Hogan Reviews

We finally get our sequel series to Star Wars Rebels and it’s weirdly in live action! Never would’ve seen that coming when Season 4 ended, that’s for sure. While I’m not sure how this series came across to those who weren’t familiar with the animated show I loved it, especially the back half where the story moved from “catching people up on our main characters” to “moving the plot forward”. The returning animated characters were really well cast as well, so it made for a smooth transition, which was handy (and again, really weird) So with all that being said, let’s take a look!

Rebels ended with lead protagonist Ezra Bridger and the Imperial Grand Admiral Thrawn (voiced by Lars Mikkelsen) being whisked away by Force sensitive space whales, leaving Ezra’s friends and allies deciding to head out to find him post-war. That’s where we pick the story up from but not before putting on the breaks and trying to catch up non-animation fans with the plot and characters. Thanks to the Mandalorian most are familiar with Ahsoka herself (played by Rosario Dawson) but she is now travelling with the ancient Jedi lightsabre constructing droid Huyang (voiced by David Tennant, as he did in the Clone Wars cartoon) and we soon hear that Rebels character Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) underwent Jedi training with Ahsoka at some point but it didn’t work out and the two split. We then see Sabine is living in Ezra’s old place and watching old messages from him but when Ahsoka finds some new information about his whereabouts the two reunite.

This would’ve been a confusing screenshot to see a few years ago…

This is where we’re introduced to the main threat of the first half of the series as the returning Nightsister of Dathomir Morgan Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto) is rescued from imprisonment by two lightsabre-wielding Jedi-like people called Baylan Skoll (Ray Stevenson) and Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno) I will say this right now that Stevenson’s Baylan is without a doubt the best and most interesting thing about the series and I’m really gutted that he passed away as the character had so much more to give and he was so damn good in the role. Ah well, nothing anyone can do about it now… So anyway, they are also on the trail of Ezra but not for him instead they’re after Thrawn. Well, Morgan is after Thrawn, Baylan and Shin seem to have their own agenda. After the two sides have a few lightsabre skirmishes we find out that a map pointing to where the duo are shows that they’re in another galaxy altogether and the planet where the map works sets the group for a big showdown half way through the series.

I forgot to mention Baylan and Shin have weird orange lightsabres, like their regular kyber crystals have become tainted with the darkside but not gone all the way, much like Baylan himself…

Before that though I’ll say that also during this time we Rebels character Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and her son Jacen (Evan Whitten) deal with the politics of trying to get help from the New Republic with the search when they don’t believe Thrawn is really still alive. It gave Genevieve O’Reilly another chance to play Mon Mothma (but this time as a New Republic official!) and once again featured everyone’s favourite pilot Carson Teva (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee) but these scenes weren’t greatly interesting. The good, the bad and the interesting grey-area (that’s Baylen) duel with each other as Morgan and her Tri-Hyperdrive ship get ready to launch, and eventually Ahsoka ends up knocked off a cliff and Sabine joins with Baylan in order to reach Ezra even if it means taking the villains to Thrawn. Ahsoka has a Force vision / trip to the World Between Worlds / near death mental journey (or possible all three?) and sees her old master Anakin, once again reprised by Hayden Christensen though this time in his Clone Wars cartoon outfit, which was fun. She learns to accept failure and not fear loss or falling down the same path as him and is then rescued thanks to Jacen showing Force abilities. Meanwhile the villains arrive in the new galaxy and meet up with Thrawn himself (played physically by… Lars Mikkelsen! Handy) who has allied with three Night Mothers who wish to head back with him to Dathomir, plus a large Stormtrooper with a weird gold-faced helmet called Enoch (Wes Chatham).

What else is there to say at this point? The series looks great, sounds great (they used the same composer as the Clone Wars and Rebels, so it links even more!) and there are some genuinely interesting side plots and the core plot itself is great, if not left a little wide-open due to this being a part of a great whole. I wasn’t sure how making a sequel to Rebels in live action would work, but somehow they pulled it off…

Overall Thoughts:

Thrawn in live action! I imagine if I’d read the books in the 90s like I very nearly did this would’ve meant a lot more to me… oh well, still great to see though!

Ahsoka manages to somehow be a good follow up to Rebels and a great Star Wars story by itself, though I imagine those not familiar with Rebels may have been lost, while me as someone who is intimately familiar with the stand-out series had to impatiently tap his fingers for the first few episodes while they tried to get people caught up. That all being said though the latter half of the series was great and has me genuinely excited for where all these New Republic shows are going…

While Ahsoka and Huyang make their way to the other galaxy via the mouth of a star whale Sabine heads off to search for Ezra, with Baylan and Shin in hot pursuit. She comes across a race of small and cute snail-like people and they lead her to Ezra (played absolutely perfectly by Eman Esfandi, seriously out of all the live action versions of Rebels characters he does the best job mimicking the personality, vocals and even mannerisms of his character) Their reunion is eventually cut short by an attack by Shin and some raiders (Baylen says his goodbyes to his apprentice because he has his own journey to go on) but they’re rescued by the arriving Ahsoka. This leads to the big final showdown between three… well, two and a half Jedi in Ahsoka, Ezra and Sabine heading off to stop Thrawn and the various Nightsisters / Night Mothers from getting back to the main galaxy.

They’ve even got the two little scars on Ezra’s cheek, that’s attention to detail!

The finale was great and saw Ahsoka take out a now Night Mother’d Elsbeth while Sabine and Ezra had to deal with an army of undead storm troopers. Eza manages to get onto Thrawn’s ship thanks to Sabine finally managing to tap into the Force but showing new-found trust in her teacher she stays behind to help Ahsoka, meaning by the end of the series Ahsoka, Sabine and Huyang are trapped in another galaxy while Ezra makes it back home, meeting Hera in a nice little moment (which included Hera’s droid Chopper, who I haven’t mentioned, not that he did much…) Meanwhile Baylan stands atop a statue of The Father, along with carvings of the other Mortis Gods (see The Clone Wars for further information!) and looks off to the horizon where something is shining… Again, so gutted this storyline either has to be dropped or someone has to somehow take over the role that in just one short series he made his own in such a great way. I guess time will tell!