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Is The Ghost Crew The Biggest Problem With Star Wars Rebels?

Posted by Mike_Taber | January 31, 2016 at 11:27 AM ET

After writing reviews for over a season and a half of Star Wars Rebels, I can’t help but feel that the show’s biggest obstacle is actually the Ghost crew itself. Click through for my slightly rambling analysis.

The comparisons between Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels are inevitable. Both of them are animated Star Wars series overseen by Dave Filoni. Also, Star Wars: The Clone Wars was essentially canceled in favor of Star Wars Rebels. I firmly believe that Star Wars: The Clone Wars is a far better show than Star Wars Rebels, but that’s not the point of this article. The point is after a season and a half, the main characters on Star Wars Rebels remain the show’s biggest obstacle. Characters like Hondo Ohnaka, Savage Oppress, and Pong Krell were properly developed and fully realized on The Clone Wars in just a few episodes, not to mention the major characters like Ahsoka Tano, Captain Rex, and Asajj Ventress. Yet, Sabine is still barely a character after a season and a half of Star Wars Rebels.

To me, Star Wars Rebels only occasionally produces great episodes. More often than not, episodes of Rebels feel stagnant and settle for just being average. But why is that? There are several reasons. For one, Rebels tends to use existing characters as a crutch. Some characters like Darth Vader, Ahsoka Tano, and Captain Rex have made meaningful additions to the series but most existing characters are used to distract viewers from a weak story or the Ghost crew. The episode that introduced Princess Leia is a perfect example. Another issue is that stories are rarely given enough time to work with. Yes, twenty-two minutes isn’t a lot of time but look at The Clone Wars. It had the same issue at times but if the story called for it, they would produce three to four episode story arcs that felt like mini-Star Wars movies. That structure produced some of The Clone Wars’ best stories. Umbara. Ahsoka on the run. Darth Maul’s takeover of Mandalore. Mortis. These stories could have never been told in twenty-two minutes. They needed three or four episodes. By trying to cram everything into twenty-two minutes, Star Wars Rebels is doing a disservice to the stories it’s trying to tell and the characters. And that brings me to the characters of Star Wars Rebels. By focusing solely on the Ghost crew, there’s no room for error. Anakin, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, and Rex were the throughline for The Clone Wars, but it often ventured off into other territories and wasn’t afraid to leave those characters on the sideline for a few episodes. Some of the most compelling episodes of The Clone Wars had nothing to do with Anakin or Obi-Wan. Of course this produced some of the show’s worst episodes as well. We didn’t need to follow Colonel Gascon and a squad of astromechs around a desert for four episodes. However, it did give The Clone Wars a certain level of freedom. Sometimes I feel that Rebels suffers from tunnel vision. Following around the Ghost crew is the set up for the series. That’s fine, but does a member of the Ghost crew have to be onscreen at all times? I don’t think so. Especially when they haven’t properly developed these characters after a season and a half.

Star Wars Rebels lives and dies with the Ghost crew. Yet, with the larger Rebellion, the collision between Ahsoka and Darth Vader, the Empire’s hunt for Force sensitive children, and now even Darth Maul out there I’m finding the Ghost crew to be the least interesting part of the show. Needless to say, that’s a problem.

I’ve talked a lot about the Ghost crew in general, but now I want to talk about the individual members. Let’s start with the group’s leader, Hera. To me, Hera is the most promising member of the Ghost crew. She’s cunning, brave, a great pilot, and is the heart of the Ghost crew. Hera also has an intriguing background. She is the daughter of Cham Syndulla, a freedom fighter who fought alongside the Jedi during the Clone Wars. Besides, her interactions with Lando are priceless. Unfortunately, Hera has largely been wasted in Rebels. The writers have only scratched the surface of her character and she is almost exclusively left behind on the ship while everyone else goes out on a mission. Leaving your most interesting character out of the fight isn’t a good recipe for success. As for Kanan, I don’t dislike his character by any means but he just seems…bland. Kanan is often described as a “cowboy Jedi”, but I don’t see that at all. He feels generic more than anything. With that being said, I think the writers have done a good job of establishing his relationship with Ezra. That relationship is probably the strongest among the Ghost crew. The introduction of Captain Rex also helped Kanan. Kanan’s reluctance to trust Rex was a highlight of season two so far. It was interesting to see both of these men struggle to cope with the fallout of Order 66, just from different perspectives. The episode “Stealth Strike” was a great showcase for the relationship between Kanan and Rex. Ezra, the show’s central character, remains an issue. I do like the work the writers have done establishing his relationship with Kanan, but I’m still having trouble connecting with that character. I’ll be honest, I didn’t like Ahsoka at first but by the end of the series she had become not just one of my favorite characters on the show but one of my favorite Star Wars characters. Obviously, a season and a half doesn’t equal five seasons but by this point in The Clone Wars I at least saw signs of a great character in Ahsoka. I still haven’t seen that with Ezra. Between his bickering with other members of the crew and his attitude, tolerable really is the best case scenario with Ezra at this point. Ezra is another character that benefited from the presence of Captain Rex, at least initially. The relationship they established in the beginning was endearing, but it has largely been dropped. I like Zeb. Well, at least sometimes I do. The biggest problem with Zeb is the inconsistent writing of his character. Is he the highly trained, occasionally sarcastic Lasat Honor Guard or the bickering child that chases Ezra and Chopper around the Ghost? Pick one. Speaking of Chopper, he’s a psychopath. Sometimes Chopper is the slightly crazy but entertaining sidekick. Sometimes he’s a remorseless killer who has no regard for the safety of the Ghost crew. Actually, Chopper has been more of a threat to the Ghost crew’s safety than the Empire. Again, the writers need to pick one version of the character and stick with it. And finally, Sabine is my least favorite character on Star Wars Rebels. “The Protector of Concord Dawn” is a good episode of Star Wars Rebels and it finally gave Sabine some form of character development, but there are still plenty of issues with her character. For one, I don’t think she fits in the Star Wars universe. She feels like a character that was designed by committees and focus groups. She’s the spunky female Mandalorian graffiti artist. Isn’t that cool, kids? All she needs is a skateboard and a catchphrase. Also her character’s abilities are borderline ridiculous. She’s more agile than the Jedi and I have never once seen her struggle. Sabine always effortlessly defeats her opponent and escapes unscathed. She’s often portrayed as infallible and invincible. In addition, she can be just as stubborn and arrogant as Ezra . If not more so. I want to like Sabine, but the more time I spend with her the less I like her. “The Protector of Concord Dawn” was a good step for Sabine though. It at least showed that her character is capable of growth. Hopefully the writers don’t waste it, because her character still has a long way to go.

Right now, the biggest problem with Star Wars Rebels is the Ghost crew. All of them are underdeveloped. It almost feels like instead of going forward with these characters, the writers are going in circles. I want Star Wars Rebels to be a great show and a fitting successor to Star Wars: The Clone Wars, but it’s not there yet. Rebels is capable of producing great episodes (Rise of the Old Masters, Call to Action, Fire Across the Galaxy, and The Siege of Lothal all come to mind). There’s a lot of potential here. In order for Star Wars Rebels to take that final leap, it needs to properly develop the Ghost crew or leave them behind.

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