Star Wars Rebels: The Complete Season Three

[Michael Scott]

Star Wars Rebels: The Complete Season Three



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:



​

Movie
Like many, I was GRAVELY disappointed when Disney decided to cut short the fantastic Star Wars: The Clone Wars back when they bought all the rights from Lucas. The Clone Wars was the best thing to come to Star Wars until Rogue One came along. The show was a bit kiddy at times, but it explored the recesses of Anakin and his turn to the dark side that Lucas could only DREAM of in his standalone films. After season six was cut short and left for dead, we heard rumblings that Disney was going to be releasing it’s OWN show. A move that left me feeling very bitter and soured to the changeover, as I envisioned them making it some Disney Princess money grab. Instead what we got was a highly intelligent show that felt so much like the original trilogy (due to being only a few years prior to A New Hope) that I was instantly engrossed. The first season had a few hiccups and was only about 13 episodes long, but season two hit it’s stride and benefited GREATLY from having James Earl Jones voice Darth Vader as the main villain.

Season three actually picks up a good while after the stunning end to the second season, with the Jedi Kanan (Freddie Prinze Jr.) now blinded by his encounter with Darth Maul, and Ezra (Taylor Gray) taking a more active role. With Ahsoka gone, Hera is now the leader of the rebel cell, and is holed up with the main rebellion leadership on Atollon. Ezra has gained so much in power over the year or so since season 2 ended, but with his power comes a bit of a hidden price. He’s been using the Sith holocron that Maul had with him to learn new powers and new abilities that Kanan has been neglecting. Something which is turning him just a hint darker than expected. Like most of these animated shows, Kanan breaks out of his pouting pity part and learns to adapt to his lack of sight, focusing on using the force as his eyes and ears, while Ezra has to learn how to balance his new found abilities with the light side of the force.

While the rebels are scurrying around gaining new forces and new weapons, a new threat has entered into the fray. With Darth Vader seemingly gone after his battle with Ahsoka back at the Sith temple, the emperor has sent in one of his greatest assets (and a complete nerd fest for all of us who grew up reading Timothy Zahn’s Star Wars novels), Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen, the brother of famed actor Mads Mikkelsen). Thrawn is perhaps the single greatest military strategist the Empire has ever known, and he gets to show his prowess by playing a long game the entire season. No matter what battle the heroes get to win, it’s always obvious that Thrawn is playing at something greater. Twisting and guiding their actions, much like a rat in a maze, towards an end game that only he can see.

While Vader’s presence is sadly missed, the addition of Thrawn is a fantastic choice. He fits into the Star Wars canon well without impeding on our memories of classic villains from the original trilogy, and his less visceral style makes for a nice change of pace from Vader’s “bull in a china shop” method of chasing the rebels. While Thrawn is great, it’s nice to see the characters get a bit of a maturation process as well. Ezra is definitely older and more mature physically. His newfound powers give him an edge from the bumbling child of the first couple of seasons, and Kanan’s twist of fate allows him to mature past his “run and hide” persona of the past. Both are more battle hardened, and have a jaded side to them that adds a nice flair to the show.

Of all the characters, it’s interesting to watch Hera and Sabine take a more active role in the series. Hera gets a more prominent role in the alliance leadership, and soon is taking charge of battle operations in ways that even outrank Kanan. Sabine actually gets one of the biggest character arcs of the series as she battles her Mandalorian past and comes into contact with the darksaber and the force itself. Not to mention that the show is definitely tying itself into Rogue One and A New Hope as we see Saw Gerrera, Mon Montham, Obi Wan and a few other well known characters as the series begins the approach to the final season.




Rating:

Rated TV-Y7




Video:

Disney always does great work with their animated shows, and Star Wars Rebels is a great example of their dedication to great looking encodes. The show is known for it’s odd style of animation, but even so, the animation that is shown is drawn well and full of vibrant colors and textures. The lightsabers are stunningly brilliant with all sorts of blaster bolts, alien worlds and the grays of the X-wings and other space ships to compliment the rich colorings. Blacks are deep and inky and maintains a very strong level of shadow detailing. There’s some crush here and there along with some color banding, but it isn’t that noticeable compared to other animated show. Fine detailing for everything else is magnificent, with every line and every computer animated featuring being almost flawless, with no signs of jaggies or other digital imperfections. It’s a nice looking encode once more, and I certainly have little to complain about.





Audio:

' The third season of Rebels follows a pattern Disney has displayed in the animated Star Wars universe ever since it took over for the 5th season of Clone Wars. That is, using lossy 5.1 Dolby Digital audio instead of the full DTS-HD MA (or Dolby TrueHD) lossless audio. The series has always sounded a bit thin and anemic in the lfe department, but this season is noticeably so. I was actually going over to my sub and checking to make sure activity was going to it, because it pretty much didn’t light up more than a handful of times during the series. I mean this seriously too. I was watching my amp lights and except for an explosion here, and the use of force powers, my amp lights stayed dead as door nail (at least for my subs). Surrounds are still active quite a bit with the sounds of X-wings, TIE’s and other assorted space ships, and the lightsaber hums are fully of energy. The only problem is that everything is rather “thin”, if you know what I mean. It’s still a good track, but just suffers from being a bit too laid back for a Star Wars show.








Extras:

• Return To Mandalore - Explore where Mandalore fits within the Empire's regime – and whether Sabine can unite her people against the Imperial forces.
• Thrawn: A Legend Reborn - Learn Thrawn's significance in Star Wars lore, and what the future may hold for this memorable villain.
• Apprentices to Outcasts: Kenobi And Maul - Track two adversaries who've clashed throughout Star Wars history, and find out why the time was right to conclude their story.
• The Original Rebel: Saw Gerrera Returns – Extended - Meet the Original Rebel. This exclusive extended version features Forest Whitaker discussing the character he brings to life in both Rebels and Rogue One.
• Five Audio Commentaries - Featuring Dave Filoni (Executive Producer), Justin Ridge (Supervising Director), Kilian Plunkett (Art Director), Keith Kellogg (Animation Supervisor) and Joel Aron (CG Supervisor: Lighting & FX)

Final Score: ​

Star Wars Rebels: The Complete Season Three is a worthy addition to the Star Wars universe. It was riding REALLY high after having Darth Vader appear as the recurring villain in the previous season, and while casual fans may not find the transition to Grand Admiral Thrawn AS exciting, Star Wars nerds from back in the day will know the terror of the blue skinned strategist and revel with how well he does at turning things for a loop. I’m sad to see the show go next year, but still ready and willing to sit down and watch the final season as it starts to tie things together before Rogue One/A New Hope. Audio is only OK, but video is excellent and the extras are even better than the previous years. Still recommended as a fun watch.



Technical Specifications:

Starring: Freddie Prinze Jr., Vanessa Marshall, Steve Blum, Taylor Gray
Created by: Simon Kinberg, Carrie Beck, Dave Filoni
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 AVC
Audio: English: DD 5.1, French, German DD 5.1, Spanish DD 2.0
Studio: Disney/Buena Vista
Rated: TV-14
Runtime: 485 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: August 29th, 2017

Recommendation: Good Watch

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. I enjoy this series.. I agree, good watch.

 

[Michael Scott]

and here's some quick behind the scenes clips to tease you just a tad

 

[tripplej]

Great videos. Thanks for sharing.

 

[mechman]

I watch all of these since they dumped Clone Wars. The kids and I started out watching them and now it's just down to me.