Monday, April 2, 2018

The End of Rebels

No, not the end of people rebelling. I'm referring to the end of the show Star Wars: Rebels, of course. I'm a little late to be giving my comments, but in case anyone else is also late in watching the end of the show, yes, there may be spoilers.

From the start, this show had a pretty great quality level. It also brought the right combination of the familiar and the new. There were elements with which we were familiar (the Empire, the Jedi, etc.) and also things that hadn't been explored much yet (the Jedi who escaped Order 66, the people who lived and even grew up under the Empire's rule, the formation of the Rebel Alliance). And at the heart of it all? A group of characters that functioned like a family unit in order to give us that essential Star Wars element of personal relationships.

The fact that this story took place just before Episode IV meant that, well, we probably all had some ideas about what would happen to the characters at the end of the show. How could characters like this exist during the time of the original trilogy and not come into that story at all?

So Kanan, well, we kind of knew that was coming, right? Still, they teased us by pairing him with Hera to hope that maybe there would be some way that he'd make it through. His tragic end fit well for him: he is so much so a tragic character. He was just a padawan, barely more than a child, when he lost everything. His home, identity, and purpose as part of the Jedi vanished and he was left alone. It took time for Kanan to find what his place could be again--his place with the crew of the Ghost.

Hera we knew would make it because Rogue One had that Easter egg of Captain Syndulla being called over the speaker in one of the scenes at the rebel base. Still, I didn't anticipate Jacen. That next begs the question or whether or not Jacen was force sensitive. If so, he would only be a few years older than Ben Solo--so could he possibly have been part of Luke's group of students? Have we seen the last of Jacen, or is he just there to give a little bit of a happy ending to the tragedy?

Ezra, Sabine, and Ahsoka are interesting. It would seem that we aren't done with their story. This is a way of explaining why we don't see all of them during the original trilogy--possibly, though, they might still show up or be referenced in future films or books. Can you imagine Luke or Leia meeting Ahsoka? She could tell them so much about their parents and about the Jedi before their downfall. If Ahsoka and Ezra return, what happens then? It matters when they return, too. Soon after the Emperor's end or a few years later or decades later.

So, yes, this show came to a nice close. Honestly, I found some of the earlier episodes of the last part of the last season better than the very last couple of episodes. However, I do appreciate that we had a chance to get an ending instead of just having the show get cancelled without getting an ending. We built up a great team of characters and they all finished . . . where they were meant to finish.

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