to be as wordy with episode reviews as I want to be or don’t want to be. Also the SW movies are among the most reviewed and analyzed movies out there, so I don’t know that there’s much for me to say on them.
So I’m going to move on to Rebels, but tentatively. I’m starting this show before I start the movie rewatch, but for all I know I’ve already been posting the movie reviews because within a couple days I decided to focus on the movies instead. (editing note: clearly not)
Going into this show I’m not sure how much I expect to like it. What little I know amounts to both positives and negatives and I don’t know what’s going to win out. I think either way I will probably be more passionate about it than I usually was about TCW, because one of the good things I know is that it’s not so tightly bound to movie events (not focusing on characters in them or tightly wedged between two close ones). Also, maybe I feel a bit like I’m…allowed to feel about this one however I end up feeling. TCW always had an element of feeling like I should like it a lot more than I did, but somehow I couldn’t just walk away from it even if I wasn’t ever fully into it.
----
Let’s see, according the Wikipedia (and probably Wookiepedia) this starts with some shorts. Are they worth talking about…
Surprisingly…kind of.
These are clearly snapshots meant to give us just a little bit of character introduction ahead of whatever’s going to bring the team members together in the actual episodes. There are only minor blips of plot, but they give me thing to talk about anyway.
To start off with the animation, I’m conflicted. It is objectively worse than TCW and I complained a fair amount about the animation in TCW even in the final season. And yet, I don’t hate the cartoony look so much here. I think it’s partly because these characters are starting out as animated characters instead of trying to see them as the same people as the characters played by actors. But also, oddly enough, it almost feels more real. It doesn’t look as good, by a long stretch, but I somehow buy it more. While I do know a couple of these characters end up being Jedi, so far they don’t move the way the Jedi characters so often did in TCW. We’ll see how this opinion evolves as we get into full episodes.
I’m shipper trash, and I can already tell I’m going to ship Kanan/Hera. I don’t love their dynamic in their short, it’s a bit more snappish than I like, but they also clearly like each other (in addition to probably -liking- each other) so I think I’m going get behind it. Also, I recently took a quiz about which SW animated ship you are and I ended up with them; seeing them in action…yeah probably.
I do not however like Chopper. I have a bad feeling I’m going to find him annoying.
I’m willing to be proven wrong, but Sabine did not make a good first impression. Technically I think it’s her second as I think she was one of the characters who was shown in the last Mandalor arc I just watched; though even if that’s true, this was made first and that was the retroactive continuity the put in TCW s7. But she doesn’t seem very pleasant to be around, like she and the show are way too convinced that she’s cool and I should like her. Like I said, I hope to be proven wrong as we actually get to know her, because Ahsoka had a bit of that early on too.
Zeb I have no idea how I feel about so far. He looks like comic relief and if that’s case, my opinion will largely depend on whether I like the comedy at various times. This was okay, but it could get old pretty fast if there’s nothing more to it.
Ezra…is somewhere between Sabine and Zeb. I definitely didn’t really like him in this one and I have a feeling he’s going to be the main character of the piece; and if he is, he’s going to need a lot of work as a character. If the show knows that then this is a fine starting point; if he’s generic protagonist #6 that we’re just supposed to like as is, I think this show is going to wear out its welcome real fast.
So I wrote almost a full review of the shorts, and it’s almost as long as some of my full arc reviews of TCW. But I’m not going to go too far with expectations yet, we’re meeting characters so there are things to note about them before they become familiar and don’t need comment very often. Still, not a bad sign (except for my mixed feelings on the characters that I’m reserving judgement on).
