Star Wars Rebels: The Movie

I finally got to check out the CGI animated movie that kicks off the new Star Wars cartoon series. Often times refereed to as Spark of Rebellion the Rebels movie seems to be on Disney XD constantly. This new series is animated similarly to the most recent Clone Wars show.

Odviosuly this show is aimed a kids, most likely 8-12 year old boys.So I have to give some aspects of the show a pass just because I'm not in the right demographic. Some shows for kids, like the Nickelodeon Turtles are incredible, this show seems okay at best. The movie had a lot of action in it, but not a whole lot of story. Spark of Rebelion does little more than introduce the new characters and have them all coincidentally meet up.

It's hard to identify the "main character" because the show seems to have an ensemble cast, but Ezra, the Force sensitive youngster that has been crafted for the kids to associate with instantly reminded me of Disney's Aladdin. At on point during the movie he was even refereed to as a street rat (just like Aladdin).

Bascially the movie sets up Ezra as a steal to survive kid who meets up with a crew of people, aliens, and droids who act like Robin Hood. These guys steal from the Empire and give food to people displaced by Imperial activities. Most of their adventure in the movie involves the crew trying to free some Wookiee prisoners.

The Crew of heroes that Ezra joins up with includes a human Jedi, an alien tough guy, a female Mandalorian, a female Twi'lek and an astromech droid named Chopper. The Alien, Zeb, looks a lot like a character from some of the early production art for the original Star Wars film.

Zeb, Ezra, and  Kanan

 Things I like about the show...

I like anything that tries to keep the Star Wars brand moving. If you aren't putting out new media the brand is dying. This is a problem with series like GI Joe. Star Wars and Transformers seem to get that.

I loved the music in the show, it was fanastic. It took all its cues from  John William's original Star Wars score. I love hearing those themes.

To go right along with the music, the sound effects also scream Star Wars. The speeder bikes, TIE fighters and blasters all have audio straight from the Lucas Archives. There is something magical about the hum of a speeder bike that takes me back to seeing Return of the Jedi for the first time.

Chopper the astromech droid is entertainig, although his sound effects aren't as enjoyable as R2-D2.

Things I don't like about the show...

I felt like the voice acting was kind of disappointing. Just about every character has a British accent. Pretty much all of the aliens also spoke normal English without even an interesting voice. I understand not wanting to use sub-titles in a kids show, bu don't have the aliens sound like generic British guys just like the imperial officers and heroes.

Multiple times Stormtoopers were called bucket-heads or their helmets were called buckets. I can appreciate having nick names for the bad buys. Cartoons always seem to do that type of thing with their bad guys, but Star Wars never really did it. The Stormtroopers were always shown some level of respect even if they couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. I wish they would just sort of easy in humor like that. If they called them Bucket-heads once during the movie and then slowly brought the term in I probably wouldn't have minded it so much.

There was a scene where a Star Destroyer was hovering within the atmosphere. I understand a large ship sort of floating in space, but it doesn't work at all having a ship "parked" outside a building.

Ezra also seems to be really good at using the Force for someone who has received no training.