Review: Star Wars Rebels – “A Princess on Lothal”

Spoilers Below

We return to Ezra and Kanan still on Lothal with Ryder Azadi. It is still a bit of a mystery who this Ryder person is. Eventually, we find out that he was the governor of Lothal before he was arrested. Since Ezra is still upset about his parents, Hera and Kanan decide to get him to help on the next mission. Bail Organa is giving the Rebels three much-needed ships. His aide will be bringing the ships to Lothal. (Hint: his aide is Leia.) Ezra and Kanan will meet with Leia before Hera and the rest of the gang arrive.

Leia’s plan was to bring supplies to the innocent people of Lothal. The Rebels would steal her ships while she took care of the people kept under the Empire’s thumb. Her plan is foiled by Imperial Lieutenant Lyste. He puts gravity locks on the three ships, brings in more Stormtroopers, and flies in two walkers to watch over the ships. Kanan, dressed as a Stormtrooper, and Ezra, dressed as a cadet, meet with Leia and try to figure out a way to get the ships to the Rebels.

Suddenly, Ezra gets a call from Chopper. Stormtroopers have found Ryder and are arresting him again. Leia demands that Lyste give her his ship (since he locked up hers) so she can deliver her supplies. She orders Kanan and Ezra to load the supplies and escort her to town. Of course, they go to Ryder’s camp instead. They fight the Stormtroopers, Hera shows up, and everyone is saved.

Now that the gang is together again, they come up with a plan to rescue Leia’s ships from the Empire. Apparently Ryder helped make the gravity locks when he was in prison. So, yeah, he knows how to disable them. Convenient, right? Long story short, the Ghost crew gets all three ships while keeping the Empire in the dark about Leia’s involvement. Everyone wins.

On one hand, I loved seeing Leia in the show. It’s cool to see her actually participating in Rebel activities. On the other hand, the Ryder character was annoying. It wasn’t until Kanan called him Governor that we knew who he actually was. I swear there was supposed to be another episode between “Legacy” and this one that explained him but it seems to have disappeared from existence. Not to mention that it was a little too convenient that he happened to know how to work the biggest problem the Rebels had. The higher ups in the Empire must be extraordinarily stupid to allow their prisoners to work on or even have access to anything, much less their security procedures! This is at least the second time that an escaped prisoner has had important information that allows the Rebels to defeat the Empire. The Empire obviously needs a new Head of Security. But at least there was Leia, right?