I'm starting to think blasters are pretty terrible weapons. Ezra and Melch both get shot square in the shoulder. That happens with a solid slug rifle and you are either dead or down for the count. Only Gregory is fatally wounded and he's shot square in the gut.

Ezra shrugging it off is kinda passible because he's a Jedi. Maybe ugnauts are made of sterner stuff?

(FWIW, I'm being deliberately awkward here, I KNOW 'shot in the shoulder' is a common trope where if you get shot in a 'non vital' area you can just walk it off)

Melch was also wearing some kind of armor, maybe? \_(ツ)_/

In Star Wars, overalls are actually a form of Power Armour

10 minutes ago, Ktan said:

In Star Wars, overalls are actually a form of Power Armour

Whilst stormtrooper armour, interestingly enough, seems to magnify the impact of being shot to the point that a hit with even a light holdout hand weapon is instantly fatal.

Mother

F-ing

Space whales.

I enjoyed the show as a whole, and a lot of the finale was great, (and beautifully rendered!) but it would have been just fine if we never saw the space whales again...

Dave Filoni on Twitter

It's sort of NSFW (technically) so I'm not going to post it here but I've got the Narwhals song by Weebl stuck in my head except instead of "narwhals, narwhals" it's "space whales, space whales"

*minor spoilers if you've not seen Avatar*

10 minutes ago, Ktan said:

It's sort of NSFW (technically) so I'm not going to post it here but I've got the Narwhals song by Weebl stuck in my head except instead of "narwhals, narwhals" it's "space whales, space whales"

*minor spoilers if you've not seen Avatar*

I view the intervention of the

narwhals space whales as similar something that happens in Avatar. Which is interesting, because I hated Avatar. That said, while it was a bit of an eye roll for me I felt like Rebels earned it more. They've consistently made a massive detail out of Ezra's connection to wildlife and his empathy towards all living things. Avatar it felt like "we're going to beseech the magic planet tree to send a wave of space rhinos stampeding." It felt less of a plan and more of a hail Mary. It probably didn't help that I was utterly un-invested in the stakes at play in Avatar though too.

At the time I called the magic tree stampede a Deus Ex Machina but I'm not sure it is because they set it up. They didn't do anything interesting with it past a "get out of jail free card". While the purrgil were sort of a "get out of jail free" card they'd earned that by befriending the purgil before, and it further built on this connection.

I'm not saying it's the best plot twist ever, but it felt a lot more earned. Plus, I think it looked amazing. There's something alluring about big space whales dragging Thrawn (who's internally kicking and screaming) into the void.

Plus, gives us a great answer to why Thrawn is not kicking around in the OT without killing him off.

Thrawn's great strength is also his one weakness. He's shown to be such an astute tactical genius that I think any way you defeat him is going to be unsatisfying to a lot of people. IMO, Thrawn being hobbled and blindsided by the Ezra and the purgill isn't that much different to what Leia does with the noghri, and I'm glad they didn't just repeat that plot note.

That said, if the purrgil had been a conventional military force, we'd be considering this a case of Ezra tactically outwitting Thrawn (incidentally, this applies to the Loth wolves too). Sure, Ezra was guided by his Jedi precognition but Ezra basically had access to a military asset Thrawn hadn't accounted for. Sure, it thematically fits with Star Wars' theme of a more primitive force being able to defeat a technologically superior one but it is also a tactical victory on Ezra's part. He'd planned a contingency for multiple failure states. Ezra showed a lot of tactical nous in these episodes and I think it's worth giving the character credit for that. Ezra endured a lot this episode and sacrificed a lot. He really took Kanan's lesson to heart.

Ezra's not my favourite character by a long shot, but this finale was a really solid ending for him. It had some hefty emotional payoff and felt like a victory that through sacrifice and keeping a few cards close to his chest he earned. Ultimately, I like Ezra a lot more now based off just these two episodes.

They not only diminish Thrawn but they yet again diminish Star Destroyers. The coolest ships ever now the paper tigers of Star Wars.

We know Purgil can be killed based off the prior episode. So where are the gunners on the ISD?

The Rebels writers clearly don't understand how hulls work or ships with 55,000 people on board.

Or they don’t care because story > science.

3 minutes ago, Major Tom said:

Or they don’t care because story > science.

Which comes back to my original point of a lazy resolution to what could've been an incredible stand off between Ezra and Thrawn.

They had already done the same plot resolution with Pryce.

I wouldnt have minded if the space whales had played a more supportive role distracting the Empire for Ezra, but wiping out whole star destroyers, the most powerful ships of the era. Diminishing them does not benefit the story.

50 minutes ago, Imperial Advisor Arem Heshvaun said:

Dave Filoni on Twitter

" Now let us begin, again."

Yes please!

1 minute ago, Major Tom said:

Or they don’t care because story > science.

Shame there was no story, just a lazy whale ex machina.

It's not even Ezra using his connection with the whales, completely unrelated people who weren't part of the whale epsiode called them to come over the hyperspace radio and somehow managed to explain Ezra's plan to them.

The Empire is a complete joke. Shields and armour of ISDs pierced by whale hugs. The whole imperial blockade massacred by ******* whales.

Hundreds of thousands of imperials killed, a whole planet breaking off from the Empire before A New Hope, a sizeable Imperial armada wiped out, a Grand Admiral (noone would know he survived) and a Governor killed, and to add insult to injury it's a home planet of Ezra Bridger, who personally offended the Emperor... and the Empire just lets them be. No retaliation, no blockade , no nothing.

Yeah... it makes no sense that Lothal isn't immediately retaliated against. It would be a prime Death Star target.

I too think the sentient hyperspace whales were lame. I mean seriously no one could send a radio transmission from the blockade to the SDs above the city saying, "HUGE WHALES DESTROYING US! WATCHOUT!" This half season started so good and just went completely downhill from there. I know they killed Kanan off, but I was actually shocked they didn't lose anyone more important than one of the clones. I for sure thought Zeb or Kallus was a goner.

Disney has a couple more chances before I just stop completely watching anything new from them.

The loss of the seventh fleet is no small event. The writers created a reason for the Empire to come back. A year before Scariff and A New Hope the Empire isn't distracted by a full fledged uprising yet.

The Empire would have come back just to slag the planet from orbit just to avenge the hundreds of thousands killed.

And don't tell me they're afraid of the whales that space junkers kill all the time and were made endangered in the old republic. If they could kill them a millenia ago an ISD can handle them.

It's not bad science, it's bad writing just as much as the ewoks. If we saw hundreds of the whales pour in and wave after wave wiped out before eventually their numbers overwhelmed the ISDs guns maybe I could buy it more. BUT just like the ewoks, it's not the idea thats bad, it's the execution.

2 hours ago, eMeM said:

Clones are sterile, and the kids would have to be 1-2 years old. They were human-Twi'lek hybrids but not the Deserter's biological children.

The newcanon is a bit vague on whether they're sterile or not. The Legendsverse specifically stated that they were not sterile. However, like you said, the timeline doesn't mesh up for them to be his (plus there was a specific statement that they were not).

2 hours ago, DailyRich said:

The purrgil are no more a deus ex machina than the Ewoks. Ezra recognized that they were not a threat, but simply trying to survive. He saw their sentience and their value. And that understanding was reciprocated. So sure, we didn't see them again, but it's not like they just showed up out of nowhere. The seed for this was planted back in "The Call."

I loved how this took Ezra and Thrawn off the stage for the OT without completely removing them from the story. And you can still fit Heir to the Empire Thrawn into this continuity if you can't let it go in your head.

I'm guessing Kanan and Hera were "friends with benefits" before Hera declared her love for him? Because that's the only way Jacen being Kanan's kid makes any sense. They had no alone time after she told him she loved him. And if that's the case, Hera was pregnant at the very least through those last few episodes. Heck, that may have been part of what convinced her she loved him.

And yes, want the Ahsoka the White and Sabine Adventures right now.

Kanan and Hera were clearly in a relationship all throughout the series, not merely "friends with benefits".

On 3/4/2018 at 11:25 AM, That Blasted Samophlange said:

As much as I like Max Von Sidow, you could do SO much with a Doctor Aphra series in the same vein.

As much as I love Aphra, and as much as Disney has done in terms of representation, Aphra's orientation is still a fairly big barrier in the world of kids cartoons.

35 minutes ago, Forresto said:

The Rebels writers clearly don't understand how hulls work or ships with 55,000 people on board.

Hey, at least they're better writers than Rian Johnson. Because in TLJ unless I'm mistaken there is some passing remark that ENTIRE RESISTANCE is down to like 400ppl. Think about that... 400 ppl in an organization responsible for protecting a Galaxy . ****, even if we assumed that the crew of the Raddus alone was 400ppl after losing most of its pilots and bridge staff (maybe another 50 souls?), that means:

Modern Aircraft Carrier (0.34 km) Crew = 6,500
ISD (1.6 km) Crew = 55,000
The Raddus (3.4km) Crew = ~450

Let's compare that as a standard # of Crew / km ratio:
- Aircraft Carrier : 19,117 crew / km
-Star Destroyer: 34,375 crew / km
- Raddus: 132 crew / km

... that's some efficient crew...


THE ENTIRE RESISTANCE = 0.7% of the crew of one ISD... or a mere 7% of the crew of one single modern aircraft carrier responsible for patrolling one section of sea on our one planet as part of a much larger Navy...


Just another thing that makes zero flippin' sense in RJ's Star Wars

Pre-Disney: the Nebulon-B has a crew of about 800
Post-Disney: the entire Resistance, even with this mega-ship still left, is like, oh, I dunno, 400 people

Thrawn is dead!

I know we dunno exactly how Hyperspace works in Star Wars... but pretty sure that standing three feet away from a bunch of open and broken bridge-windows while a ship enters and travels through hyperspace is probably a death sentence...

PS: why the heck were the Purggil Plan B? Heck, two seasons ago Ezra could have just asked those space whales to come smash up the entire Rebel fleet above Lothal, at which point it would have been trivial to rise up and overthrow the Imperial occupation, especially if a few of the whales just grabbed the dome and threw that into deep space too, while they were at it.


From here on out, I want:

" The whales are coming, the whales are coming! "

to be Star Wars equivalent of

" The Eagles are coming, the Eagles are coming! "

1 minute ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Thrawn is dead!

I know we dunno exactly how Hyperspace works in Star Wars... but pretty sure that standing three feet away from a bunch of open and broken bridge-windows while a ship is entering and traveling through hyperspace is probably a death sentence...

With the windows open Ezra should also be dead.

It's Star Wars. Rule of cool and story always trump stuff like real world considerations.

8 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Thrawn is dead!

I know we dunno exactly how Hyperspace works in Star Wars... but pretty sure that standing three feet away from a bunch of open and broken bridge-windows while a ship is entering and traveling through hyperspace is probably a death sentence...

TLJ established that capital ships have backup atmospheric shield systems, which is why they can still use the bridge of the Raddus after its windows get blown out, IIRC. Since the Raddus is about 30 years old at the time of TLJ it's fair to say ISDs probably have the same backup systems.

While the Raddus was caught by a sudden missile attack, it's reasonable the crew of the Chimera had enough time to kick in the backups.

Either way, Filoni has since confirmed in Rebels Recon both Ezra and Thrawn are alive. The only reason we didn't see it because he's not yet sure where he wants to go with that. I think a followup series would explain how both survive, even if only with a few lines of dialogue or a flashback.

2 minutes ago, Tbetts94 said:

With the windows open Ezra should also be dead.

Agreed, but at least he could have like jumped into an interior room and sealed a bulkhead. Thrawn was pretty clearly trapped where he was, inches from exposure to deep space and hyperspace. I dunno, I guess Chiss can like, live in deep space now, since I think we all know he's not actually dead and will likely return (and ultimately end up eventually joining the Good Guys, probably against the rising First Order, because writers usually end up saving the villains they get really invested in).

5 minutes ago, Sithborg said:

It's Star Wars. Rule of cool and story always trump stuff like real world considerations.

Unfortunately like ewoks the space whales aren't particularly cool...

Or they had shields to protect them from the dangers of outerspace.

2 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

[...]and will likely return (and ultimately end up eventually joining the Good Guys, probably against the rising First Order, because writers usually end up saving the villains they get really invested in).

Good lord, I hope not, but I worry that you're right.

Which is a shame. Thrawn becoming a good guy cheapens his character way more than being towed away by narwhals.

That said, I could get behind a temporary alliance between, say, Thrawn's forces and the Resistance if it then transpires that Thrawn is fighting the First Order to get them out of the way and then turn on the Resistance and establish his own preferred system of government.