Review: Star Wars Rebels “Fighter Flight”

Stolen TIE Fighters are why the Empire can’t have nice things.

Spoilers Below

Star Wars Rebels was a cause of concern for me. Actually, all of Star Wars has been a concern for me, because of Disney. Well, my concerns have been killed, at least for the animated end, because “Fighter Flight” solidified my thoughts of Star Wars Rebels. Rebels will be the closest any production team will ever come to recreating the fun and the mystique of the original trilogy. Yes, I said the impossible.

What I mean by that is we have an outsider named Ezra, who is flying by the seat of his pants, and going on an adventure. Does that remind you of a certain son of a Sith Lord? Anyway, Rebels does a great job of taking two characters who don’t really get along, and forcing them to get along. This week, it’s Ezra and Zeb trying to get a shopping list ordered while Hera cleans their mess up. Things take a sharp left when events lead the duo to end up in a stolen TIE Fighter.

Now, there is a bad thing to take away from this, but that’s solely dependent on how you take it. The more I think about it, the more I think Lothal is Rebels’s Tattooine. In Episode IV, the opening act took place on Tattooine; a place only good for a desert, Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru’s farm, a shit ton of dust, and Mos Isley. Lothal, on the other hand, has grassy fields, Morad Sumar’s shop and farm, and stone pillars, and Kothal. The one difference we have is that there isn’t a Hutt in sight, but a bigger Imperial force is in Kothal. There is a whole lot of nothing to look at, but you could say that is just more of what makes Star Wars, Star Wars.

I think it was a tad too early to give Zeb and Ezra their own bonding episode, because I think that they could have played off each other a little more. Zeb left Ezra on the Empire ship in Spark of Rebellion, and nothing really came of it. That could have been something really big to bring up, instead they use an instance of Ezra saving Zeb that happened outside of the series. It’s a little nit-picky, but it’s a missed opportunity to tie Spark of Rebellion into the series, and tie the series together into a serial. So far, you can skip episodes, and you won’t miss much for the story.

Don’t take this the wrong way. I really enjoyed “Fighter Flight.” Forcing Zeb and Ezra to work together was beneficial, because they actually are forced to see how each other really works. The two have a borderline friendship coming out of this, which is tenuous at best. Who knows where they will be coming in to the next episode, though. One really nice touch for “Fighter Flight” was the very light skim of getting into the people Ezra knows on Lothal. So far, he was perceived to be a common thief who’s a loner. Now, we know that he has parents somewhere, and he knows people in Kothal.

“Fighter Flight” was a great episode. There is nothing saying otherwise. But my only gripe still lies with how these early episodes stick with a individualistic style. I was hoping for something to tie the series and Spark of Rebellion together, but it hasn’t happened yet. It’s still only two episodes and a two part movie long, so there is a lot more to work with. I just want to see Ezra start his Jedi training, because that is becoming overdue. Maybe next week?