'Star Wars Rebels' Preview Online

The 7 minute Rebels preview is online...and the folks who saw it at Comic Con weren't lying when they said it was awesome!




Pretty much any doubt I had about this show has been wiped away.  It looks beautiful, and the animation here is miles ahead of what Clone Wars looked like when it first started out (Look!  The hair moves!).  The facial animation looks as good and at times better than what we saw in the latter seasons of Clone Wars, but the actual body movements look more like what we saw in Season 3.  Which is still pretty freaking good, by television animation standards.

You can see Ralph McQuarrie's style all over the place.  The lighting and textures are stunning, and really make the show look like moving concept art.  There's tons of great nods to John William's original score; I particularly love that musical cue callback when Ezra senses Kanaan.  And how great was it to hear TIE fighters again?

Most importantly, I like all of the characters, and the setup is pretty solid.  I was afraid that Ezra was going to be 'Aladdin in space', but he's not.  Like Aladdin, he's a thief, but he's not above stealing from someone he just helped out.  In the end, he's looking out for himself, unlike Aladdin.  But he's still likeable and has a good side.  I'm also impressed by the fact that Kanaan's team pulled no punches in stealing from the Empire.  They wasted no time shooting and blowing up stormtroopers to get what they wanted.

The only slight drawback is the dialogue seemed a little clunky at times, but it's only the first seven minutes and I have no doubts that the show will get better as it goes on.  It's not bad, but at times it seems a little awkward.  There's something off about the audio mixing on this clip, but they've still got time to fix it before the series premiere.

To be honest, the only bad thing about this clip was that it ended, and we all have to wait two months for the rest!  What did you all think about the preview?