Star Wars fans it's been at least three weeks since I last talked about anything to do with Star Wars and it oddly feels like it's been alot long if i'm being honest. However i'm back with another Star Wars themed post and honestly this is one that's been on my never ending but somehow always growing list of things to review and well since i've not talked about Star Wars Rebels in well over two years and so I thought why not take a look at something from that show and so here is my review of the Star Wars Rebels premier TV film "Spark Of Rebellion" enjoy the review everyone.
The plot of the film / two part episode is fourteen year old Ezra tries to steal something from some people however it turns out those people are the good guys who then help Ezra escape the empire and so with the crew of the Ghost (the good guys I mentioned before in this very summery) have to help free some wookies before they die on a mining planet. The plot for me at least was pretty thin since it doesn't really come into effect until the second half of this two part opening story which is a really bad thing since the first half could and should have been used to set up the story as well as the stakes but they don't as such the story feels kind of weak in my opinion.
Starring in this film / episode is Taylor Gray as Ezra Bridger , Freddie Prinze, Jr. as Kanan Jarrus and Vanessa Marshall as Hera Syndulla. Also starring in this film / episode is Steven Blum as Garazeb Orrelios , Tiya Sircar as Sabine Wren , David Shaughnessy as Cumberlayne Aresko and Myles Grint , David Oyelowo as Alexsandr Kallus , Keith Szarabajka as Cikatro Vizago , James Arnold Taylor as Obi-Wan Kenobi , Jason Isaacs as The Grand Inquisitor and the legend that is James Earl Jones as Darth Vader.
Now I want it known that even tho I did watch this series as it was first being released I haven't seen this episode since it was first aired as such I forgot how good the acting honestly really was. All of the new characters are cast perfectly and i'm not just saying that as someone who watched this show all the way through I honestly do mean it because all of these actors are so good that to me I stopped hearing the actor and I started to hear the character which for me is always a good sign because it says that the acting is really good and that this character was perfectly cast.
Doing the animation for this film / episode and thus the entire series is CGCG and Lucasfilm Animation Singapore. I want it known that i've not heard of either of these companies as such I have no idea what else they have worked on either before or after this show and that's a shame because the animation in this film / episode is honestly really freaking good every single frame is a visual treat because of how good looking this film / episode is.
The movements I felt were just right since they are grounded enough to believe that they are real and yet cartoonish enough so your able to suspend your disbelief. Just to clarify what I meant when talking about the movements what I meant was since we are so used to seeing real people act in Star Wars and of course real people can only move like real people but in the realm of animation those same characters can now have some more cartoonish movements and that's what this episode does really well in my opinion.
I have to say this just because it's been bugging me since this episode first aired and that is they made the wookiees look ugly as hell. I get that animating fur even on a TV budget would be hard to do but the wookiees at least in this episode look like plastic toys rather then actual living breathing characters. The wookies in this film film / episode just look hideous and would honestly be best described as nightmare fuel and that's me being very freaking kind by the way.
There are technically two versions of this film / episode with the most widely found version being the one that aired on I think ABC but i'm not quite sure. You can very easily tell the difference between the two versions tho because the prolog version has a scene at the start of the episode Darth Vader giving The Grand Inquisitor his orders for this first season of the show. Since we got Vader speaking that also means that we got the legend that is James Earl Jones back to play the character and bare in mind this was back before he returned for any future Star Wars films so having him back was a big deal and it was great to hear him speak new lines of dialog as this iconic character.
To me this is and The Mandalorian TV show is the closest thing that Disney has created that even comes close to being anything like Star Wars is , was or even could be. Since both this show and this film / episode are the closest thing to being anything like Star Wars then the current Star Wars movies were and please bare in mind I like The Force Awakens but even I can tell then that movie is nothing like Star Wars but this show is.
Now then boys and girls since this is an action show and the is action in this film / episode that does mean that I have to talk about the action that we see in this film / episode. For me the action was one of the best things about this film / episode just due to how fun it was which is something that lot of action set pieces forget to be as such it was nice to see alot of action set pieces in this film / episode be fun to watch and have alot of cool stuff in them with perhaps the coolest moment and the most epic moment in the entire episode being the reveal that Kanan being a Jedi and seeing him take on a bunch of storm troopers all by himself.
Overall this was a really good film / episode and incase your wondering why i'm referring to it as a film / episode it's because it did originally air as a TV film but is also the first two episodes of the show. While this film film / episode has alot of stuff going for it it also has a lot of stuff going against it with some of those those issues being things that I mentioned in this very review as such I cannot give it perfect ten out of ten but the film / episode does get a 7 out of 10 from this Star Wars fanboy.
All of the images that I used in this review were gathered from the official Star Wars Rebels fandom wiki page. I honestly do recommend that you use the official Star Wars Rebels fandom wiki page just because unlike both the official Star Wars and the official Disney fandom wiki pages, the official Star Wars Rebels fandom wiki page not only has alot of images from either this film / episode but the show as a whole and alot of the images are really high quality as well if that's something that you look for when your making a post and it's something that I look for when i'm making a review.