[SPOILERS]: Star Wars: Rebels - Thoughts?

By GM Hooly, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

Loved both episodes. The entire wolf ride, with the gorgeous animation and direction, Mononoke-esque music, and the sudden dive into the grass had me giggling like a little girl.

It was simply perfect .

Not to say that everything was ultimately bad but... man that was bad... I really do not like those episodes and their arc.

Also no matter how you twist or turn it... teleportation and time-travel just feel wrong in the Star Wars context.

I’m okay with teleportation, but time travel... time travel is definitely not Star Wars.

I think it would have been 100× more awesome if they grabbed Mace as he was flying through the air after his fight with the Emperor.

Ezra standing in front of the gate and body catches an armless Windu as he flies through.

Would have been pretty cool and concludes the whole, "what if" conversations.

Per certain beliefs, space and time are just illusions, so of course the Force can reach across them.

That outside-the-world place could be seen as an explanation as to how Yoda communicates with people across the galaxy, and how Luke creates illusions from across the galaxy. Suppose every vergence is naturally connected to this non-place, and it facilitates transmission across space (and time); then maybe it is via the properties of that place that the Force can be used across vast distances. Or maybe that place is just a structure that can give physical access to a facet of the Force's space-time spanning nature.

Note that the Emperor couldn't access it at all until Ezra walked through the gate; only then he could peer into it, channel those flames into it (and didn't that cauldron of flame look a lot like some Nightsister sorcery?), and even begin to step through himself (presumably from the Dark Side vergence on Coruscant). I'd guess that the temple on Lothal's gate was special, if not unique; maybe related to Lothal's unique nature - witness the Loth wolves ability to apparently somehow transcend at least local space. There might be other such locations in the galaxy, but the Emperor will have to start the search over (and he's not going to have the time).

55 minutes ago, Yaccarus said:

I’m okay with teleportation, but time travel... time travel is definitely not Star Wars.

The force can see into the future and past. Besides that wasn’t time travel just a stronger visualization of past events. Ezra pulled her into a timeless dimension, not forward in time.

Ezra pulled her out of the past, into a “timeless dimension,” and put her back into the past. That affects the past. Thus, it is still time travel.

Note that time still moved forward while Ezra and Ahsoka where in Portal City. When they jump back into their respected timelines, time had elapsed.

That is time travel. Or at the very least the basics in manipulating space and time.

Edited by Arrakus

I was more interested in this minister. I wonder why they weren't any inquisitors protecting the site (are all dead at this point? all dead in ONE MISSION? That must be the smallest organization in the galaxy)

The thing I didn't like was how the hobby-level knowledge of art helped you to resolve complex mysteries (Might be an example of clever solution).

1 hour ago, Arrakus said:

Note that time still moved forward while Ezra and Ahsoka where in Portal City. When they jump back into their respected timelines, time had elapsed.

That is time travel. Or at the very least the basics in manipulating space and time.

Sounds more like the passage of time.

But yes definitely manipulation of space, but the hyperdrive technology in Star Wars is based on the Ancients, Kwawaa, Rakatta, force based hyperdrives.

Edited by Eoen
5 hours ago, Arrakus said:

Note that time still moved forward while Ezra and Ahsoka where in Portal City. When they jump back into their respected timelines, time had elapsed.

That is time travel. Or at the very least the basics in manipulating space and time.

4 hours ago, Eoen said:

Sounds more like the passage of time.

But yes definitely manipulation of space, but the hyperdrive technology in Star Wars is based on the Ancients, Kwawaa, Rakatta, force based hyperdrives.

I just finished watching those episodes, and have to agree with @Eoen on this.

4 hours ago, Eoen said:

Sounds more like the passage of time.

But yes definitely manipulation of space, but the hyperdrive technology in Star Wars is based on the Ancients, Kwawaa, Rakatta, force based hyperdrives.

Of course it sound like the passage of time. That's what time travel is. You remove yourself from the normal flow of time. Time passes back or forward. You reenter time. Doesn't matter if you enter a door way to another dimension or are in a space-warp-timey-wimey-bubbly-wubbly thingy. Ezra interacted with the past, if even for a small amount of it, and altered it. Its time travel.

4 minutes ago, SithArissa said:

Of course it sound like the passage of time. That's what time travel is. You remove yourself from the normal flow of time. Time passes back or forward. You reenter time. Doesn't matter if you enter a door way to another dimension or are in a space-warp-timey-wimey-bubbly-wubbly thingy. Ezra interacted with the past, if even for a small amount of it, and altered it. Its time travel.

Not quite what he meant. If you watch the episode again, the same amount of time passes within the alternate dimension as passes in the "real" world. If he were simply stepping through a portal and ending up in another time instantly, or if only a few seconds (or minutes) passed by in that alternate dimension, and days, months, or years passed by in the real world, that would be another matter. Thus, Ezra didn't "remove" himself from the flow of time, certainly not completely.

He moved from the present to the past then back. He might as well rename himself Marty Mcfly.

Just now, SithArissa said:

He moved from the present to the past then back. He might as well rename himself Marty Mcfly.

Not quite. He never left that dimension, and Ashoka couldn't be transported into the "present" either. She went back to whence she came, plus the amount of time that had passed.

5 hours ago, Rithuan said:

I was more interested in this minister. I wonder why they weren't any inquisitors protecting the site (are all dead at this point? all dead in ONE MISSION? That must be the smallest organization in the galaxy)

The thing I didn't like was how the hobby-level knowledge of art helped you to resolve complex mysteries (Might be an example of clever solution).

To my knowledge, the Inquisitorius is being phased out by now (they're not around during the OT). They were obviously not up to the task of keeping a few jedi in line and one even kind of defected (post mortem), so the idea of using weaker dark siders apparently failed. We know how Vader feels about failure. And of course, the Inquisitorius was a pretty small organization even in its best days - after all, Palpatine and Vader didn't get out of RotS unscathed and had better things to do with their time than to find and train more force users after they just completed the greatest force sensitive purge.

As for the art, do you mean the abilities of the characters (because Sabine is obviously meant to be pretty good at that stuff) or the description given in the show?

2 minutes ago, Cifer said:

To my knowledge, the Inquisitorius is being phased out by now (they're not around during the OT). They were obviously not up to the task of keeping a few jedi in line and one even kind of defected (post mortem), so the idea of using weaker dark siders apparently failed. We know how Vader feels about failure. And of course, the Inquisitorius was a pretty small organization even in its best days - after all, Palpatine and Vader didn't get out of RotS unscathed and had better things to do with their time than to find and train more force users after they just completed the greatest force sensitive purge.

As for the art, do you mean the abilities of the characters (because Sabine is obviously meant to be pretty good at that stuff) or the description given in the show?

Yep, Sabine is certainly not a "hobby" level artist. She's a highly adept, even "master" level artist, one whose skill and knowledge greatly impresses Thrawn, a known connoisseur of fine art.

And is daughter of an artist.

Also, whilst it appears that the past was changed, it hasn't changed it from anything we were previously aware of. So the past is unchanged from the point of view of us, the observer.

I must say I really had no problem with the time travel stuff. It was handled with the appropriate care, removed from the story by the episode's end and the execution just felt great, both in visuals and especially in audio.

I really liked the episode and how they handled it. It is mysterious and does to appear to have rules and limits, even if we do not know them all yet.

What I am really glad is that not just anyone can use it. That it is part of mystical realm that and it wasn't some machine that Crazy Mcgee the scientist built. I also think that the Story group may restrict how this setup is used in Cannon.

On ‎2‎/‎28‎/‎2018 at 7:33 AM, [Arkas] said:

Not to say that everything was ultimately bad but... man that was bad... I really do not like those episodes and their arc.

Also no matter how you twist or turn it... teleportation and time-travel just feel wrong in the Star Wars context.

Yeah I feel like they are starting to answer questions that they shouldn't answer, and ripping off Lord of the Rings. I thought for a moment Ezra was going to speak "friend" and enter.

I'm all for strange new mystical examples of the Force, so the world between worlds was right up my alley. Watching the crew talking about it on Rebels Recon, it's also interesting how previous adventures in the Lothal temple were an extension of or an off-shoot of the power there.

Folks who don't like it, I can get that, but I really don't get the fear some people have that time travel and teleportation are somehow going to run rampant and rip the Star Wars universe apart. Aside from the powers that be keeping a handle on things, it's not easy to access in the first place and it's been taken out of play anyways.

I do think that it's probably huge fan fic fodder, though. I'm sure lots of folks will grab ahold of the wbw and run with it.

I thought it was quite well done for what it is. Unfortunately, what it is is yet another display that Filoni (a) doesn't share my preferred conception of the fundamental spirit of Star Wars and the Force and (b) doesn't have the guts to let Ahsoka die, despite the fact that having her survive until the OT is canon-breaking.

With Ghosts of Mortis, we had Star Wars Meets D&D. Now we've got Star Wars Meets Princess Mononoke, followed by Star Wars Meets Stargate SG1. I'm happy for people who like these mashups, but they're just not my thing.

3 hours ago, DaverWattra said:

her survive until the OT is canon-breaking.

That is technically incorrect. The character and Disney (In a way) have said that they do not consider Ahsoka to be a Jedi. So the whole "No Jedi before OT!!" is still valid in regards to that character.

On 2/28/2018 at 7:22 PM, Tramp Graphics said:

Not quite. He never left that dimension, and Ashoka couldn't be transported into the "present" either. She went back to whence she came, plus the amount of time that had passed.

The entire scope of what actually occurred in that space is not clear. Also there is nothing to say that Ahsoka went back to the point in time indicated either by your post or otherwise. She could've been dropped off before, or after. Essentially what the writers have done is set up a deus ex machina that Ahsoka can step in and save/ mentor Ezra again in a clutch point.

Also manipulating the events of time is time travel, whether you are pulling things out of time, or putting things into time. I imagine that we will not get a clear understanding of what that place actually is, other than obviously a celestial/ones construct that inexplicably allows interaction with various points in time.

I'm also going to wager that those other gates can be opened as well by some mechanism. Palpatine can at least open the gateway he has access to in order to see in that space. If that is all someone that powerful in the force is able to manage, well that's interesting indeed. Although, wasn't there a frame where Palp's hand reached beyond the barrier into that realm?

Anyway should be interesting to see how this all ends. Breaking the time-travel, even if only in a modest way, sort of makes all sorts of things possible.