Tuesday, 6 March 2018

Star Wars Rebels Reviews: “Wolves and a Door/A World Between Worlds”


Ashoka lives…?
(This review contains spoilers!)

          I hope everyone who got to see the Rebels series finale last night enjoyed it! I sure can’t wait to play a weeklong game of Avoid the Spoiler as I wait for the Canadian airing next Monday!

          Ugh…

          Well, let’s take a look at the penultimate pair and see how they hold up. I’ll admit, these were weird but interesting episodes that tied in with the rest of the Star Wars mythos in some pretty bizarre ways. Ezra makes one final trip to the Lothal Jedi Temple to see if he could find some answers. Instead he got to meet one of Star Wars TV’s most beloved characters one last time, as well as got a visit from a surprise Dark Side guest star.

          The first episode was dedicated to Ezra getting inside the temple, and the second one was seeing exactly what was going on in there. I gotta say, as slow it got at times I really enjoyed the first episode. It had a sort of Indiana Jones feel to it as Ezra and Sabine infiltrated the excavation site and tried to solve the puzzle of the Mortis painting while avoiding the Stormtroopers. It got actually pretty suspenseful at times, especially when the Emperor’s involvement was revealed.

          But you’re not here to hear me talk about that. You’re here to see what I thought about the second episode that threw everybody for a loop.

          I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if done wrong, throwing time travel into an established universe can really make things messy, and occasionally destroy entire canons through sheer nonsense if it’s done especially poorly. I wasn’t exactly keen on the fact that Rebels is introducing such a dangerous subject into the already very well-established Star Wars mythos. But as the episode went on, it actually started to win me over a bit.

          Inside the temple Ezra discovered various doorways that showed him different points in time. Through one of the doors was Ashoka’s climactic fight with Vader from the end of Season 2, only this time it was revealed what happened. Ezra reached through the portal, pulling her into the present and away from the danger. It turns out that this temple has access to all points in time and space, allowing access to any major moment in the past, present or future of the saga.

          I do like that it seems we’re going for a more Prisoner of Azkaban style of time travel here. Ashoka never died because Ezra rescued her from Vader using the temple. That’s why we never got to see the duel in the first place. We’re not going full Back to the Future where Ezra could just go kill baby Palpatine and save everybody a massive headache. Instead the time travel is already part of the timeline, as demonstrated with Ezra causing the end of a duel we never got to see in the first place.

          Plus with the temple essentially destroyed at the end of the episode it looks like no one’s gonna be using that again anytime soon.

          Overall, this was a great pair of episodes. I loved that they didn’t shy away with exploring some of the mysticism of the Force while also not overstepping any boundaries with the time travel stuff. It gave a satisfying conclusion to Ashoka’s arc while still leaving her open for future potential, as well as a satisfying goodbye for Kanan and some awesome action and suspense for the other characters. I’m sure many people already know how the series ends, but I personally can’t wait to find out for myself next week.

FINAL SCORE (Wolves and a Door)
8/10

Great

FINAL SCORE (A World Between Worlds)
8/10

Great

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