Review: Star Wars Forces of Destiny “Volume 4”

Old friends and new faces show up in a fresh batch of exciting shorts in Disney’s Star Wars Forces of Destiny series.

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Chopper and Friends finds Hera and Chopper delivering supplies to an Ewok village when they’re attacked by Imperials. Taking to the air, Hera manages to defeat the enemies… with a little help from some unexpected stowaways.

Monster Misunderstanding revolves around Queen Amidala uncovering a group of poachers who have kidnapped the baby of a Sando Aqua monster. By studying the situation and employing some critical thinking skills, Padme is able to return the child to it’s mother and stop the beast’s rampage.

In Art History, Sabine and Tristan are on a covert mission to free Mandalore. They risk everything to destroy an Imperial outpost that has defaced a symbolic statue of Tarre Vizsla.

Porgs! starts as Chewie is exasperated when a pair of porgs tears blue wiring out of the Falcon. Further investigation with help from R2-D2 reveals that the porgs are looking for hard-to-find blue moss for their nest—if only Chewie can get it for them.

Perilous Pursuit focuses on a dangerous snowspeeder chase across Starkiller Base, in which Rey and Finn work together to escape pursuing snowtroopers.

Traps and Tribulations stars Luke and Leia, who (with the aid of a lightsaber) help Kneesaa and Wicket stop a rampaging Gorax by resetting the Ewok’s traps.

Triplecross finds Hondo teaming up with bounty hunter droid IG-88 to capture Qi’ra, but she outsmarts both her pursuers by pitting them against each other so that she can collect the bounty on them.

In A Disarming Lesson, Ahsoka gives Ezra a lesson in finding his inner strength and trusting in the Force when she disarms him and pressures him to adapt to her attacks on the fly.

Our Take:

From the very first short segment, Forces of Destiny shows off what makes it unique among the Star Wars line-up. It has a very simplified art style but still manages to set the scene in a way that properly conveys the action that is taking place within the storyline. While Hera may look a bit strange to viewers accustomed to seeing her on Rebels, her fancy flying feels right at home thanks to quick cuts and exciting camera angles.

Art History may have been my favorite short of this bunch, for a number of reasons. For one thing, it allows us a deeper look into Sabine and her relationship with her brother. Rebels watchers will remember we were introduced to him in the final season of the show, but the episode had so much going on that we really didn’t get much insight into his character then. Giving him more screen time (with less at stake) in this episode serves to flesh him out a bit more, even if it’s only for a few minutes. (Also, his line about Sabine apologizing to the statue was great, adding to his sense of humor while calling back to Sabine’s love for art.)

The segment centered around Chewie and the porgs may not have been the most dramatic, but I did appreciate seeing some scenes that occurred during the most recent Star Wars film. It’s nice to know what Chewbacca was up to in his free time while Rey gallivanted around with Luke! Plus, it’s really cool how musical scores from the films themselves are incorporated into their related shorts.

Triplecross is also a noteworthy short, mostly because it features an appearance from Qi’ra. She is, apparently, a new character introduced in the Solo movie currently playing in US theatres. Her use here brings to light just how good the team at the Star Wars story group is, as they are able to plan out these types of things far in advance in order to make characters like this show up in interesting ways that don’t conflict with previously-established canon!

This is true across the entire series, but especially notable in Traps and Tribulations. The ability of Disney to bring in every original actor to voice their character (save Leia, of course) speaks to how much attention they pay to little details. Even in a short form online video series like this, they want it to be as polished as possible. In Traps and Tribulations, the voice actors really do sound good as Luke and Leia. (It is likely that Mark Hamill himself voices the boy from Tatooine, since he is an accomplished voiceover artist!) Everyone from Taylor Gray (Ezra) to Jim Cummings (Hondo) reprised their roles here.

The final episode of the bunch, A Disarming Lesson, is interesting for sure. I was a little confused by Ahsoka’s teaching methods (and the lesson she imparts indefinitely pretty basic), but I’m pretty sure this is our first time seeing Ahsoka training Ezra, and that knowledge is neat in and of itself.

Forces of Destiny’s unique short-format style allows us to visit specific moments in the Star Wars ethos for brief glimpses into what goes on after the bigger budget films have ended. These segments were a diverse group that had something in it for every fan, whether they prefer the prequels, originals, or sequels.