Review: Star Wars Rebels “Droids in Distress”

These are not the guest spots I was looking for.

Spoilers Below

Oh man, where do I begin? I was in attendance at the Star Wars Rebels panel at NYCC this past weekend, and Vanessa Marshall told us that the series will be full of guest spots, and those spots really did start big. C3PO and R2D2 made a guest spot on tonight’s episode. If that isn’t enough to get you interested, then I don’t know what will. I thought the amount of familiar music and tone was great, and just enough to think of a time before Jar-Jar. Hell, we even got a “I’ve got a bad feeling” or two during the episode. Who could complain about that? People want a tonal shift back to the original trilogy, and this is as close as we’re going to get, at least until Mr. Lost puts out Episode VII. IGN has no idea what they’re talking about.

I felt that this episode is a true beginning to the series, because the tone fits right into the  universe as a whole. The classic rebel / Imperials fight is something that goes way back to 1979, and it felt rejuvenated. I was worried going in that the disjointed feel of Spark of Rebellion was going to continue throughout the series. Thankfully, Marshall’s words rung true throughout this entire episode.

Of course we get the titular protocol droid and astromech throughout the episode, but we get two cameos as well! We’re going a little out of order on this one, and do the end of the episode, which had Bail Organa. Organa, who had a relative small part in the movies, actually played a very influential part in Episode Three. He got Yoda out of Coruscant, and helped hide the Skywalker siblings. Here, he takes back C3PO, and R2D2, planting yet another seed of the rebellion. I am very impressed that the writers used Organa, but dismayed that Jimmy Smits isn’t voicing him. I guess he was too busy on the Sons of Anarchy set or something. It was a little off-putting hearing Phil LaMarr as Organa, but the piece was played either way.

The other cameo came from a droid that you would miss unless you were on the original run of Star Tours down in Disney Hollywood Studios. That’s right, Captain Rex is back, and so is Paul Reubens as his voice! This doesn’t mean much to the everyday viewer, I’m just taking it as a nod to the past Disney and Star Wars has had over the years. I acted like a fanboy when I heard Reubens telling all of the droids to get to the back of the ship.

Agent Kallus got a bigger part of the script this week, putting him deep into Zeb’s backstory. Kallus ordered Zeb’s race to bolt into extinction with the same type of weapon. Of course, Zeb loses it, and goes after Kallus, mainly because Kallus had a weapon that only the Lasat Honor Guard had. I think it was great to have Zeb use all of this anger and channel it at someone besides Ezra. That scene  just goes to show how truly cold-hearted Kallus really is, and how capable of a fighter he is. Steve Blum did awesome this week conveying the emotion and rage Zeb felt when dealing with Kallus and the formally sacred Bo-Rifle. I can watch this scene on repeat.

This episode is what I was expecting from the get go. Rebels can be a great addition if the writers keep intertwining characters from the movies into the narrative of the show. I was excited to see the guest spots, both large and small. As an added bonus, the creators have a behind the scenes video, and it’s up here. This is the episode people should use to hook in fans of the movies. “Droids in Distress” captured the universe, in my opinion, a lot better than what we got in Clone Wars did.

One gripe I do have, however is with the app. I love that it broadcasts to my Chromecast, but the videos coming from the app are not in HD. I would think in 2014, we would be able to get episodes that are in HD through Chromecast and the DisneyXD app. This doesn’t change my thoughts on the score, just something that needs to  be addressed at some time. There is a bit of a bright spot, though. The episode was released early, and has been viewable for at least a week. So, good job Disney people. we need to see more of the good work in other shows I review.