Season Review: Star Wars Resistance Season One

Star Wars Resistance is hard to resist.

Overview (Spoilers Below):

In the wake of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels, the newest entry in the animated Star Wars canon, Star Wars Resistance premiered last October. Set a mere six months before the events of The Force Awakens, Resistance was poised to connect some dots in interesting ways.

The show follows Kazuda Xiono, a teenaged military pilot from a rich family on Hosnian Prime. After being recruited by Poe Dameron, Kaz begins to spy for General Organa and the Resistance. He’s sent to the Colossus, a refueling station located in the Outer Rim. There, he starts working as a mechanic for Jarek Yaeger and meets up with new friends like the clueless but loyal Neeku Vozo, tough but fair Tamara Ryvora, and star racer and daughter of the Captain of the Colossus Torra Doza.

Though things start slow for Kaz, soon he’s involved in high stakes espionage as he defends the Colossus from greedy pirates, mysterious sea monsters, and the First Order. By the time the season finale rolls around, the First Order has taken over the Colossus due to its convenient status as a fueling center. Kaz and his friends fight to free their home from the iron fist of the First Order, and manage to succeed in trashing the troopers. As the season ends, they’ve discovered the Colossus is a ship itself, and are jumping into hyperspace headed to an unknown destination.

Our Take:

In a series like Star Wars Resistance, characters are key. It doesn’t have the same fast-paced speed as a 90-minute movie. With over 7 hours of content, we get a lot more time spent on just hanging around with these characters. We get to spend time with them in their day-to-day activities onboard the Colossus, whether it’s repairing a broken ship, running errands to pick up spare parts, or just throwing back a cold one at Aunt Z’s. Luckily, I think characterization is something Resistance absolutely excels with. It all starts with Kaz. He’s pretty much a perfect main character. Young, dumb, and very goofy, he’s an easy guy to root for and it’s fun to view the world of Star Wars through his eyes. But he’s also brave, eager, and strangely smart about certain things – all makings of a potential hero. There’s a marked growth we get to experience in him by the end of this first season. The supporting cast is also superb, save for some reservations I have with Neeku. He’s clearly meant to be the comedy relief, but sometimes his humor is a bit too dumb. And I am all for dumb jokes, so you know he has to be exceedingly annoying at times. Still, his heart is in the right place and he gets some good moments in this season. Tam is one of the more interesting characters in that she’s loyal to the First Order as the season wraps up. Knowing her, I don’t think she’ll remain there for long, but it does raise some cool questions about how ethical Kaz’s spying is when it comes to his relationships on the Colossus.

The plot of the series isn’t quite as strong as the characters in my mind, but it’s still very good. Where Clone Wars and Rebels had an entire galaxy to play with, Resistance mainly sticks to staying on the Colossus during this first season. That has pros and cons. We get to become intimately familiar with the space base, which really sells Kaz and the company’s connection with it when the First Order tries to overthrow it with force. However, it also means that a few less-exciting episodes sneak into this season, like Synara’s arc, which drags on a bit too long. Something the series does very well is tie everything together. Maybe the crew is hyper-aware of loose ends because of the timeline’s proximity to the Force Awakens, but there are very few pure filler episodes. Even when Kaz helps someone on an errand or something, that character will usually show up again later on. Though Kaz’s (and by extension, the show’s) carefree nature makes for a few scenes where the tone is a little off, for the most part, Resistance does a good job balancing comedic moments with more serious plot points. We can go from Kaz goofing around to helping rescue force-sensitive orphans in a matter of minutes. Toward the end of the season, things become even more deadly as we see General Hux’s speech from the start of the Force Awakens. Kaz’s homeworld is completely obliterated, and one of his best friends turns her back on him. Resistance delivers tears of laughter and actual tears!

When it comes to the more technical/artistic aspects of the show, I would say the results are more mixed. As the first teasers were being released last year, it was promoted as having a visual design style that was ‘inspired by anime’. That can mean a lot of things, and along with the Saturday morning cartoon vibe, it had some people worried about what direction Resistance would move in. Thankfully, I’d say most of those fears were unfounded. Yes, the show does have a more simple cell-shaded animation style than Clone Wars or Rebels, but I’ve grown to really enjoy it. It fits the vibe of the show, and the vibrant colors can be downright gorgeous at times. The musical score is fine, but nothing to write home about. Kevin Kiner did great work on previous animated Star Wars shows but was unfortunately not hired for Resistance. Instead, Michael Tavera composes the score. While he’s had plenty of experience composing for animation in the past, he’s never worked on anything like Star Wars, and I don’t consider any of the music in Resistance very memorable.

At the conclusion of its first season, it’s clear that Star Wars Resistance is paving its own path. It isn’t as revered as The Clone Wars or as action-packed as Rebels, but it charts new territory and finds a unique voice in the Star Wars mythology. Kaz and the rest of the cast are great, the humor is one of my favorite parts, and the way the show works in connections to the larger Star Wars universe is handled very well. By the end credits of the final episode, it’s clear that Kaz is going to become even more wrapped up in the fight against the First Order. I know when season two rolls around later this year, I’ll be eager to rejoin the Resistance.