Normally, this blogger does not view fan films. This is not because she has a particular animus against fan films in general or in particular; for the most part, these stories simply are not my thing. Same for fan fiction – although I occasionally stumble upon some pieces that I enjoy, this blogger does not seek them out. Fan stories find me, not the other way around.
So when a friend recommended The Old Republic: Rescue Mission to this author, she agreed to take a look at it out of respect for and trust in her compadre. The fact that the film’s story is set in the time of Knights of the Old Republic made settling in to watch it easier, since I was already familiar with two of the main characters and some of the storyline.
Rescue Mission is a fan fiction piece set in the years following the events of the first Knights of the Old Republic video game. Mission, the young Twi’lek street thief, has been captured by Mandalorian bounty hunters on Alderaan. The three hope to use her to draw Revan, the Prodigal Knight, out into the open. Pursuing the Mandos are a group of Alderaanian special forces, who are joined by a pair of Jedi who were already in the system and sensed their need for help.
Some might think the inclusion of Alderaanian warriors is odd. Wasn’t Alderaan a pacifist world? By the time of the Battle of Yavin, it was. Four thousand years earlier, however, Alderaanians still had weapons, as well as standing army and navy. Three hundred years after this story takes place, the Sith tried to take Alderaan, only to be repulsed by Republic and Alderaanian forces.
Three members of one of Australia’s Mandalorain Mercs, a group of fans who make their own Mandalorian armor, play the bounty hunters in this film. Having learned about the Mercs a little while ago, this blogger was able to easily identify them by the high quality of their armor and their fluency with Mando’a. I would almost recommend this video based on their performances alone.
Luckily, there are other reasons to suggest giving it a watch. The film’s director does a stunning job portraying Revan, and the voice actor who speaks the Prodigal Knight’s lines also deserves major kudos. He really captures the charismatic power of the former Sith Lord turned Jedi Knight, delivering his lines without the slightest hitch. I can also say that the fan film is well-choreographed. The effects aren’t bad, despite the fact that the production is definitely low budget, and the lightsaber work is very believable.
Oh, before I forget, there is a mild content warning for this film. The production crew does not shy away from blood and death in this video. While it isn’t particularly graphic, younger viewers might have a bit of a problem with the scenes where characters cough up gobs of blood. Since this is Star Wars and there are lightsabers, we do watch someone get decapitated, too. It isn’t an explicit scene, but a particularly youthful audience may want to be aware of it all the same.
Other than these minor items, I highly recommend giving Rescue Mission a viewing. The story is good, the acting is great, and the Star Wars vibe is strong. What more could a fan ask for?
May the Force be with you, readers!
The Mithril Guardian
The Old Republic: Rescue Mission – (2015) Short Film
Hello, Readers! Given some recent conversations with the girls over at The Elven Padawan, this blogger realized that it might be helpful to post videos and links to information about the original Star Wars Expanded Universe. My own knowledge of that timeline is limited; I know a fair bit about it, but mostly through reading my New Essential Guide to Characters and, subsequently, some Wookieepedia articles. Since I generally don’t pay attention to anything written from the Yuuzhan Vong War forward, that also limits my knowledge.
Besides the videos appearing below, links to Wookieepedia articles about some of the characters will be embedded in the titles for these videos. If the videos whet your appetite for more original Star Wars fare, then these links should fill in any blanks the videos didn’t capture. And since this article was so much fun, I think I might do another one in the future!
Though I will be reviewing some more Star Wars material next month, I thought it might be helpful to post these videos about characters from the original SW Expanded Universe. This would give readers here a chance to brush up on the first timeline for stories written to flesh out Lucas’ magnum opus, while giving me time to write about the books I wish to review. 😉
Have fun learning about the original Star Wars universe, readers – and remember:
If you guessed that I have at last seen Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, readers, then you have good deduction skills. Yes, I saw Rogue One a day late and a dollar short. But after the less-than-exciting The Force Awakens, I was a little leery of any Star Wars fare.
I enjoyed the trailers for the film – I even reposted one from borg.com here at Thoughts on the Edge of Forever. I wanted to see Rogue One. I wanted to like it. But I did not want to spend money on a film I would later wish I had not paid good cash to see. So I waited and saw it on DVD.
It was a great movie, and it belongs right up there with the original Star Wars trilogy, in my opinion. Yes, there were a few small things about it that I did not like – Leia’s CGI face was kind of scary, and I never got to see the Ghost escape the Battle of Scarif. But since Hera and Chopper have appeared in Lego Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures, I guess our Rebel band got through the battle safe and sound.
On the whole, the film was a hit with this viewer. Cassian and Jyn came off as sullen more often than not, but their supporting cast more than made up for this. Chirrut Îmwe, Baze Malbus, K2-SO, and Bodhi Rook were great fun. I would have to say that Îmwe was my favorite. From his Force mantra to his, “Are you kidding me? I’m blind!”, Îmwe was one lovable character. Yoda would have found him an apt pupil.
K2 would probably be my second favorite, partly because he is portrayed by actor Alan Tudyk, the pilot of Serenity in Joss Whedon’s Firefly series. The other reason I liked him is because he came off perfectly as a sassy former Imperial droid you could not force to behave. Despite that tough shell, though, he also proved to have a soft side, such as when he apologized for smacking Cassian and when Jyn handed him a blaster in the Imperial base on Scarif. And watching him kill Stormtroopers was a scream – for them more so than for me!
Baze was my third favorite and the perfect counterpoint to Îmwe. Where Îmwe is the true believer despite all the evidence that calls for despair, Baze is the former believer who has become a cynic due to the heavy losses he has suffered since the Empire came to power. I have to admit, I really wish I could have his blaster mini-gun as well!
My fourth favorite would probably be Cassian. Raised in the Rebel Alliance, fighting the Empire from the (rather unbelievable) age of six, he is a Rebel assassin and spy. He also happens to hate most of his job. There is very little warmth in him at first; as I said above, he and Jyn tend to come off as grim for most of their time on screen. This is kind of irritating, which is why Îmwe and K2 are higher on my favorites’ list.
But considering that Cassian and Jyn have dealt with the Empire’s brutality and the often necessarily nasty tactics of rebelling against it, there is very little reason for either of them to smile or joke or be lighthearted. Îmwe and Baze have suffered losses at the Empire’s hands, but they have never had to compromise their moral compasses when fighting it. K2 is a droid built to kill, much like the Knights of the Old Republic’s HK-47, so he regards battle as just another day at the office. Bodhi is new to the Rebellion. He has also never stepped outside of the “law” prior to Galen Erso’s urging to defect to the Rebellion. Cassian and Jyn did not have any of these luxuries.
Jyn was not a bad character, though after a while I did become a little bored with her. I enjoyed the scene where, after her father has been killed and her Rebel escort has returned to the ship, she raises her hand – only for Îmwe to catch and hold it in the manner of a friend. He was silently reminding her not to return death for death, and I thought it was a very touching gesture. Yes, Cassian was going to kill her father. Yes, the Rebel Alliance bombed the base in order to kill him. But killing Cassian would not undo any of that, which is why Îmwe took her hand to stop her from losing her temper.
Finally, we come to the Battle of Scarif. What a fight! I loved every minute of the X-Wings zooming around and zapping TIE fighters to atoms. I have not winced, jerked, and bucked in my seat while watching a Star Wars battle since I was young and viewing A New Hope for the millionth time.
Speaking of which, the reused footage of Red and Gold Leader from A New Hope was great. I almost squealed with delight as I recognized the actors. I could tell that the footage was original – I watched A New Hope almost as often as I watched 101 Dalmatians or Peter Pan when I was small. I made the trench run with Luke and the other Rebel fighters zillions of times, so I knew Red and Gold Leader very well by sight alone. Finding them in Rogue One was a treat!
The other wonderful – and amazing – thing about the Battle of Scarif was the land battle. As someone I know pointed out, the footage of the Rebels fighting in the jungle was reminiscent of the way American soldiers fought in the Vietnam War. The way the troop ships dropped Rebel fighters onto the beach was a parallel of the deployment of soldiers and Marines in the jungles of Vietnam, too. The Rebels charging across the beach resembled Marines running up the beach on Iwo Jima and the soldiers storming the beaches of France on D-Day, but the drops by the troop ships were unmistakably based on Vietnam deployments.
Some of the Rebels’ gear, too, resembled the uniforms used by American soldiers during Vietnam. Several of the unnamed Rebels’ helmets and jackets were the same style as Vietnam War helmets and uniforms used by American soldiers during that conflict. The door gunner shooting at the AT-AT Walkers was also a direct nod to Vietnam door gunners. I was proud to see these parallels. It is high time our Vietnam veterans were acknowledged like this and I think it is a compliment.
Finally, no review of Rogue One would be complete if I did not mention the winks and nods the writers added to let us know that the cast of Star Wars Rebels lives beyond their fourth season. At least, Chopper, Hera, and the Ghost survive the series’ final season. When Cassian shows Jyn the force of Rebel assassins and spies he has collected to help her steal the Death Star’s plans, someone can be heard paging “General Syndulla” over the PA system. Hera Syndulla, captain of the Ghost and Phoenix Sqaudron’s fighters, is at some point raised to the rank of general during or after season four of the television series.
Chopper can also be seen by the keen-eyed when the Rebel radio operator charges out to speak to Senator Mon Mothma. This is after the Rogue One crew begins their attack on Scarif. I missed Chopper in the film, sadly, but I had already seen him on the Internet during one of the Rebels’ Recon episodes. And I did hear him grumbling while watching the film. Huzzah!
Just like Chopper, I also could not keep track of the Ghost for most of the space battle above Scarif. This upset me because I could not see if the Ghost had escaped before Darth Vader’s Star Destroyer arrived and began blasting the Mon Calamari carrier to bits. My friends went back to the battle scenes after we had finished the film and replayed them in slow motion so I could see the Ghost. (I have very kind, patient friends who put up with A LOT from me.) With the film slowed down I was able to see the Ghost in action for much of the fight. As in the television series, she was protecting the carrier in the fleet rather than swinging farther out into the battle with the star fighters.
However, we never get to see the Ghost jump to hyperspace before the Executor, Vader’s flagship, arrives. I am still a little upset by that, I admit; I would have liked to see them fly away from Scarif safely. But c’est la vie!
I was also not as impressed by Darth Vader’s “temper tantrum” aboard the Mon Cal cruiser, as others were. But I can just picture what some of the Rebel crewers had to say when the scene was over and the director called “Cut!”: “Killed by Darth Vader. BEST DAY EVER!!”; or “This is so going on my resume!”; and the perennial, “I feel fulfilled!”
All in all, Rogue One was just as good as I hoped it would be. I was bummed that the main cast died, so I do not think I will be watching it as often as I once watched A New Hope. But I did enjoy the film, and I do wish I had gone to theaters to see it on the big screen. Those, however, are minor quibbles. This was a great movie, and I highly recommend it to you, readers! So remember –
And we are back in one of Andre Norton’s amazing stories, readers! Today’s title is one of her space novels, Forerunner Foray. This story focuses on a girl with the talent of psychometry. For those of you who do not know, psychometry is the ability of someone with extrasensory abilities to see the history of any object they touch. The “sniffers” in the film Push are psychometrics. They touch an object, handle it, and can tell who used it before they picked it up. There are other characters in other stories that can do the same thing. Jedi Knight Quinlan Vos, for example, was a psychometric. This was not through any special skill of his in the Force but due to an inherent ability in his humanoid species.
Parapsychology and telepathy are standbys of Andre Norton novels, which you probably know by now, readers. Forerunner Foray is set in the far future, on a world called Korwar. A pleasure world, the wealthy come here to play, while the poor live in a place amid the splendor called the Dipple.
The Dipple began life as a “temporary” refuge for people fleeing some sort of war – or series of wars – in the galaxy. Gradually it turned into a permanent camp of poor people. It is a little like the Undercity on Taris in the Knights of the Old Republic game. If you are sent down there, you stay there, unless you are only visiting. No one born in the Dipple ever gets out on their own, either.
Ziantha was lucky. Her telepathic talent and psychometric ability attracted the attention of one of the highest members of the Thieves’ Guild: Yasa, a feline/humanoid Salarika. Yasa plucked Ziantha out of the Dipple and had her taught everything she needed to know to become a skilled thief. Because of this and the oath Ziantha took to become part of the Guild, Yasa as good as owns her.
At first, though, Ziantha does not really seem to mind this. Especially as she goes on her first major “foray” into the apartments of a member of the Guild who was kicked off-world. Yasa wants some information from the data cubes this guy keeps in his treasure rooms. What is the safest way to get the information without his knowledge? Psychometric readings.
So Ziantha is sent to retrieve the information on these cubes. She gets in safely, finds the cubes, “downloads”’ the information from them into her mind, and heads out…
Only to stop by a table filled with, presumably, other valuable artifacts. I say presumably because the one which has caught Ziantha’s mental eye is a nondescript lump of clay or stone. Whatever this thing is, it is dragging her attention toward it.
Ziantha reaches out to touch it, then snatches her hand back. These apartments and rooms are the property of a head honcho in the Thieves’ Guild. Just because the government caught him in illegal dealings and kicked him off of Korwar does not mean the booby traps littering his residence have been deactivated. If she so much as touches that object, she could set off an alarm.
And so Ziantha does not pick the object up as she desires. She instead escapes back to Yasa’s villa and delivers the information safely. The mission is so successful that Yasa promises Ziantha whatever she wants as a reward. While considering this in her rooms, Ziantha realizes that what she really wants is that lump of clay.
So she goes back to get it – and the adventure begins.
Forerunner Foray is a complicated story. You have to follow Ziantha carefully or you will get lost as her adventures take her out of herself and, perhaps, even out of time. During the course of her adventures, she learns what she is really made of – and what it means to be free.
That’s all you will be getting out of me, people! If you want to know more, then you will have to go on your own “foray” to find a copy of this novel to peruse at your leisure. This is as far as I am taking you. Happy hunting!
The Star Wars Rebels episode “Twin Suns” was teased just a wee bit too much as the final confrontation between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Maul. While they did indeed confront each other and Maul, as expected by most of us, died, their battle was very brief. If you watch the above Rebels Recon show, they explain why.
I admit that I thought the fight would last longer than it did. However, I also see the wisdom of the writers in keeping it so short. Maul and Obi-Wan dueled for years during The Clone Wars series, and so it makes sense that this battle would be quick. For one thing, Obi-Wan was in better physical condition than Maul was. At the beginning of the show it seems that Maul’s been wandering around Tatooine searching for Ben Kenobi, and from what I saw of him, he did not have a pack full of water and food on him. This indicates to me that he’s been wandering around in the desert heat hoping to pick up some sense of Obi-Wan’s location through the Force. Not a particularly smart move, in my opinion, but despite Maul’s animal cunning I do not think I would ever label him as brilliant.
All this means that Obi-Wan was fresh and able when he faced Maul beside the campfire. On the other hand, Maul had been weakened by his wanderings through a strange, harsh environment while he was looking for Ben. So physically, it makes sense that Obi-Wan would be able to best him so swiftly. Also, he had what Maul lacked –
Hope.
We will go back to that momentarily, but for the moment, I want to discuss Ezra’s part in this episode. IGN’s Eric Goldman (and doubtless others as well), thinks that having Ezra take center stage for the majority of the episode was a mistake.
I disagree. The reasons why Ezra was central to “Twin Suns” are manifold:
First, as the writers pointed out, Ezra was the one that got the Rebels involved with Maul. His determination to find a way to bring down Vader – “to destroy the Sith,” as he put it – left him open to Maul’s manipulation, which Obi-Wan pointed out. Ezra’s desire to stop the Sith was morphing into an obsession. If he did not let it go, it would eventually have gotten him and his friends – along with possibly the entire Rebellion – killed. Someone had to snap him out of his fixation on annihilating the Sith.
That someone turned out to be Obi-Wan. This makes a lot of sense and leads to the second reason for Bridger being central to the story. When a person becomes obsessed, even in the less-than-maniacal way that Ezra was, interventions by close friends and family can be less effective than those done by total strangers. Kanan and Hera stage an intervention of sorts for Ezra at the beginning of “Twin Suns,” but he ignores their reasonable arguments and runs off anyway.
Obi-Wan, a master Jedi he has heard of and admires, points out that he really, really should not have come to Tatooine. Maul was using him to find the man he hates more than anyone but the Emperor. Ezra’s determination to find Obi-Wan himself in order to find the “key to destroying the Sith” blinded him to this fact. Kanan and Hera did not have this blinder over their eyes (pun intended; even though he is physically blind, Kanan smelled a trap), and so they saw the danger in following Maul’s breadcrumbs.
Of course, Obi-Wan also deflects Ezra from discovering the truth about the fact that he is, actually, guarding the key to wiping out the Sith. This is both to protect Luke, who is not yet ready to fight in the Rebellion, and also to protect Ezra. Luke still has some growing up to do, and the fact is that the Rebellion is not nearly ready for him yet. They are still in the building-up phase. If Luke were to join them now, and the whole thing collapsed under its own weight (or Thrawn’s), then all hope of defeating the Emperor disappears with him and the Rebellion.
We know that this is not going to happen, but Obi-Wan does not know this. He only knows he has to keep Luke safe. And, if things were changed here in this interim between Rebels and A New Hope, the TV series would qualify as fan fiction, not a tie-in series. And that would never do.
As for Ezra, if he were to learn about Luke, he would begin trying to recruit him into the Rebellion. Obi-Wan cannot let that happen. He shoos Ezra off so that the boy will not recruit Luke too soon. This will also, hopefully, keep Ezra safe. As long as he remains oblivious to the fact that Vader is Anakin Skywalker, when he later meets Luke, he will not be able to reveal anymore about Luke’s heritage than Obi-Wan already told him. In fact, he will be able to reveal even less.
This appears to be a sort of backhanded indication that neither Ezra nor Kanan has figured out that Vader is Anakin Skywalker. This is in spite of Ezra being present when Ahsoka let slip her suspicion, to his mind, that her old master had become the Emperor’s apprentice. Whew! 😉
Also, as the writers pointed out, Ezra naturally feels responsible for leading Maul to Obi-Wan. He goes to Tatooine to make up for his mistake, but he nearly makes it worse. This is why he has to be present throughout so much of “Twin Suns.” Ezra has to let go of his need to kill Vader, or it will destroy him and his friends.
Interestingly enough, Ezra is forced to do this in a desert, a very dry and tough place. The hermits in ancient times and even during the Middle Ages who lived near or traveled to arid regions would retreat into the desert or some other desolate place to remove all distractions. Obi-Wan does this when he moves to the cave a few hours travel from Owen Lars’ moisture farm; Yoda does this by retreating to Dagobah – and Luke, it seems, did the same thing before The Force Awakens.
Ezra’s journey is more reminiscent of a spiritual retreat than going into a hermitage, naturally, and it fits the episode nicely. Lost in the desert – more so perhaps than even Maul is – Ezra must confront not only the former Sith’s evil in a manner similar to the way that Christians must face the temptations of the devil, but also his own obsession with destroying the Sith. It is a journey of purgation for him, leaving him a stronger, more clear-headed Jedi apprentice by the episode’s end.
Now we will go back to the battle between Obi-Wan and Maul. It is a brief battle, but a loaded confrontation all the same. Maul states that he has come to kill Obi-Wan, then suggests that his revenge might be better served by letting him live in the “squalor” of Tatooine’s desert instead. Obi-Wan calmly points out that Maul’s jab shows how spiritually empty he is. He has traveled around the galaxy for years seeking to destroy the Sith, to possess power, and to become “great” according to the Dark Side’s standards.
The pursuit has left him an empty shell. At the beginning of the episode, according to Mr. Goldman, Maul seems dangerously close to slipping into the madness Savage Oppress first found him in during The Clone Wars series. Having never watched more than a few episodes of that series, I cannot confirm this. But it makes sense. Maul has been consumed by his hatred, not fed by it. It has destroyed him, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Though he expresses contempt for Obi-Wan’s style of life, the former Jedi Master is actually far better off than he is in all the categories which I just mentioned.
This infuriates Maul. His hatred reacts violently to Obi-Wan’s calm tranquility. He has no such peace in his own soul, and for that reason he seeks to destroy it in Obi-Wan by digging for the reason that Ben would come to the desolate world of Tatooine. He gets close, of course – too close to be allowed to live. Obi-Wan knew that would happen. Plus, he has already lost two people very dear to him to Maul. He cannot and he will not lose Luke to the former Sith apprentice.
And before you ask, no, Maul would not kill Luke. He would do something far worse, and Obi-Wan knows it. We saw how Maul tempted Ezra to court the Dark Side at the end of Rebels’ season two and several times throughout season three. If he had killed Obi-Wan, he would have found Luke, and he would have taken him as his apprentice to teach him the ways of the Dark Side. Thus Maul would have destroyed all hope of building a new Jedi Order and a New Republic in the future. That is a threat which Obi-Wan must stop.
But even after he permanently neutralizes Maul, Obi-Wan does not gloat over his victory. Instead, he holds Maul as he dies. Considering the Zabrak killed his Master and the woman he loved, his showing compassion and pity toward his old enemy shouts volumes. Obi-Wan did not have to stay with Maul until the end. He certainly did not have to tell him Luke was actually the Chosen One foretold in the prophecy (apparently). But he did it anyway. Not because Maul deserved it, exactly, but because he felt compassion and pity for this creature that had been destroyed so thoroughly; first by the Emperor, then by his own hatred.
For his part, Maul seems to have some regrets about his life. But if he had the chance to live it over again, I think the only thing he would do differently was avoid getting cut in half, if he could. Maul is totally committed to the Dark Side. He is ruined. Asajj Ventress may yet have been redeemed by her love for Jedi Knight Quinlan Vos, but the fact is that Maul has had no such opportunities to reform. He has hated for so long, too, that it is doubtful he would have accepted such prospects for redemption, even if they had been handed to him on a silver platter.
So he dies reiterating the Dark Side’s will to vengeance. What is interesting is his use of the word “us” when he says this. It is possible he means the entire race of Dathomir and, most specifically, his mother and brother.
But personally, I think he may have meant himself and Obi-Wan. After all, Obi-Wan would not have cut Maul in half if he had not killed Qui-Gon Jinn. Maul would not have done that if his mother had not handed him over to the Emperor to be trained as a Sith instead of a regular Dark Side wielder. If he had not been cut in half, Maul would not have gone on to wreak such sorrow on the galaxy in general and Obi-Wan Kenobi in particular. It sounded to me as though this was the implication behind Maul’s line that Luke “will avenge…us…” I might be blowing smoke, of course, but there is always the possibility that I could be correct.
Now, Mr. Goldman points out that the manner of Obi-Wan’s kill strike does not show the appropriate level of contact for such a maneuver. While he is equally quick to mention that Rebels is not as flexible as The Clone Wars when it comes to realistic death scenes, the fact is that this is a kid’s show. It would not do to show Obi-Wan cutting Maul in half vertically instead of horizontally. Doing that also would have spoiled the ending we all enjoyed so much.
That being said, the implication that Obi-Wan gutted Maul is quite clear. And remember, readers, that he is half-droid. There is not much to gut; slicing through what is left of his torso and the droid part of his body would certainly finish Maul for good. I, for one, am quite satisfied that the Rebels writers went this route. It is not a graphic death scene, but it still fulfills the Internet meme showing Obi-Wan moaning, “I should have cut him in half the other way!”
The last thing to address is the fact that Ezra doesn’t tell the Ghost crew or the rest of Phoenix Squadron that Obi-Wan Kenobi is alive. At least, he does not do so on camera. It is possible that he will tell Kanan and the others in a more private setting. It is just as possible that he will not, though I think that Kanan will want to know whether or not Ezra killed Maul. Ezra will have to tell him no, because even if he fibs – or were to attempt to fib – Kanan should be able to sense that he is fudging the truth. Or he will at least be able to sense that Ezra is not telling him everything.
Mr. Goldman points out in his article that we never see Obi-Wan telling Ezra to keep the fact that he is alive a secret. For starters, I think Ezra would be smart enough to realize that, if Obi-Wan wanted to avoid a fight with Maul, he does not want anyone to know he is alive. It is also possible that Obi-Wan saw Ezra and Chopper off of Tatooine. He is (presumably) riding the same Dewback he lent them when he approaches the Lars’ farm the next evening, after all. I do not think the animal would just wander back to Obi-Wan after Ezra and Chopper had dismounted and climbed aboard Maul’s ship to take off. He had to get it back.
If that is the case, then Obi-Wan might have taken the opportunity to tell Ezra, “I’m here because I don’t want to be found. Best not to mention me to anyone when you get back.” We do not know if this is what happened, but it seems to be a logical assumption. The fact that Obi-Wan’s mount at the end of the episode is the same one he loaned to Ezra and Chopper before the fight strongly implies this theory.
Another thing to love about this episode is all the little tweaks and nods to A New Hope buried in it. Ezra and Chopper setting out together is quite the nod to Threepio and Artoo’s journey across Tatooine before they get picked up by Jawas. The attack by the Sand People is somewhat spooky for me, since I recently acquired and began playing Knights of the Old Republic. I did not quite have flashbacks of all the times the Sand People killed me and my team, but I have begun to find their honking cries rather annoying. Their Gaffi sticks are equally irritating. But I did not celebrate when Maul killed them all, as you might have expected. He set them up to die. It is not something to cheer over.
Obi-Wan’s fatherly (or is that grandfatherly?), kindness and admonishments to Ezra reflect how his teaching tactics have changed since he lost Anakin to the Emperor. He is now well prepared to take on the fatherly role of mentor when he leads Luke to make the fateful trip to Alderaan. This could be seen as a dry run for his mentoring of Luke two years hence.
His subtle deflection of Ezra from the truth is also reminiscent of how Luke later confronts him about the fact that he hid Vader’s true identity from him, although he did not quite lie about it. Both times Obi-Wan stretches the truth to protect the young fellas, and I doubt that Ezra would – or will – be any happier than Luke when he finally learns that Obi-Wan fibbed to protect the two of them from Maul, Vader, and the Empire at large in this episode.
The kicker, though, is when Obi-Wan stops within hearing of Beru Lars’ call to Luke to come in for supper. As she does this we get to see his shadow as he races indoors in answer to her summons. This scene is magnificent, and if I am not mistaken, they took the voice of the actress who played Beru Lars in A New Hope and used it for this episode. She called Luke in exactly the same way before she reminded him to find a droid that spoke – I believe it was Bocce. And when I say she called him the same way, I mean exactly the same way. They clipped out her call from A New Hope and put it in the ending for “Twin Suns,” if I am not mistaken. As a final note, Stephen Stanton’s imitation of Alec Guinness could not be better. I am amazed and impressed. Well done, Master Stanton. (Author bows respectfully.)
Well, readers, this is my take on the third last episode of season three of Star Wars Rebels. It was a good episode and I enjoyed it. Marvelously animated and masterfully told, “Twin Suns” is an episode we are all going to want to show our children at some point in the future.
Remember, readers: the Force will be with you. Always.
Thoughts on the Edge of Forever 