There were two Rebels trailers last weekend: a 30 second preview for the trailer, and the full minute long trailer itself. Both showed some pretty cool stuff, so now it's time for a Top 5 list! Normally I would do 10, but these trailers are so short there's not much to choose from. Since we're essentially starting a new story from scratch again, there's nothing to speculate about. So with that, here are my Top 5 Most Awesome Things in the Star Wars Rebels Trailers!
5. Ralph McQuarrie's Visual Style
One of the best things about Lucasfilm Animation is that they add a lot of texture to their 3D models to keep them from being flat or plastic looking. It makes each frame look like a beautiful piece of concept art and helps give it visual depth and atmosphere. For Rebels, they went all the way back to concept artist Ralph McQuarrie's paintings for the original trilogy, with lots of bright, warm colors that really pop. Just look at these images from the trailers...
Compared to these paintings that Ralph did....
They even kept the same design of stormtooper helmet from the concept art instead of going with the design seen in Episode 4: A New Hope. I think the image of Sabine and Chopper together at the top really captures the look of McQuarrie's art. No doubt about it, this show is going to be beautiful to look at.
4. Deaths & Explosions
Ever since the announcement that this show would be running on Disney XD, there's been a lot of whining and moaning across the internet about how Rebels would be for kids, no character would ever die, and there would always be happy endings and other nonsense like that (more on that at a later date). Thankfully, this trailer backs up the claims from Lucasfilm Animation that yes, there will be deaths in the show. After all, the evil Empire is running the galaxy now. The tone of this show is going to be more in line with A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, so it's not going to be as dark as Clone Wars (and that show got pretty dark in the end). And that's totally fine. A huge body count doesn't make a show better or more mature, the character development and storytelling do. Think back to shows like Avatar: The Last Airbender, Batman: The Animated series, Gargoyles, Justice Leauge, Green Lantern, Spectacular Spiderman...all great shows, all with a low body count, yet all had very mature storytelling.
As you can see from above, we've got imperial officers caught in explosions and ships being blown up by our main heroes. Even Kanaan, a former Jedi, has no problems shooting a stormtrooper point blank in a very cool looking zero gravity escape scene.
3. Space Battles
Battles in The Clone Wars were most often fought on the ground. There were space battles, but never any space battles like you see in A New Hope or Return of the Jedi. In Rebels, our main heroes actually live on a ship, and since they're directly involved with the beginning of the rebellion against the Empire, it seems we're going to get some pretty cool looking space battles.
I think the idea of atmospheric battles is really interesting. There was one really neat battle in The Clone Wars that took place in the atmosphere, with all of the ships surrounded by clouds and blue sky. I'm really excited to see what kinds of new imagery, ideas, and battle techniques they can bring to space battles in this series.
2. Survivors of Order 66
It's hard to picture Star Wars without any Jedi, and thankfully we've got Kanaan on Rebels to fill that void. The interesting thing about Kanaan is that he's a survivor of Order 66. He doesn't look old enough to have been a master at the end of the Clone Wars, so perhaps he was an older padawan about Ahsoka's age, or slightly younger. Something like Order 66 would be a traumatic experience, and I'm curious to see how that would affect a surviving young Jedi and how he would feel picking up a lightsaber again for the first time in over a decade.. And how did he survive Order 66? Was he in the temple at the time of Operation: Knightfall? Or was he out on a planet somewhere with his master? Maybe his master was killed and he narrowly escaped? Who knows, but I certainly can't wait to find out.
On another note, the great thing about having a Jedi on the show is having the opportunity for a unique lightsaber. Kanaan's lightsaber is kept in two separate pieces, probably to keep it from looking like a lightsaber if they were to be caught by Imperials.
This show takes place five years before A New Hope, which means it's been fourteen years since the Jedi were all but wiped out. Most people in the galaxy either regard the Jedi as a myth, or have never seen or even heard of a Jedi or the Force itself before. This latter seems to be the case for Ezra. He knows he has a special ability, but has no knowledge of the Force or the Jedi. Just look at the look on his face upong seeing a lightsaber for the first time! I think that's the look we all had on our faces the first time we experienced Star Wars and saw a lightsaber ignite.
It's kind of exciting to see a story about a kid learning about the Force for the first time. I'm curious about how they're going to keep it different than Luke Skywalker learning about the nature of the Force for the first time.
And my number 1 most exciting thing is...
1. The Inquisitor
I love a good villain, and the villains of Star Wars are no exception. Star Wars has an incredible rogues gallery, from bounty hunters to Sith, they are terrifying, ruthless, and badass. The Inquisitor has a great design, and it looks like he'll fit perfectly with the the likes of Darth Maul, Ventress, Cad Bane, and all of the other Star Wars villains. Plus, he has a really cool looking lightsaber.
Now, what's curious is that this is the only main character left that we haven't learned much of anything about. All of our main heroes had featurette videos dedicated to them, but nothing about our main villain besides some concept art, a storyboard image, posters, and special rendered images.
But for the first time, we get to see him in the show...and we get to hear him speak! An Imperial officer (Sergeant Kallus, I believe) is seen reporting to the Inquisitor about the commotion our rebel heroes have been causing.
What's even more interesting is that the voice actor for this character hasn't even been formally announced yet. We have absolutely no idea who is voicing this guy. Now, on the Star Wars Rebels IMDB page, actor David Oyelowo is listed as the voice of the Inquisitor. And last year it was reported on Collider that Oyelowo was in talks for the show. But apparently that is false, according to the Making Star Wars podcast/news site. The official Star Wars facebook page replied to a fan asking about Oyelowo as the voice actor that it was indeed someone else. Some think that it could be Max Von Sydow, who was recently announced as part of the main cast for Episode VII. And then there's this interesting little tweet from Rebels Report...
Entire #YoungJustice panel is jealous that @Greg_Weisman & @BrentSpiner are currently working on #StarWarsRebels. #gally1
— Carmelle (@Con_noisseur) February 16, 2014
Gargoyles was helmed by Greg Weisman, who is now one of the guys in charge of Rebels. Weisman is notorious for using Star Trek actors in his animated series, so we'll have to wait and see how this unfolds.
So that's my top 5...what are yours? Just in case you missed the new trailers, I'll leave them for you below. And until next time, may the Force be with you!
There are some shots from the trailer that I think contained simple textures as opposed to the Clone Wars' season 5 textures? I'm not sure, but can you tell me if I'm right or not?
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