Galactic Hunter Video Theater Presents: Star Wars Rebels - Gathering Forces

By Adam Pawlus — Monday, November 24, 2014

The second half of the first-ever two-parter of Star Wars Rebels is "Gathering Forces," which is to story what a Snickers bar is to a balanced dinner. It was an exciting episode from effects, space combat, and drama perspectives - but it suffers from another common thread of the two-parter. This is that there's really no reason to split a story across two installments beyond amortizing things like sets and costumes, and in the case of this episode I think I've only spotted a couple of new things. However, we also get some really amazing effects sequences that are both totally new and also manage to feel like they were spawned out of the 1980s school of special effects. The creators deserve massive credit for pulling that off.

Since last week's was so good, you'll want to see how it ends up and what happens to Tseebo. But this episode is more about "how" than "what." Read on for more!



In addition to watching Rebels with you every week, I've also been slowly rewatching Star Trek's various incarnations and it's really amazing to see how the lessons of that franchise were learned as time went on, and weren't really applied with Star Wars on TV yet. Since the franchise's first endpoint around 1983 Star Wars has been chasing its tail, existing in the spaces before or between existing stories. Only by changing its focus does Rebels gain its character-based gravitas, but the characters remain thinly defined and the inherent limitations of what may well be a rebooted origin story only let you experience so much newness. It's important for us to see Ezra miss his parents, or Sabine do some drawing - these people have lives, after all.


In short, here's what happens this week: The crew of the Ghost are being chased by the Inquisitor and a wing of TIE Fighters because the Imperials want Tseebo, a Rodian Lobot-enhanced walking computer. They escape to hyperspace after the Empire tags them with a new tracking device, which of course they discover, so Ezra and Kanan take the shuttle to the asteroid of night cats from a couple of weeks ago for a lightsaber duel. The good guys escape, the bad guys lose, Ezra touches the Dark Side, and Tseebo gets dumped off at a Blockade Runner. This is a 22-minute diversion for the Rebels to drop off the living USB thumbdrive that is Tseebo to anti-Imperialists.


Appearing like a VHS-era fever dream, the effect is brief but dazzling. The reds and blues give way to a kaleidoscope of spacial phenomenon, and it looks sort of like something out of Captain Eo. While the episode has moments it's setting up as being more momentous, this was the episode's first big applause break. I don't know if we've ever seen a chunk of a ship break off in hyperspace and merely drift off to a desired destination. So far the series has been trying so hard to be true to Star Wars that long-time fans will recognize many of the gags and nods to the original trilogy without blinking an eye, so a sequence like this is just so utterly wonderful. It speaks the language of the old sci-fi effect shots, while providing something without a frame of reference in this particular franchise. Considering the main audience of this show is going to be kids with instant access to watch or rewatch anything, new tricks do wonders in keeping things worth watching.


With a 22-minute runtime, the show continues to move along pretty quickly with only fleeting glimpses into the emotions of our stars. The Inquisitor gets a teensy bit of characterization in that we get to see him show a twinge of fear at failing his mission, which would probably make for a great episode. He exists mostly as a bogeyman, scaring children and preaching the wonders of the Dark Side. When used sparingly, this is perfectly fine - but any villain loses his edge after losing repeatedly, and the Inquisitor is certainly shaping up to be a loser. The Borg only had six appearances on Star Trek: The Next Generation because the creative team were worried of making them look weak or easily defeated. Similarly The Clone Wars' people expressed concern about defeating and re-defeating the same villains each week, because really, how can General Grievous be feared if he never wins? We were given glimpses into Grievous' life beyond the war here and there, plus we saw him earn victory at the expense of minor characters - this is really important, because as bad guys go his fangs are looking a little more worn-down each time we see him.  The Inquisitor may be relentless, but clearly he's not that good at his job.

The good guy crew continues to act mostly as scenery - sure, we see Sabine express concern for Ezra, and we see Hera continue to keep us all from knowing who this "Fulcrum" is. Chopper and Zeb are only barely just there, and Kanan's appearances are too brief to give much of a lasting impact. Ezra gets most of the spotlight, fighting with (and eventually forgiving) Tseebo due to the potential survivor of the elder Bridgers. We see a pained kid forced to grow up too soon, but his growth is basically just another retelling of Luke's story so far. Who are his parents? Will he be tempted by the Dark Side? Does he have what it takes to be a Jedi? We've been here before.


As always, the music is awfully familiar. It's not as hokey as playing the Jaws theme every time you see a shark, but for those overly familiar with the original John Williams music from the original trilogy - thanks to owning soundtracks and hearing them abused and reused in every Lucasarts video game for a few years - it's a bit much. 

When the Inquisitor hits the Phantom with a tracking device, the music playing is basically the same as we heard as Boba Fett tracked the Millennium Falcon in The Empire Strikes Back. I'm sure they wanted to provide a subtle nod to the franchise but since older fans likely a) owned all the soundtracks and b) listened to them too much, it's a bit on the hack side. As the saying goes, "originality is the art of concealing your source." Borrowing from other movies, TV series, and franchises will appear fresher to a lot of us because we haven't seen all of that stuff yet. However, we've all seen most of what Star Wars has to offer. Given how much of the series borrows from Joe Johnston and Ralph McQuarrie art books plus John Williams' omnipresent score, it's important for the show to create its own moments rather than appear like a scrapbook of the previous 37 years' greatest moments.


While Tseebo's brief time here provided a fun, new kind of a character for Star Wars on the small screen everything else was really a case of been there, done that. Going back to the darkness cats so soon is just continuing to expose the show's limitations. We know they can do better, and it just starts to make me feel bad that the show's creative structure seems so transparent. Sure I like the character designs, and yes I understand the need of shows like this to serve a greater (read: marketing) need, but it seems nearly impossible to not walk away from a great moment in an episode without overdosing on deja vu. Granted if you didn't waste spend your teens pouring over every bit of art or music you could get your hands on for the then-dead Star Wars universe, perhaps you've got a more optimistic take on how the series has been going - either way, I'd love to hear from you in the forums or comments.


Takeaway from this week:
The Empire's hatfaces return! That's why we can't have nice things - and why the Clone Troopers probably did wonders for keeping the budget down while recycling animation models.
The Inquisitor's taunting of Ezra at the end - with the boy on the cliff, a red-tinged hue, and his Master passed out was a veritable turducken of moments from the temptations of Anakin Skywalker.
Was this the first time Sienar Systems was spoken aloud?
Kanan totally blasted the Inquisitor's shuttle when he and Ezra escaped the asteroid. Not going to lie to you - I loved that and I should have talked that up more above as another great moment from this week.

Next time: We don't have a title yet, and it won't air until January. Hunh. Well, looks like I get a little break then. Have a merry happy, everyone!