I haven't been so excited about the Star Wars universe in a long time (ago in a galaxy far far away). I think back on how Clone Wars got off to a somewhat mediocre, uneven, kinda crummy start and evolved into something incredible. In my opinion this series is off to a start on par with the later seasons of Clone Wars. For a start, it's set in the era of Star Wars that I prefer. I will say that Clone Wars made me like the prequel era better than the films did, but we're finally back to a man against man struggle which I prefer to man against machine. It adds more drama to know that the enemies are humans. I will say for all the people claiming it isn't as "dark" as Clone Wars... I would argue it's as dark and probably going to get darker. Two episodes in and we're dealing with fascism, slavery, illegal arms dealing, genocide... and we have actual people getting shot and killed on a frequent basis, and in some macabre cases played for laughs.
More importantly though, the show is just plain fun, which Star Wars should be. I have no problem with Star Wars getting dark, in fact it should at certain points, but it shouldn't be the overall tone. Rebels captures that tone of light spirited adventure set in a dark time punctuated with moments of levity. I found all the characters engaging and I'm excited to see how they all develop. None of them came off as obnoxious pandering, even Ezra and Sabine who I worried about came off as likable and very intriguing characters that were easy to root for. The main villain thus far is a worthy foe, and clearly ruthless as any good star wars villain. Seriously, Kallus kills one of his men just for asking a fairly reasonable question in a moment of black comedy. This dude is bad news.
The animation is different from Clone Wars, yes, and not quite up to par in detail but stylistically I think it's a vast improvement. As the show progresses I have no doubt the animation will improve (Yes, the wookiees looked a bit... off) but I honestly didn't care because I was wrapped up in the story and the characters... and in the words of Lucas back in the day, "Special effects are just a tool, a means of telling a story. People have a tendency to confuse them as an end to themselves. A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing" (I wish he remembered that in the late 90s early 2000s but oh well).
Most importantly, like the original Star Wars there is a true sense of wonder and awe for the events unfolding given that we are following a fish out of water everyman who is easy to identify with. For example, when Ezra first travels through space it's no longer a dull routine of getting from point A to point B, it's a huge deal. And whereas the lightsabers were overused to the point of boredom in the prequels... now whenever we see one ignited it has a serious impact.
Given that Clone Wars had an incredibly rocky start and became something incredible, this series is off to a firmly entertaining and well thought out beginning and I can't wait to see where they go with it.
