Star Wars Rebels "Twilight Of The Apprentice" Review

 

Star Wars fans we are but a little over a week away from the launch of the newest Star Wars animated series which is being called "Star Wars: The bad Batch" and as such I thought that it would be fun to take a look back review and episode from another Star Wars animated TV show. This was done simply because I felt like it and so join me as I review the awesome episode of the second season of Star Wars Rebels with the episode itself being called simply "Twilight Of The Apprentice" enjoy,

The plot of this particular episode is Kanen , Ahsoka and Ezra are searching for knowledge about how to destroy the sith once and for all and there quest takes them to hidden Sith temple where an old friend who is seeking there/ his own revenge is waiting for them. In terms of what I thought about the plot of this episode in all honesty the plot of this episode is so good and even if you haven't seen the previous episode this story is still very easy to follow and it's stories like this that help make Star Wars Rebels as good as it was in my opinion.

Starring in this episode is Taylor Gray as Ezra Bridger , Freddie Prinze, Jr. as Kanan Jarrus and the always talented and the always stunning Ashley Eckstein as Ahsoka Tano. Also starring in this particular episode is Dee Bradley Baker as Captain Rex , Robert Daymond Howard as Eighth Brother , Sam Witwer as Maul , The Legend That Simply Is James Earl Jones as Darth Vader , Matt Lanter as Anakin Skywalker , the stunning Sarah Michelle Gellar as Seventh Sister , Philip Anthony-Rodriguez as Fifth Brother and Nika Futterman as Presence.

In terms of what I thought about the acting that's featured / presented to us in this very episode in all honesty the acting that's featured /presented to us in this very review is as good as you'd expect the acting to be in a Dave Filoni directed animated Star Wars TV episode. Since yeah the acting in this episode is so freaking good with all of the actors that are starring / appearing in this episode really doing a good job at portraying their respective character which given that some of these have been playing their respective characters for literally decades at this point really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone at all. 

Now try as I might but I cannot find out who in the heck did the animation for this episode which given what i'm about to say is truly freaking shocking indeed. Since I really did like the animation that's featured / presented to us in this episode since in my opinion at least the animation that's featured / presented to us in this episode is close to being movie quality because everything about the animation in this particular is so good and you can tell that the animators and everyone involved with the animation side of making show put alot of time and effort into making sure that the animation in this particular episode was as good and if not better then the animation that was seen in the later seasons of Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

This episode features the return of Darth Maul (yes I know that he goes by just simply Maul but he will always be Darth Maul to me damn it lol) and I have to admit after not really seeing this character in animation before now I really did like how well that this character was handled in animation. Since this character is to some degree a con man in that he'll tell you whatever it is that you want to hear in order to get what he wants and then and only then once he gets what he wants will he then reveal his true side which honestly makes the character very interesting since you never really know at least in this particular episode is he's telling you the truth or if he's lieing to you which makes his betrayal all the more shocking in my very humble and as well as being in my very honest opinion anyways.

I'm just going to be f*****g / freaking real with you guys I straight up loved this season two finale of Star Wars Rebels. Simply because this finale is so freaking good it hits all of the buttons that you want a season finale to hit and yet it also tells a good story and it does interesting things with it characters which even tho those interesting things have very little no impact on this episode they would go on to have a huge impact in season 3 of Star Wars Rebels. 

Now then boys and girls i've been very / pretty freaking positive about this episode so far but there are a few things that I didn't like about this particular episode with the first thing being the fact that the new and interesting things that this episode does with it's characters have no literally no / zero impact in this episode and so those new and interesting things could have been removed from this episode and nothing about this particular episode would be effected whatsoever and the other thing that I didn't like is that it got rid of this seasons big bads / villains pretty easily which makes the big bads / villains for this particular season just feel useless and not that threatening and from what I can remember the villains / big bads from this particular season aren't interesting or even good characters but that's just what I think anyways and that's just in my very humble and as well as being in my very honest opinions anyways.

Now then boys boys and girls this particular episode has a running time of just simply forty three minuets and fourteen seconds. Which I honestly feel is the right amount of time for this particular episode since this episode has to not only wrap up any stories from season two but also set up stories for season three and so this episode needed to be double the length of a normal twenty two minuet episode of Star Wars Rebels and this episode used it's extra running time to it's full advantage since there is so much going on both story wise and character wise that it needed the extra running time in my very humble and as well as being in my very honest opinion.

Just before I talk about the actual action that's featured / presented to us in this episode I have to talk about the fight between Ahsoka Tano and Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader. Since even tho I didn't watch that much of Star Wars: The Clone Wars growing up I still knew enough to know who Ahsoka was and so knowing that she had no idea that Anakin had turned to the dark side of the force and seeing her squaring up to Darth Vader was still a shocking thing because no matter if you've seen Star Wars: the Clone Wars or not you have that connection with one or even both of those characters and so the fight means more because you know what those characters have gone through and that made there fight and there meting in this episode all the more impactful for me personally but that's just what I personally think anyways and that's just in my very humble and as well as being in my very honest opinion anyways.

Now then boys and girls in terms of what I personally thought about the action that's featured / presented to us in this episode. In all honestly I really did like the action that was featured / presented to us in this episode simply because I watched more of Star Wars Rebels that I did Star Wars The Clone Wars and so I have a much stronger connection to the cast of characters from Star Wars Rebels and that made the action in this episode all the more impactful because of the fact that i've followed those characters from Star Wars Rebels on this journey and so of course i'd want them to succeed and of course i'd also want them to beat every enemy that they enter into a really cool looking fight scene / action scene with.

Overall this was a really freaking good episode in my very humble and as well as being in my very honest opinion and it's one that I personally recommend all Star Wars and non Star Wars fans alike check out because this episode is well and truly that freaking good. Now then boys and girls since i've talked about both of the good things that are featured / presented to us in this episode and as well as both of the bad things that are featured / resented to us in this very episode in this very review this episode gets a 9 out of 10 from me personally.

As for where I got the images that I used in this very review from well i got all of the images that I used in this very review from the official Star Wars Rebels fandom wiki page , the official Star Wars fandom wiki page and the official The Mandalorian fandom wiki page. With my personally preferred website to use to get images from this particular episode from being the official Star Wars Rebels fandom wiki page just because all if not alot of the images that are featured on the official Star Wars Rebels fandom wiki page are all fairly high definition as well as being fairly high quality as well.

Star Wars Rebels "Spark Of Rebellion" Review

 

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.

 

Star Wars Rebels Final Episodes Spoiler Free Review

Star Wars fans it has finally aired after four long seasons spanning many episodes and hopefully earning alot of fans not only did the season finale air but so did the final every episode of Star Wars Rebels and so this is what I thought of the episode.

The plot of these final episodes is actually one story it details The Rebels plan to get the Empire of Lothal for good. To me these episodes felt like Ocean's Eleven for some reason but for this story that's a good thing and this is the type of story that should have been on the big screen and not on a TV screen.

Now since I havn't seen most of seasons 3 and 4 i'm only going to name the main cast that appear in the episodes so we have Dee Bradley Baker , Taylor Gray , Vanessa Marshall , Tiya Sircar , Steven Blum and co-creator / co-director and co-writer of these episodes Dave Filoni. I didn't mention Freddy because I did some research so even tho he is listed in the end credits i'm not going to credit him but the voice cast did a great of playing those characters for the last time in this series which for Dee he's been playing Rex since 2008 and he's still freaking awesome as the character. 

There's not really much I can mention about these episodes because anything I can say could be considered a spoiler but tho to me that's the sign of a good finale alot of good things happen but you can't say what happens because it would be a spoiler and the less I say about the ending the freaking better.

The animation was done by Lucasfilm and I have to say that the animation for me was freaking movie quality that's how freaking good it was I felt like I was watching a movie everything animation wise was freaking fantastic i'm not going to say it was PIXAR quality but it was better then the animation in any Sony Pictures movie and that makes me want to know what kind of budget this show had because it was clearly alot in order to pull of this level of animation.

Not only was the actual animation freaking amazing but so was the backgrounds and the fire effects incase you don't know it's very hard to pull of fire in animated films so i'm glad that this show pulled of some realistic looking fire as for the backgrounds they were breathtaking to look at.

Now i've watched alot of Avatar episode prior to this finale so I knew before episode fourteen finished that it was directed by Dave Filoni because of how freaking action packed the episode was and how action packed his Avatar episodes are and I have to say the man has stepped up his game.

Speaking of the action the action in these episodes and when I sat alot I mean alot and it's beautiful to see and it's not just punching and kicking either there's a lot of blaster shots and lightsabers being used and they use alot of really creative camera movements which i'm not sure if I can spoil so i'm going to play it safe and not mention it but i'm shocked they managed to pull it of on a TV budget.

What really blew me away was how good Kevin Kiners music truly was in this episode like everything else in this episode it felt like it belonged in a movie and to me it helped sell the emotion of every single scene and I liked that they reused some of the classic Star Wars themes.

It's not all good tho since there's a plot point in episode fourteen that I saw coming a mile away and it played out the exact way I knew it would they didn't even try to mix it up it just felt lazy to me especially since it's a key scene you thought they would have put a little bit more effort into it but nope.

Overall this was a great way to end the series and I hope we get to see more from these characters in another series or a book or a comic book i've mentioned the only issue that I found with the episode so it gets a 9 out of 10 from me.

  

Star Wars Rebels: Heroes of Mandalore Review

Star wars fans the time is nearly here the end of Star Wars Rebels begins with this two part episode so here is my review of Heroes Of Mandalore.

This two part episode basically has two plots the first plot involves the rebels teaming up with Clan Wren to help save Sabine's family while part two Sabine learns that the Empire is using a weapon she made that can kill Mandalorians. I have to admit the story for part one reminded me alot of early Star Wars Rebels where it was just the crew barely getting out alive and that's what happens in part one and in part two the story reminded me alot of the Supergirl season 1 finale for some reason altho i would have liked it if both parts had one plot instead of two.

The episodes star series cast members Taylor Gray , Vanessa Marshall , Freddie Prinze Jr. and Tiya Sircar and together they are joined by Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa , Lars Mikkelsen and returning from The Clone Wars Katee Sackhoff. The series cast as you'd expect by now do a good job voicing there characters but for me personally it's the guest cast that don't do that good a job for some reason the acting from most of the guest cast just felt wooden which is a shame because they are good actors.

Now i wasn't going to mention the animation because i didn't really see the point in talking about the animation on a series that's four years into it's run that was until the end of part 2 where the animation went from being standerd TV animation to being great TV animation i can't really say why because of spoilers but wow did the animation team really go nuts in those final scenes.

 The show has always had great looking backdrops but for me the backgrounds at least in part 1 just didn't do anything for me they weren't bad but at the same time they didn't fill me with that sense of wonder or excitement.

I would like to know what budget Kevin Kiner has for this series because the music near the end of the two-parter was really freaking good it blew me away with how good the track was and i prey to god that this level of music stays for the rest of this final season.

Overall since this will be the last season of Star Wars Rebels i hope that they just go nuts and based of this two part premier it looks like that's what they'll be doing and i will not be giving this one a rating.