Rebels: 2x18-19
Nov. 8th, 2021 09:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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tori_reviewsStar Wars Rebels: 2x18 – The Forgotten Droid
Well, I feel about this one kind of the way I have felt about some of the droid episodes in the past. I didn’t hate it so it kind of succeeded. That or my hatred of Ezra is greater than my hatred of Chopper, so the limited Ezra also gave it some points.
I do kind of think Chopper seems less like a Droid Sue in episodes with him in focus, as in other episodes he’s made more and more Sue-ish by always being entirely capable when he needs to help the other characters. On his own, he’s sort of allowed to be a character instead of just the most useful tool they could imagine. I can’t go beyond sort of, because no one on this show is a full character, but it does seem to help. It also reminds me of the fact that we may have had more episodes of Chopper getting development than Sabine and even Hera, and that doesn’t improve my mood.
I’m sure there are things that could be said about the way the Imperials are using older droids, but it’s really only there to make the ‘good guys’ look better by comparison. I find it a cheap way of framing the Imperials as bad; because droids are an iffy grey area on whether they should be seen as people or tools. As, sure, this droid does seem to have crossed the stage of development that gives him a personality and sense of identity, and at that point it is more a person than a basic droid, but I still kind of don’t like the way the writers’ motives are so obvious in this writing.
It was also super obvious that the other droid wasn’t going to stay dead. I mean, it’s a droid, he can be repaired. I kind of feel worse for Chopper, because there were definitely other ways they could have gotten the right parts and given him an improved leg.
Like so many things, I don’t think these writers have a solid grip on how best to portray droids. Or if they do it’s obviously one that isn’t resonating with me. Because to really deal with the droid questions is more a sci-fi question than a random space adventure one, and this show is far more random space adventure than it is sci-fi. All of Star Wars is, just to be clear. That’s not a condemnation, until the writers venture into topics that need a hard sci-fi view instead of just leaving the questions nebulous as they are in most of the SW media I’ve encountered. Even TCW by and large managed to keep mostly of the side of ‘it’s just how it is,’ but if they write in droid treatment as an indicator of villainy, you probably need more than that just being how it is (technically I suppose Jabba’s palace in RotJ did some of that, but I still feel it was better handled).
Star Wars Rebels: 2x19 – The Mystery of Chopper Base
I think I liked this episode, but the reason I liked it makes me confused over whether I actually think it was good. Because this episode is basically a roleplaying session that we get to watch in animated form. And that’s a tone that I can get behind, at least in Star Wars, and seems very fitting for this show.
But is it any better than the average episode, or does it just strike a chord with me? I’m not sure, and in that case I will tend to conclude that it’s probably a bit of both. This episode does have some things that I wish we got to have more fully explored, but it didn’t bother me as much in this one that we don’t get that added exploration. I get the characters enough to follow this episode and no one stands out as unduly favored of ignored. There was nothing to get mad about, and that is annoying rare.
I have a small complaint about the title of this one, in that it doesn’t seem appropriate and is just kind of dumb. It makes me think that the writers’ view the last episode and this one as effectively a two-parter; because if they’re in the same story, then calling this Chopper Base seems…a bit more fitting since Chopper got them there. But it’s never said, I wouldn’t want it to be (because I dislike Chopper), it’s just kind of awkward in this form.
I can’t decide if they’re doing something with the fact that Ezra can’t connect to the giant spiders; or if, in my roleplaying analogy, the GM just didn’t want to deal with it. It could have made the problem/solution too obvious, or your character/player who’s gotten new-agey will go off on another tangent about how these animals just need acceptance and that would get in the way of the plot. Though on the subject of the sensors being the problem/solution was made pretty obvious to the audience, and even Sabine possibly should have realized it sooner; but mainly, they never did find the missing pilot. Which is kind of also like a RP group, to forget the original reason they got on this plot and utterly fail to save NPCs.
I was surprised how quickly I found myself liking the dynamic between Rex and Sabine. It’s a little like him and Ahsoka in TCW, but also not. And I think that would be a dynamic worth exploring (not that I think the show will since Sabine isn’t actually a character), because their dynamic is at once more equal (without the military rank dynamics) and more parental or at least a fair bit older and younger siblings given that Rex has quite a few more years now (although he’s still not that much older than Sabine, it is more than Ahsoka).
Considering what I know, I dislike the last line of this episode. Because potentially they’re not going to *see* each other again. And the stuff between Kanan and Hera is one of the places I do actually feel the lack of focus they’ve had. Because in the season premier, Kanan didn’t want to be part of the bigger Rebellion, and now he’s all in support of being in the bigger team; that’s character arc…but we only get focus on the beginning and end. You can read a few other points on the arc I suppose, but they still don’t earn it as an arc. And if their relationship had been given more space to live and be realized, this could have been quite powerful, but as is it’s only implicitly powerful.
Although I don’t have much room to talk as my main ship in this fandom is all implication. Maybe when the show ends and I look back on it, I’ll find that I was more into it than I realize right now.
Well, I feel about this one kind of the way I have felt about some of the droid episodes in the past. I didn’t hate it so it kind of succeeded. That or my hatred of Ezra is greater than my hatred of Chopper, so the limited Ezra also gave it some points.
I do kind of think Chopper seems less like a Droid Sue in episodes with him in focus, as in other episodes he’s made more and more Sue-ish by always being entirely capable when he needs to help the other characters. On his own, he’s sort of allowed to be a character instead of just the most useful tool they could imagine. I can’t go beyond sort of, because no one on this show is a full character, but it does seem to help. It also reminds me of the fact that we may have had more episodes of Chopper getting development than Sabine and even Hera, and that doesn’t improve my mood.
I’m sure there are things that could be said about the way the Imperials are using older droids, but it’s really only there to make the ‘good guys’ look better by comparison. I find it a cheap way of framing the Imperials as bad; because droids are an iffy grey area on whether they should be seen as people or tools. As, sure, this droid does seem to have crossed the stage of development that gives him a personality and sense of identity, and at that point it is more a person than a basic droid, but I still kind of don’t like the way the writers’ motives are so obvious in this writing.
It was also super obvious that the other droid wasn’t going to stay dead. I mean, it’s a droid, he can be repaired. I kind of feel worse for Chopper, because there were definitely other ways they could have gotten the right parts and given him an improved leg.
Like so many things, I don’t think these writers have a solid grip on how best to portray droids. Or if they do it’s obviously one that isn’t resonating with me. Because to really deal with the droid questions is more a sci-fi question than a random space adventure one, and this show is far more random space adventure than it is sci-fi. All of Star Wars is, just to be clear. That’s not a condemnation, until the writers venture into topics that need a hard sci-fi view instead of just leaving the questions nebulous as they are in most of the SW media I’ve encountered. Even TCW by and large managed to keep mostly of the side of ‘it’s just how it is,’ but if they write in droid treatment as an indicator of villainy, you probably need more than that just being how it is (technically I suppose Jabba’s palace in RotJ did some of that, but I still feel it was better handled).
Star Wars Rebels: 2x19 – The Mystery of Chopper Base
I think I liked this episode, but the reason I liked it makes me confused over whether I actually think it was good. Because this episode is basically a roleplaying session that we get to watch in animated form. And that’s a tone that I can get behind, at least in Star Wars, and seems very fitting for this show.
But is it any better than the average episode, or does it just strike a chord with me? I’m not sure, and in that case I will tend to conclude that it’s probably a bit of both. This episode does have some things that I wish we got to have more fully explored, but it didn’t bother me as much in this one that we don’t get that added exploration. I get the characters enough to follow this episode and no one stands out as unduly favored of ignored. There was nothing to get mad about, and that is annoying rare.
I have a small complaint about the title of this one, in that it doesn’t seem appropriate and is just kind of dumb. It makes me think that the writers’ view the last episode and this one as effectively a two-parter; because if they’re in the same story, then calling this Chopper Base seems…a bit more fitting since Chopper got them there. But it’s never said, I wouldn’t want it to be (because I dislike Chopper), it’s just kind of awkward in this form.
I can’t decide if they’re doing something with the fact that Ezra can’t connect to the giant spiders; or if, in my roleplaying analogy, the GM just didn’t want to deal with it. It could have made the problem/solution too obvious, or your character/player who’s gotten new-agey will go off on another tangent about how these animals just need acceptance and that would get in the way of the plot. Though on the subject of the sensors being the problem/solution was made pretty obvious to the audience, and even Sabine possibly should have realized it sooner; but mainly, they never did find the missing pilot. Which is kind of also like a RP group, to forget the original reason they got on this plot and utterly fail to save NPCs.
I was surprised how quickly I found myself liking the dynamic between Rex and Sabine. It’s a little like him and Ahsoka in TCW, but also not. And I think that would be a dynamic worth exploring (not that I think the show will since Sabine isn’t actually a character), because their dynamic is at once more equal (without the military rank dynamics) and more parental or at least a fair bit older and younger siblings given that Rex has quite a few more years now (although he’s still not that much older than Sabine, it is more than Ahsoka).
Considering what I know, I dislike the last line of this episode. Because potentially they’re not going to *see* each other again. And the stuff between Kanan and Hera is one of the places I do actually feel the lack of focus they’ve had. Because in the season premier, Kanan didn’t want to be part of the bigger Rebellion, and now he’s all in support of being in the bigger team; that’s character arc…but we only get focus on the beginning and end. You can read a few other points on the arc I suppose, but they still don’t earn it as an arc. And if their relationship had been given more space to live and be realized, this could have been quite powerful, but as is it’s only implicitly powerful.
Although I don’t have much room to talk as my main ship in this fandom is all implication. Maybe when the show ends and I look back on it, I’ll find that I was more into it than I realize right now.
