Raylan Targaryen
Member
because the "other Mandalore dude" is hated even more than Sabine
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Star Wars Rebels Season 3 |OT| Dark Forces Rising
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because the "other Mandalore dude" is hated even more than Sabine
You're right. I mainly meant that, by putting Obi-Wan and Anakin centre stage, even though they go through quite a bit of development over the course of the series, the show has a stronger anchor to start off from. You (and more importantly, the writers) immediately know who they are, where they come from, where they're going, what they do (basically what their job is) and what the context of it all is. They're major players in that entire war in the movies as well, and that puts a lot of the early puzzle pieces into place already.
Of course, Rebels can claim the same in some way - it obviously borrows from the setting and context of the OT, but as for the drive of the story they don't have much more than 'a bunch of rebels fight the evil empire' to start off from. The characters are all completely new, so they need to be different while not being too different (hence them all basically being basic riffs on existing characters and relations), and that doesn't make them as immediately compelling as the main players in Clone Wars. You knew the players in Clone Wars and why you should care about them - there's 6 movies telling you why. There already is some investment. Now let's see what else there is to do with them.
Of course, my argument immediately falls apart because it assumes everyone was super invested in the PT characters, and, well, you know. Still, I meant this mainly from a writer's perspective. The Rebels characters (especially at the start) felt to me to be obviously designed to fill an archetype (or an alternative to the original Millennium Falcon crew) rather than characters being presented because there was something interesting to tell about them. If you get what I mean. It's late here and I'm rambling.
Also, just to be clear, I don't think a spinoff show like this needs movie characters in the lead to be interesting. I'm just trying to say that, on Rebels specifically, it felt like it took them way too long to figure out who their characters actually were and why they needed them all on the show.
phazedplasma
Member
Yep, gotta agree 100%.
This show is the definition of mediocre because of the characters.
I tend to agree with Bobby that the problem might be too many main characters. But that doesn't even mean you need to get rid of any of them to fix it. Is it really necessary to develop Zeb or Chopper beyond their current roles? Zeb is the muscle and Chop is the comic relief. Do they really need to be anymore than that? What is Chewie in the original trilogy other than the lovable muscle and co-pilot? We don't really learn much more about him than that. Zeb doesn't need to be anymore than that either, and we certainly don't need full episodes devoted to Chopper's backstory. He is the cranky asshole who is nonetheless loyal to the crew and that's really all he needs to be.
The problem with the single episode stories is not that it hinders character development, but that it keeps the stakes low. There is no time for the heroes to fail and suffer the consequences of that failure. Compare the Antilles Extraction in Rebels to the Slaves of the Republic arc in the Clone Wars. In Rebels, Sabine meets Wedge, IMMEDIATELY gains his trust and they attempt to flee. Now, they do get caught but they free themselves again within about 90 seconds of on-screen time. By episode's end, the heroes have won the day. In the Slaves of the Republic, the second episode ends with the heroes on the ropes. Kenobi is shipped off to the slave camp, Ahsoka is suspended in a cage above the city and Anakin is a captive of the Queen. The next episode then takes the time to dwell on the heroes' failure. The stakes are higher and while we know the heroes will win in the end, we still want to tune in to see what it will cost them.
The single episode stories also means the pacing is often a full on sprint, start to finish. No time to linger or explore, not just failures, but relationships and successes. There are exceptions, of course. I think they have done an excellent job with Kanan, and his relationship with Hera in particular is very well done. But this last episode could have used some more time developing the relationship between Sabine and her brother, might have made the choice he is forced to make near the end a lot more interesting.
The problem with the single episode stories is not that it hinders character development, but that it keeps the stakes low. There is no time for the heroes to fail and suffer the consequences of that failure. Compare the Antilles Extraction in Rebels to the Slaves of the Republic arc in the Clone Wars. In Rebels, Sabine meets Wedge, IMMEDIATELY gains his trust and they attempt to flee. Now, they do get caught but they free themselves again within about 90 seconds of on-screen time. By episode's end, the heroes have won the day. In the Slaves of the Republic, the second episode ends with the heroes on the ropes. Kenobi is shipped off to the slave camp, Ahsoka is suspended in a cage above the city and Anakin is a captive of the Queen. The next episode then takes the time to dwell on the heroes' failure. The stakes are higher and while we know the heroes will win in the end, we still want to tune in to see what it will cost them.
The single episode stories also means the pacing is often a full on sprint, start to finish. No time to linger or explore, not just failures, but relationships and successes. There are exceptions, of course. I think they have done an excellent job with Kanan, and his relationship with Hera in particular is very well done. But this last episode could have used some more time developing the relationship between Sabine and her brother, might have made the choice he is forced to make near the end a lot more interesting.
TDLink
Member
I would agree except that they -are- treated as primary characters are much as Hera or Sabine or w/e. And they do very much so get episodes centered on them. If we don't care about them beyond their broad archetypes, those episodes where they take center stage are extremely boring and we just end up not caring. The one Zeb episode that avoided this was when he was trapped in the Ice Cave with Kallus...because it spent time to actually develop those characters thanks to the situation.
I'd also argue that Zeb's role as the muscle is incredibly marginalized whenever Rex is around, since that is also his role. Except Rex is a much better developed character who we care about more thanks to The Clone Wars.
This all is exactly my point. 20 minute episodes do not allow stories and characters to come even close to touching the complexity that Clone Wars (or most TV shows) enjoy. There's just no room to breathe or tell anything other than the plot, and because of that time limitation, the plot is mandated to typically be pretty generic and bland. Which leads to the entire show being mediocre.
Spoken like a person who has never watched Batman the Animated Series
Or Arrested Development.
The complexity (both in plots and character arcs) was insane on that show. Which was part of the joke, of course.
I don't think 20 minutes is the issue, I don't think the number of characters is the issue. It's what they decide to do with that time - the same old derivative stories we've had 100 times. It's not that the characters are bland because they burn through plots through quickly, it's because the plots themselves don't give them anything interesting to do. You can solve that, even without changing the 20 minute mostly strictly episodic arc. Just write something deeper.
Of course, this show is still meant to be an easily digestible saturday morning children's cartoon. Nothing wrong with that. But, for large parts of it, simply not very engaging for older audiences.
To be perfectly honest, outside of a couple of stories I don't think Clone Wars fared much better at this. They did do the bigger character arcs better though - at least in a couple of stories. But there was a lot that frankly wasn't adding much to that, same as with Rebels. As much praise as CW's longer arcs are getting now, there were plenty of stories that needed to be shorter.
Mind you, I do think Clone Wars was helped because it was able to jump to different lead characters and storytelling styles more easily week to week. The variety was able to hide a lot of Rebels' problems. In Rebels, even though the focus can shift, we're pretty much always stuck with the same people (especially because a lot of them - Hera, Zeb, Sabine) get ignored for long stretches.
The complexity (both in plots and character arcs) was insane on that show. Which was part of the joke, of course.
I don't think 20 minutes is the issue, I don't think the number of characters is the issue. It's what they decide to do with that time - the same old derivative stories we've had 100 times. It's not that the characters are bland because they burn through plots through quickly, it's because the plots themselves don't give them anything interesting to do. You can solve that, even without changing the 20 minute mostly strictly episodic arc. Just write something deeper.
Of course, this show is still meant to be an easily digestible saturday morning children's cartoon. Nothing wrong with that. But, for large parts of it, simply not very engaging for older audiences.
To be perfectly honest, outside of a couple of stories I don't think Clone Wars fared much better at this. They did do the bigger character arcs better though - at least in a couple of stories. But there was a lot that frankly wasn't adding much to that, same as with Rebels. As much praise as CW's longer arcs are getting now, there were plenty of stories that needed to be shorter.
Mind you, I do think Clone Wars was helped because it was able to jump to different lead characters and storytelling styles more easily week to week. The variety was able to hide a lot of Rebels' problems. In Rebels, even though the focus can shift, we're pretty much always stuck with the same people (especially because a lot of them - Hera, Zeb, Sabine) get ignored for long stretches.
TDLink
Member
I loved Batman The Animated Series. You completely missed my post earlier calling it out as a 20 minute action cartoon that gets it right. But as I said there, the reason it works is that there is a focus on only Batman and Robin really (plus the antagonist of the episode). So that's 2-3 given characters to really deal with compared to 7+. Beyond that there's also an inherent knowledge of Batman that everyone knows coming into the series, which none of these characters in Rebels have.
Unfortunately, we may simply be expecting too much from a show that airs on Disney XD. Hopefully, whatever this new project Filoni is working on will be geared toward an older audience.
TDLink
Member
While that's likely true, it's the show that literally replaced The Clone Wars from the same team, so there's a reason expectations are set at that higher bar. We all know TCW was meant to go a couple more seasons and much of those planned arcs have been put out into the ether since it was cancelled. It's incredibly disappointing those seasons will never be completed and instead we're left with this much lesser show, even with its moments of brilliance.
Well, iirc Clone Wars would have been cancelled anyway. It wasn't the Disney deal (or the need for Rebels) that stopped it, viewing figures and home media sales were dropping and simply weren't enough to justify the series anymore. Dave Filoni talked about it in some interviews. Even if the Disney deal and the new movies didn't come around, Clone Wars would have quit at around the same point - the new movies coming up just made it easier for them to immediately move on to Rebels instead of having to pitch that for a couple of years. So in a way Rebels existing is a bit of a blessing for the part of the team that managed to stick around. I'm not surprised they went for something a bit more accessible for younger audiences, both in terms of plot and violence. They needed to reach a wider audience, and Rebels is certainly easier for parents of young children to be okay with.
But yeah, I get the disappointment the TCW fans must feel.
TDLink
Member
This isn't true at all. The series was planned to go 8 seasons and the rest of S6 and part of S7 were already in production when the cancellation happened...and it only happened after the Disney sale. TCW was a big hit on Cartoon Network.
Nah it's true. Yeah more episodes were planned (as is always the case when a series gets prematurely cancelled), but this was something Dave Filoni talked about himself at one of the SW Celebration talks. The show was costing more than it was making, and even with Lucas still heavily funding the show at that point, that hit a limit. It was an incredibly expensive show. They wanted more seasons, but they just couldn't do it. The timing of the Disney sale was coincidental according to Filoni, they (and Disney XD/the new heads at Lucasfilm) would have been happy to continue if it was still as economically sound as earlier in the show's life. He talked about this specifically because he was asked about the idea that Clone Wars had to go because Rebels had to be a thing (or because Disney would have wanted to go in a different direction) once too often, and he wanted to set the record straight - if the show was still profitable they would have gone on.
To be fair, it's not unusual for a show to lose part of the audience the longer they go on. Happens almost every time. Merchandising/Home media sales just drop, and this can be especially difficult with (again, incredibly expensive) children's shows that depend so heavily on that stuff. Kids just grow up quickly and get interested in other stuff.
The show was losing money. Only reason they stopped it and went for something new. It wasn't Disney or Kathleen Kennedy stepping in, or them wanting something new to go along the new movies. That was the fan narrative for a long time, but according to Filoni himself (unless you want to believe that was marketing speak, but you don't often hear marketing speak that involves admitting your product wasn't making enough money) it wasn't true - the costs were higher than the earnings, and they couldn't stretch it further than they had. Remember, a single episode could cost north of $1 million. That's pretty insane for a show like that. Even with George Lucas putting in cash from underneath his couch cushions. You still need to keep the networks and merchandising people and all the other tangentially related people happy. The axe had been hanging over the show's neck for a while before the plug got pulled (and it was at risk long before the Disney deal got made)
Remember that that last set of episodes only got released because Netflix was willing to fund the completion of the ones that were already almost finished. They didn't see a profit in doing more of them (and neither did Disney XD/Lucasfilm). Like Filoni argued, why would they have cancelled a show if it was proven to be successful and still earning money? Especially given how difficult it is to start up a new show compared to keeping a profitable one running. It's just a business in the end. Disney buying Lucasfilm/TFA coming up had nothing to do with it, the only effect that had was that they could keep on a large part of the team to start working on Rebels immediately instead of a couple of years later with a mostly new team.
Sabine finally getting decent characterisation and then being put on a bus shit me to no end.
Because lately it often has been. People (read: arseholes on the internet) single out Mary Sues for criticism while leaving Gary Stu's untouched. There was a lot of "Rey is this good because she's a girl and SJWs are ruining everything" from the depths of the internet. What they fail to realise is that if Rey was a white dude the character would probably be exactly the same because the prevalence of Mary Sues isn't due to an agenda, it's due to current problems in the way Hollywood writes movies.
Razgriz-Specter
Member
Thats true.
Twilight Gap
Member
This. The biggest casuality of this is the cinematography. The camera doesn't linger on the background, it doesn't explore the setting, and it rarely takes time to establish a mood. Everything is just quick quick quick to meet the run time and shove a bunch of one liners into it like every other shitty cartoon on TV.
TCW had incredibly nuanced directing, at times surpassing the movies themselves.
This shows is not Batman considering he problem with Rebels is that it's rushed a lot of time it either needs story arcs or better writing. Especially since a lot of the episodes beside the big ones tend to be the very definition of filler.
Re-watching the early episodes makes me think they didn't know where Callus' character was going to go, and made him too much of a cartoon villain.
Him casually murdering that stormtrooper in the pilot episode and revelling in having ordered wiping out the Lasat just don't really fit anymore.
Him casually murdering that stormtrooper in the pilot episode and revelling in having ordered wiping out the Lasat just don't really fit anymore.
Hey guys, just a quick question. I just finished season 1 of this, and I want to know if watching Clone Wars before continuing with season 2 would be a good idea for maximum enjoyment. I plan on watching it anyway, but I wanna know if I can watch it concurrently with S2 or if it'd be better to get it out of the way before S2.
Thanks!
Thanks!
Watch and finish Clone Wars first
TDLink
Member
Definitely watch it before season 2.
Yes, you'll want to do that since there are a lot of callbacks to TCW post-season 1 of Rebels.
Razgriz-Specter
Member
Just an FYI for any Chromecast/Android TV users: all seasons of Rebels are currently 50% off on Google Play. It also stacks with a 50% off any single TV season offer they've got going on. I ended up getting season 3 in HD for about £3.
Be warned that the seasons 1 & 2 intro episodes are sold separately for some daft reason.
Be warned that the seasons 1 & 2 intro episodes are sold separately for some daft reason.
Lifejumper
Member
Nah. Season 4 is already in production or almost finished.
The "this is the last season of Rebels" rumors have popped up every couple of months for the past 3 years. There is never anything to them
New episode preview "Through Imperial Eyes" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY2_qUEIzvU
Principate
Saint Titanfall
Well yeah but this wasn't particular due to horrible viewership. The show wasn't all the profitable from the onset nor was it designed to be. It was literally George Lucas love child that he wasn't too fussed about the economics of. That's why it looked so good and still does in comparison to rebels and 99% of kids shows. The first 3 episodes were converted into a worldwide cinema release. It was a graciously expensive cartoon
There's nothing to suggest Lucas himself was planning to cancel the show any time soon. I mean the show was canned mid season with episodes still being made.
There's absolutely no way that was the original plan.
Well, all I can tell you without repeating myself at this point is that Dave Filoni himself said the show would have been cancelled at that point anyway, and that the Disney deal didn't have anything to do with it. Loss of viewership and merchandising/home media sales were the reason, nothing else. In the end I'm going with his word, you know?
It's not unusual for new episodes to still be in production when a show gets cancelled early. Especially in animation, where episodes need an extremely long time in the cooker. It's not exclusive to Clone Wars and not really indicative of anything. The fact that, after the Disney deal, Lucasfilm was still willing to complete some of those episodes (when Netflix put up some money) says a lot to that, and if Netflix (or anyone else) would have been willing to invest in it, we would have gotten more. But it just wasn't a realistic option. It wasn't canned mid season, it was canned before that season aired, and those episodes released on Netflix after the fact (under the header 'The Lost Missions' even, because this was post-cancellation). No matter how rich George Lucas was or how much he loved the show, he wasn't going to keep throwing money in a bottomless well. He does push his money around to get some of his passion projects made if nobody's interested (see Red Skies), but if he doesn't find success with it he isn't going to keep doing it indefinitely (and that just wouldn't work at all with how that industry works, since you need to keep the rest of the company and all the related companies happy as well - see all his proposed follow-up projects to Red Skies). That's not even meant as a dig towards George Lucas, that's just how these things work. The fans often tend to simplify these things.
Twilight Gap
Member
TCW's production values were insane. It shouldn't be a surprise they were bleeding money.
I still think it's the best western animation. The only other thing that comes close is Tron Uprising. In a world of obnoxious tween animated slapstick garbage, The Clone Wars was a breath of fresh air and its lows were still pretty high considering that you were watching movie quality animated Star Wars.
edit: The original Clone Wars cartoon was legit too on an action stand point.
I still think it's the best western animation. The only other thing that comes close is Tron Uprising. In a world of obnoxious tween animated slapstick garbage, The Clone Wars was a breath of fresh air and its lows were still pretty high considering that you were watching movie quality animated Star Wars.
edit: The original Clone Wars cartoon was legit too on an action stand point.
Hellwarden
Member
I hope they don't kill off Kallus next episode.
It would be a cheap way to make Thrawn more threatening.
That and Kallus is an interesting character that has a lot of potential.
Twilight Gap
Member
That Rebels budget though
Yeah it's tough at times. The number of times where they're on some basic space base or spaceship with a bunch of grey corridors and rooms - man.
Also I'm still surprised at how bad Yoda looked when he showed up.
Doublesith
Member
About TCW, the show was actually "cancelled" i.e., Cartoon Network had declined to order any more episodes, before the Lucasfilm decision to pull the plug. Even if they had gone ahead with production, they would have had to find another means of distribution for Season 6.
That fact + budget = easy decision to just start over with a new series.
That fact + budget = easy decision to just start over with a new series.
Yup. They were already preparing Rebels when the Disney deal hit, and the Disney deal meant that just got the green light and fast tracked because Disney wanted a Star Wars show on Disney XD. They weren't responsible at all for Clone Wars stopping, they just helped getting Rebels on the air sooner.
Edit: Also don't forget that the Clone Wars cancellation hit early enough for the first 'unmade TCW script in another medium' to be released was the Darth Maul comic, which was under Dark Horse, not Marvel.
I think I've made my point - it wasn't the Disney deal/new movies that was the reason for the TCW cancellation.
Twilight Gap
Member
What if agent Kallus is Canon Kyle?
I think the worst thing for me is how close they were to the end. Seemed like it only had 2 and a half seasons left.
I'm glad we got what we did out of it though.
I love that theme. It's so unsettling
Which is perfect for the episode
And I love how
Yularen acts similar to how he was in The Clone Wars despite the Empire being different and the era being different. Hearing the same voice actor again is great aswell.
Duane Cunningham
Member
Man,
is just the classic example of the guy who stayed at the same job too long.
Well, I guess Anakin kinda is too.
Yularen
Well, I guess Anakin kinda is too.
DangerMouse
Member
Oh good. I need to catch up.
I wanted more grown up Ahsoka kicking ass.
Yeah.
I always found it funny that in the
last season or two of Clone Wars he aged suddenly, despite the whole war being meant to take place over only 3 years
war can be tough. even the US president ages like mad over 4 years
Razgriz-Specter
Member
Oh shit.
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