Welcome to the Legion!

image

If you go peeking around different corners of the Internet, you can find certain people who, still possessing a bad taste in their mouths over the Star Wars prequels, claim that Disney is happily ignoring that anything in the prequel era ever happened. I, for one, enjoy the prequels for what they bring to the table—different genres of story, a hint of hard sci-fi, gorgeous new aliens and ships and locales that expand the universe despite the wooden dialogue, etcetera—and I’m happy to report that Star Wars Rebels newest episode refutes that butthurt theory, and refutes it hard.

Because how can you reject the prequel era—the Clone Wars era—when your characters include a survivor of the Clone Wars in Hera, and, in Rex, a veteran and person created in that era? And how could any storyteller waste such a rich era? Such an inconclusive eras? Star Wars Rebels, after all, benefited from the early cancellation of the Clone Wars series. That show received metaphorical endings—two in fact, first when Asohka and Anakin’s relationship came to and with the end of the fifth season and the series’ cancellation, then in The Lost Missions on Netflix, with Yoda finding peace in the small moments of beauty and victory before his nightmarish visions of the Empire and the Sith comes to pass. The battles didn’t end, though. The wars never ended for the clones and the droids.

And that’s where “The Last Battle” picks up. Ezra, Kanan and Rex stop at the deserted ruin of a Republic ship to pick up supplies it might have. The old sights bring out the PTSD in Rex, giving him flashbacks to the trials he endured, his comrades who fell. And then, when some old droids who never shut off after Order 66 (commanded by a super-tactical droid who never turned off after Order 66) capture them, it appears that, for our heroes, the Clone Wars have come roaring back to life.

image

The super-tactical droid, it turns out, also realizes that the Clone Wars didn’t end, and when it sees two Jedi and a clone trooper, it sees too the opportunity for one more skirmish, winner takes all. Ezra sees a chance to prove himself, and convinces the others to play along.

Ezra, in fact, is the driving force behind the whole episode (and okay, Chopper, too, a little bit). Not only does he see a chance to prove his worth in battle to Rex in a way that Rex could understand, he also sees that while this battle could end the Clone Wars, neither side can win them. The Separatists’ enemy was the Republic, and the Republic died, only to become the Empire. So if the Republic died, it lost the Clone Wars. If the Separatists weren’t responsible for the downfall, then they couldn’t have won. That means both sides were played, and Ezra points out that the only winner is the Empire.

As someone invested in watching Ezra grow in the powers of his Jedi heritage and beyond what he started out as—namely, a roguish Aladdin stand-in with a lightsaber—this was a revelatory turn in his development. The series has really portrayed him as an audience surrogate, someone awed by the wonder and whizzbang awesomeness of the Force. He’s been impatient to become more powerful, and even briefly leaned toward the Dark Side to get what he needed to bring down the Empire. Here, though, he doesn’t need an ancient holocron’s instant gratification. He leans toward real wisdom instead, measuring the terrain on his own, and sees for himself how to win the day against his enemies.

image

He does that by uniting his friends and the droids, and while the day ends without the supplies the Rebels need to salvage from the ruins of the Clone Wars, it does end with a personal victory for Ezra, closure for Rex, and a subtle closing of the doors on a pivotal chapter in Star Wars history.

Are those door closed forever? Some will say, “Yespleasethankyougod,” and I partially agree. I don’t agree with the desperate need some Star Wars fans have to completely ignore George Lucas’ later installments. They have their flaws, but, on the whole, give us more to think about, and make the Star Wars universe a little more adult, even though the prequels are still totally for kids. When I agree, I mean that, at least for now, Star Wars is going to stop directly reflecting on the past, and start looking at how its universe’s history is impacting the future of the franchise. Let’s not forget, there are still major prequel characters in play; Asohka walked out of the Sith death ray temple at the end of Season 2 and disappeared, and, this season, Maul is out looking for someone (my mind has changed on who), ready to make hell. For Star Wars as a whole, and specifically for Star Wars Rebels, ignoring the past is an impossibility. And this season of Rebels shows us that would be a terrible move anyway. Little threads of the past are loose in the galaxy far, far away, and that makes it feel wonderfully alive.

So what did you think of the episode? Am I super off base with my prequel appreciation? And when do you think we’re going to see our buddy Thrawn again? (I like him. I love him. I want some more of him). Sound off in the comments, and tweet me!

About author View all posts Author website

Eric Mayrhofer

Eric is a Hogwarts student whose letter got lost in the mail. While he's waiting for his owl, he does social media during the day and fiction at night. He loves reading, and currently adores anything by Cathrynne Valente, Elizabeth Strout, Steven Millhauser, Patrick Ness, and of course, JK Rowling the Twitter Queen. When he grows up, he wants to be a water bender. In the meantime, he pursues his MFA.