Review: Star Wars Rebels – “The Forgotten Droid”

Spoilers Below

The crew of the Ghost is, once again, heading off to steal fuel for the Rebel fleet. Hera leaves Chopper to guard the Ghost while everyone else grabs the fuel. However, Chopper notices a nearby vendor selling a droid leg that matches his body. Excited at the prospect of having a matching leg, Chopper leaves his post. Unfortunately, the vendor doesn’t believe that Chopper has the money to purchase the leg. Which is true. While Chopper tries to sweet talk the vendor, the crew returned to the Ghost. Not immediately noticing his absence, they take off without him. Chopper, having recently stolen the leg while the vendor wasn’t looking, stands there dumbly staring after his friends. Of course, it doesn’t take long for the vendor to realize what is going on. He chases Chopper across the landing pad, alerting all of the nearby Storm Troopers to the violation. Chopper hides on a nearby ship, which takes off with him aboard.

It turns out that the ship is an Imperial freighter. There is another droid also on board the ship. AP-5 is an inventory droid who keeps trying to do navigation work. The captain of the ship is not at all happy with AP-5 and continually berates the poor droid. When AP-5 is sent off to get a manifest, he finds Chopper hiding in one of the storerooms. At first, AP-5 tries to capture Chopper. Things change when AP-5 learns that Chopper participated in the Clone Wars, like he did. Chopper tells AP-5 about Hera saving him and that the Rebels can save AP-5 as well. But it isn’t until Chopper blasts the restraining bolt off AP-5 that the protocol droid starts to trust him. Together, the two droids take over the freighter.

Chopper contacts Hera to inform her of the new situation. She is a little busy, however, as the Rebel fleet is under Imperial attack. Hera is about to give the fleet the coordinates for the Yast System to escape but AP-5 tells Chopper that the Empire has sent a fleet there already. It’s a trap! AP-5 cross-references the Imperial data with the Rebel data and finds a better location for them. Before he can transmit the data, the captain of the freighter wakes up and attacks the two droids. Despite Chopper beating him over the head with his new leg, the captain still manages to shoot AP-5 in the back twice. But the protocol droid wins. He hits the transmit button before going dark. Devastated, Chopper uses all of his power to smash into the captain, knocking him out.

Back on the Ghost, we find that Sabine has been working to fix AP-5. Chopper donated parts of his new (stolen) leg to fix his friend. It looks like the Rebels have a new droid and Chopper has found his very own C-3PO.

This episode was much more fun than I thought it would be. Chopper is always a delight when he is on-screen and this is no different. We get a little action, a little humor, and a little drama. Who would have thought that such an emotional episode could focus on one little droid who doesn’t even speak English? I would love to see more Chopper-centric episodes in the future.