Review: Star Wars Rebels “Vision of Hope”
Ezra got his first vision tonight! Spoiler alert: It’s his first one. Almost nothing goes right on the first try.
There is a moment in every show that makes you wonder where the writers are taking the show they write for. This week, Star Wars Rebels hit that point with me. There are some major points in “Vision of Hope” that made me really think that the writers dropped the ball, and the people in charge of the continuity checked out for this episode. It’s rather disheartening, considering how well Rebels has been going so far.
The great thing about “Vision of Hope” is that Ezra is developing into a better character. His training in The Force has gone so well that he started getting visions of the future, not unlike what Anakin got during Episode III. His visions, and his hero worshipping of Senator Trayvis is what set the episode in motion. Ezra did the number one thing that any Jedi should not do, and let his emotions cloud his training. Whenever Rebels decides to focus on Ezra’s Jedi training, the show excels. Maybe Rebels should focus more on that, eh?
Before we get into the story of “Vision of Hope,” let’s talk about how Lothal’s little market town is turning into a metropolis that is slowly turning into Courusant set on a planet that is the plains of the American Midwest. I can see that the Empire came in and expanded the city area, but to the point that it’s a large, sprawling metropolis, complete with skyscrapers? I don’t know, Star Wars fans, but that seems like a real stretch. I think a lot more time should have passed before you we got New Lothal City. Lothal’s city is turning into a MacGuffin.
And now we get to the senator. There was so little done to mask what Gall Trayvis was actually talking to Ezra and Hera. He tried getting Kanan to surrender to Agent Kallus, feigned exhaustion to help Kallus catch up, and played Ezra to get information about the crew of the Ghost. From the second that he appeared in the old Senate building, I knew that he wasn’t what he said he was. However, Ezra’s parent plot advanced a bit, due to the Senator’s knowledge of Ezra’s parents. The story suffered greatly from this. Hell, even Hera mentioned this in her “ah-ha!” moment.
These two things aside, “Vision of Hope” could have been a great episode. The transparency of Trayvis kind of ruined the episode. What could have been a dagger to Ezra’s back and could have been a huge revelation of Ezra’s parents being the original “Voice of the Rebellion,” and give a major shock to his Ezra’s training. There was a wasted opportunity to further the rivalry between Kallus and Zeb when Kallus busted into the Senate Building, and that was rather saddening. This constant rivalry is something that doesn’t come up often enough, but needs to come up more. I don’t think Zeb and Kallus resuming their blood feud would have done anything to make “Vision of Hope” very enjoyable. I was expecting a lot more, especially from getting only two episodes a month.
