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From what I saw, and I'll fully admit that I didn't see the whole series - my opinion is purely based from clips I've seen uploaded in Youtube:

Its baffling because it's a lot of years to pass with the Empire seemingly doing nothing in retaliation, which is weird given than the Rebel Alliance was on the back foot for most of the Galactic Civil War well after the events of the final episode. Its weird. Its convenient for the characters and the end of the series but it also just kind of boggles that the Galactic Empire didn't bother for what must have been at least 5 years to put down a planet in rebellion.

I do ultimately think Rebels peaked with the Season 2 finale, which ironically, was something of a Clone Wars finale more than anything to do with Rebels. The show definitely has its moments, but that was one of the last times it really showed its potential.

The time travel bit is actually one of the most compelling additions the show has brought to Star Wars. Not so much the time travel itself, but the potential of the world between worlds being a cognitive explanation of the Force itself the works way better than Midichloreans. That episode is the one reason I'm looking forward to a sequel series and the potential to explore those ideas further.

The Emperor getting directly involved stands out as odd, but at least there's reason behind it. I felt like this subplot got massively rushed though and there was definitely room for 3-4 episodes involving the Emperor's knowledge of the world between and his efforts to enter it.

Ultimately, I love the characters. Sabine, Chopper, and Hera in particular stand out as some of the best additions since the glory days of the EU. Its a good little side story that showed the potential of conflicts centered away from the original films; even if it itself never fully realized its own potential.


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 LordofHats wrote:
Its baffling because it's a lot of years to pass with the Empire seemingly doing nothing in retaliation, which is weird given than the Rebel Alliance was on the back foot for most of the Galactic Civil War well after the events of the final episode. Its weird. Its convenient for the characters and the end of the series but it also just kind of boggles that the Galactic Empire didn't bother for what must have been at least 5 years to put down a planet in rebellion.

Not much reason to. The world itself didn't really have anything left to offer. They'd largely exploited its resources on the TIE Defender facility and the Jedi temple collapsed with most of its valuables shot off into space. What's left is... nothing important really. It would be like declaring Tantooine "in rebellion". Good for them, I guess, but nobody really cares.

Sorry that just doesn't mesh with the Empire we know XD We're talking about an organization that blew up entire cities just because it was convenient to have them gone, and we're supposed to belief they allowed Lothal to stand out as a beacon of Rebel success and Imperial failure because it wasn't worth it? I just don't buy it.

I also agree the whole bits with the Temple and the World Between Worlds were interesting but Rushed. I like how we've now retconned Clone Wars and the Father, Son, and Daughter are now important figures instead of three eccentric weirdos XD I didn't mind the time travel pull to save Ashoka that much. Actually kind of neat narratively speaking if only because I actually kind of like her character at this point and would like to see more of her.

Overall I enjoyed it, both the finale and the series overall, but honestly I was hoping the actual, you know, Rebels would be a bigger focus. They got the one solid arc, and then just shuffled the Alliance off to the side and went back to banter and Force mysticism. I like Force mysticism don't get me wrong, but it's possible this was the last "OT-era" story we'll be getting for a good long while, but it kinda feels like the OT was just a backdrop used while they set up a post-OT force user storyline for the next show.

The events of Rogue One had to have taken place shortly after Lothal was freed. Yes, the Empire lost an entire fleet of Star Destroyers, an Admiral, a production facility and a ton of ground forces on Lothal, but after the battle of Scariff, their focus was on finding the hidden rebel base...there's no way they'd send resources out to Lothal just to 'punish' them for what the Rebel Alliance did. After the Death Star was destroyed, the Empire was focused on hunting down and wiping out the rebels.

That's the thing about the Rebel Alliance. To the Empire, they are a terrorist organization. So yes, they managed to successfully destroy all the Imperial forces on Lothal, but what should the Empire do to retaliate? Reoccupy Lothal? What for? As LunarSol pointed out, there really isn't any further reason/point to occupying the planet once the Jedi temple was destroyed and its fuel depot was blown up. Should they have just gone back and killed the general populace? Why, as they were not to blame for the actions of the rebels.

So in reality, the Empire trying to find the rebel alliance and annihilate them all, *was* the response to the actions on Lothal and Scariff.

It is perfectly plausible that the Empire never returned to Lothal because there wasn't really any reason to.

Oh, I just read an article that pointed out something cool I didn't fully twig on during Sabine's end recap - they've basically retconed Captain Rex into the OT as the white-bearded Rebel Commando on Endor, which is a nice wee nod to the character.

chromedog wrote:That said, "Star Wars live action TV show" has been vaporware since the late 90s.

Isn't Rebels made out of the ashes of that idea (didn't they have a few seasons of scripts ready to go)? I thought the live action show was still just too expensive so they went with the cartoons after the Clone Wars one did well enough.

Mario wrote:

chromedog wrote:That said, "Star Wars live action TV show" has been vaporware since the late 90s.

Isn't Rebels made out of the ashes of that idea (didn't they have a few seasons of scripts ready to go)? I thought the live action show was still just too expensive so they went with the cartoons after the Clone Wars one did well enough.

Aye, but that was before they had Disney money, and before Disney wanted to become major players in streaming making them desirous of branded live-action shows that'll get folk subscribing. I don't doubt that this time it'll happen - whether it ends up being good or not is another thing entirely, you can do a lot more fantastical stuff for the same or less money with animation than with live-action.

I happened to think the finale was really well done. They had a really difficult task of trying to make a scenario that was important enough that it gave a point to the entire series (Ezra's arc) but not significant enough to warrant being mentioned in the original trilogy. The liberation of Lothal was a really good compromise on both these things. While the hyperspace beasties coming back to save the day was quite contrived, having both Ezra and Thrawn pulled to some unknown place in the galaxy was a great way of explaining why they didn't take part in the original trilogy while also leaving those characters available to come back and continue their stories in the post-RotJ era.

 LordofHats wrote:
Its baffling because it's a lot of years to pass with the Empire seemingly doing nothing in retaliation, which is weird given than the Rebel Alliance was on the back foot for most of the Galactic Civil War well after the events of the final episode. Its weird. Its convenient for the characters and the end of the series but it also just kind of boggles that the Galactic Empire didn't bother for what must have been at least 5 years to put down a planet in rebellion.

Lothal stopped mattering.

Not long after this the Rebels stole the Death Star plans, then blew up the Death Star, then Palpatine's attention was drawn by this 'Luke Skywalker' person.

So there was no counter-attack, because who cares about a worthless world like Lothal anymore?

My brain stalled on whales and has not restarted.

 Yodhrin wrote:
Oh, I just read an article that pointed out something cool I didn't fully twig on during Sabine's end recap - they've basically retconed Captain Rex into the OT as the white-bearded Rebel Commando on Endor, which is a nice wee nod to the character.

That's been a thing since Rex joined the Rebels.

 skyth wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
Oh, I just read an article that pointed out something cool I didn't fully twig on during Sabine's end recap - they've basically retconed Captain Rex into the OT as the white-bearded Rebel Commando on Endor, which is a nice wee nod to the character.

That's been a thing since Rex joined the Rebels.

That's been a fan theory since Rex joined the Rebels, now he's explicitly confirmed as having taken part in the battle on Endor.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Its baffling because it's a lot of years to pass with the Empire seemingly doing nothing in retaliation, which is weird given than the Rebel Alliance was on the back foot for most of the Galactic Civil War well after the events of the final episode. Its weird. Its convenient for the characters and the end of the series but it also just kind of boggles that the Galactic Empire didn't bother for what must have been at least 5 years to put down a planet in rebellion.

Lothal stopped mattering.

Not long after this the Rebels stole the Death Star plans, then blew up the Death Star, then Palpatine's attention was drawn by this 'Luke Skywalker' person.

So there was no counter-attack, because who cares about a worthless world like Lothal anymore?

This,

Rogue One did a seriously good job of showing just how much of a tipping point the battle of Yavin IV was. Safe in his smugness of the Death Star (fear will keep the local systems in line....) the Emperor dissolved the Senate, and dropped his mask. The genie was out the bottle, enabling the Rebellion to grow as others woke up to what The Empire was really about.

 Yodhrin wrote:

 skyth wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
Oh, I just read an article that pointed out something cool I didn't fully twig on during Sabine's end recap - they've basically retconed Captain Rex into the OT as the white-bearded Rebel Commando on Endor, which is a nice wee nod to the character.

That's been a thing since Rex joined the Rebels.

That's been a fan theory since Rex joined the Rebels, now he's explicitly confirmed as having taken part in the battle on Endor.

It's also been something Dave Filoni and the Rebel's production team have wanted for a while. Glad they finally got the go-ahead to softly make it canon.

Jon Favreau is now signed on to direct the live-action Star Wars TV show.

It popped up on the official Star Wars Twitter feed this morning.

I'm convinced Lothal was on Tarkin's to-do list after assuming command of the Death Star (technically worthless but likely a sore point for him, especially after he backed Thrawn'sTIE Defender program) but it kept getting bumped back by more pressing targets.

One neat little thing I noticed was that whenever the Rebellion outright gets involved, they tended to get the crap kicked out of them - which dovetails nicely with Scarif being the first battle the Rebel Alliance wins against the Empire. It's especially noticeable with the emphasis they place on the Rebellion proper not being involved in the finale. Nice touch!

I wouldn't exactly say that the Rebels won the Battle of Scarif. They achieved their strategic objective (stealing the Death Star plans) but suffered a crushing tactical defeat, with their ground forces annihilated entirely and their fleet suffering heavy casualties.

The New Hope title crawl calls it a victory, I'll call it a victory :p

touche

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
I wouldn't exactly say that the Rebels won the Battle of Scarif. They achieved their strategic objective (stealing the Death Star plans) but suffered a crushing tactical defeat, with their ground forces annihilated entirely and their fleet suffering heavy casualties.

A good chunk of their fleet escaped though, and really I think proving they could achieve their strategic and operational goals was more significant that losing to the Empire on a tactical level (which arguably they didn't). At Scariff the rebels fought and held their own, something no one prior to thought they could achieve. They defeated the Empire's orbital defenses at Scariff, which was a tactical victory, and were then trapped by reinforcements which had more to do with the innate limitations of the Rebellion on an operational level than anything.

The Empire destroyed some ships and their own information center and still lost the Death Star what, a week later? So yeah I think it's fair to say the Rebels won at Scarif, and with the gains that eventually came from the Battle of Yavin it can't even be called a Pyrrhic victory.

It's absolutely a victory. They got in, got what they came for, and slipped through the Empire's fingers.

For the first time, they showed The Empire to be flawed - to not be all powerful.

From that single, successful action, the fall of The Empire was seemingly assured.

Rogue One also clearly shows The Empire as using heavy handed enforcement - roughing up the citizenry, developing super-weapons with which to maintain control. Indeed, it's not until the successful test firing of the Deathstar on Jedha that The Emperor dares to dissolve the senate. That's the point he crossed the dubious line between being a strong leader, and an outright dictator - ceding control of systems to crony Governors he himself selects.

As Tarkin says, the last vestiges of the Old Republic have been swept away. A relatively throwaway line originally, given a far clearer and worrying meaning thanks to Rogue One.

Seriously. He thought he could get away with because of the Deathstar. When you've got that sort of power, and a Starfleet to dwarf all others, who is going to successfully challenge you?

Then, suddenly, a young upstart and would-be-Jedi goes and blows up your new toy.

As I said in a post above, and few times before, you can't put that cat back in the box. He's played his hand, and lost the bet. Not only has it be proven, twice in rapid succession, that they can be beaten, but the destruction of Alderaan would've caused galactic outrage, only strengthening the ascendant Rebellion.

Large as it is, the Imperial Fleet is finite. And it's tactics depend largely on overwhelming force (hence TIE Fighters are largely disposable. Plenty more where they came from). But if you've got civil strife breaking out right across the Galaxy - and in a time frame where many of the weapons and craft of the last civil war are still largely serviceable, your fleet is going to be stretched thin. And if you can't contain it, that discontent and rebellion is only going to spread.

So here's to the crew of Rogue One. The pebble that started the avalanche.


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And thinking about the Phantom's contribution....

Well, they showed up the possibilities when you've got active cells, otherwise largely unrelated to the wider Rebellion, dotted about.

Planning a major offensive with your surprisingly large fleet? Get your cells to cause distractions. Get that enemy fleet chasing shadows as much as possible. Don't let them concentrate their power in anyone area for constant fear of attack, and the need to at least appear on top of things.

And again, make good use of Veterans from the Clone Wars - Saw Gerrera, Rex, Cham Syndulla, other Clones - thousands upon thousands, if not millions across the Galaxy. All experienced in war, all used to defending their homes. Just need to find the ones none-too-keen on The Empire.

Annoyingly, BT seem to be taking their time making episodes available - only the first two of the second half of the season are available so far.

Same on Amazon.

Caved in and bought Season 4, But last I looked only have access to the first half :(


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Spoke to soon. Episode 10 is up, so guess it’ll be weekly instalments now!

It really seems like the end of the series was setting up for a movie (or if this were an anime some OVAs).

Going into the second half of season 4 I really expected them to axe more characters than they did.

Not saying it was my favourite part of the S4 finale, but it does somewhat make sense and isn't horribly out of line with existing canon.