Thoughts on the Penultimate Night of Star Wars: Rebels

Posted by Bret on 02/27/18 at 07:00 AM Category: Star Wars Rebels

How can you have Malcolm McDowell voice a character and it not be the highlight of the episode? Get Ian McDiarmid to do Palpatine.

SPOILERS AHEAD - LAST WARNING!

Episode 12: Wolves and a Door
Episode 13: A World Between Worlds

The Spectres ride the still mysterious Forcey Loth-Wolves to the Lothal Jedi Temple, because Ezra thinks it's important to do so. Once there, they run into an Imperial force conducting an archeological dig to unlock the temple's secrets. The leader is Minister Hyden, voiced impressively by Malcolm McDowell. I actually thought this guy was one of the Imperial Dignitaries. Would have been cool if it was Sim Aloo. Well, Ian McDiarmid himself shows up, indicating the importance of this expedition. Ezra and Sabine try to sneak in and unlock the Temple's portal, which is a mural of The Father, The Daughter, and The Son from The Clone Wars. (Filoni not only mines the films, the old EU, and concept art, but he mines his own work, as well.). Sabine is captured, but Ezra enters the doorway. He ends up in a mysterious gateway world, with paths and doorways leading to all kinds of places in time and space. The owl shows up and leads Ezra to one doorway, through which he witnesses Ahsoka's duel with Vader. Just before Vader strikes her down, Ezra reaches in and pulls Ahsoka to safety. He almost does the same for Kanan at another doorway, but Ahsoka convinces him that altering Kanan's fate would doom his friends. After Palpatine shows up, Ahsoka seemingly flees back to the Sith Temple, while Ezra returns to the Spectres in Lothal. They escape the Imperials, while the Temple is apparently locked and buried away.

So.

1. Ahsoka is alive. This was pretty cool, but now just as Filoni solved the Kanan Problem, he just reintroduced the Ahsoka Problem. So either Ahsoka is brought back just to perish again next week, or she outlives Rebels and survives into the OT timeframe, and possibly beyond. Maybe she goes into deep hiding, and ends up being discovered by Rey in Episode IX, and is played by Rosario Dawson.

2. Time Travel. Let that marinate for a while. Yep, time travel.

3. Sail Barge. It was not featured in the episode for some reason, but you can buy one here...

UPDATE: 11:00AM

This official recap of the episode explains that the portal world is real, but that Ezra destroyed the portal and the Lothal temple after he escaped. Ahsoka is alive, and back on Malachor. We'll see if she's got something to do in these final episodes next week, or if she has a different destiny.

Also, as for the voices, I thought that was pretty cool that they used them from across the entire saga. I caught a few, but didn't notice Rey and Kylo. Filoni seems to be working hard to show that The Force is so much larger, more powerful, and mysterious than anything the OT, PT, or even ST has shown.