Star Wars: Rebels Revisited – Part 22: Ironclad Idiots

Whoa, it’s been a while. I just guess I needed a break from all of this. Not that this is my grand announcement of me being back or anything. I fully expect to continue hardly posting and just getting round to these when I can.

It doesn’t help that my PC is basically dead and so doing all the image work for these post has become absurdly time consuming.

Season 3, Episode 08: Iron Squadron

This was a bit of a nothing episode for me. It follows the Ghost as they arrive at a planet trying to evacuate before the Empire can lock them down. Just as the Ghost appears in the system a Corellian freighter, obviously meant to invoke the Millennium Falcon, is fighting off a transport on their own.

The ship is crewed by a collection of punk-ass kids who want to fight for their home and stick it to the Empire. Calling themselves the “Iron Squadron” we find out that their leader; Mart Mattin is the nephew of Commander Sato, giving the crew of the Ghost some pause when the kids try to blow them off.

Despite having no working Hyperdrive and one trick they’ve been using over and over to take out larger Imperial vessels, Mart is determined to stay and fight the Empire, and most likely die in the process. It’s only Ezra’s empathy for their situation, recognising his own history on Lothal and seeing them going through the same thing that has him stick around to at least get their Hyperdrive fixed.

In the end, they all get in over their head. It’s only because Thrawn under-commits forces to the mission, sending just the bumbling Admiral Konstantine in a single light cruiser that the Rebels are afforded enough time to show up with reinforcements and get everyone out of the system alive.

The only thing of value I got out of this episode is some real focus on Commander Sato. Not only do we learn of his dead brother and his nephew, who he now discovers is alive, but when Thrawn shows up at the end, their brief exchange shows that the pair have some kind of shared history.

And with both of them running hard poker faces at almost all times, it’s really hard to tell when kind of history is it. Either way though, I’m interested to see more between the two and whether Sato might take a larger role in command in larger scale space battles. Although given Thrawn’s reputation, I can hardly expect him to stand up to the Chiss Admiral.

This one was one I could have easily skipped though.

Season 3, Episode 09: The Wynkahthu Job

You know what, I really feel like Hondo Ohnaka haas finally worn out his welcome for me. I get the impression someone working on this show and Clone Wars really liked the guy, but after coming back to this show after such a break, I can’t say I have much patience left for the guy.

Especially considering the events of this episode circle around Ezra acting out again, both in his continuing insistence of always giving Hondo the benefit of the doubt. Something he really show have learned his lesson on at this point. But also in acting super petty when Hera gives Zeb the lead in the mission instead of him.

I kind of thought we were past all of this at this point, but guess we’re going back to the original playbook instead.

As for the episode itself. Ezra brings Hondo in again on a tip, who has now allied himself with the James Hong voiced Azmorigan, returning from the first Lando Calrissian episode way back in season one. They all team up to salvage a doomed Imperial cargo freighter which has sinking into a storm on an uncharted world. The crew of the Ghost are after the Proton Bombs in the cargo hold.

While Hondo and his slimy new partner argue over the stolen plunder the Empire have been taking from their subjugated world’s they’ve been lording it over. Valuable treasure they’ve been storing right next to a large cache of anti starship explosives? Yep, sounds about right.

Anyway, this episode is pretty forgettable. Things go sideways because Hondo and Azmorigan get greedy and they accidentally activate the ship’s droid sentries. Big droids that strike a startling resemblance to the Dark Trooper droids from Star Wars lore.

In hindsight, having seen this episode after the second season of the Mandalorian; a show with actual Dark Troopers in it, seeing these things here and how relatively easily they go down is kind of funny. I’m guessing these things were a mere visual nod to the old canon droids when this show came out and not meant to bare any deeper significance than that.

In the end, Ezra realises Hondo sucks, again, and also defers to Zeb’s leadership after having his life saved by the big guy once again. All in all, a pretty fun, if forgettable episode.

Both of these episodes were kind of naff, eh. I like Thrawn, but he’s yet to do a whole lot so far in the series. That’s the problem with a villain in a show with this demographic; they can’t insert him too much into the action without devaluing his whole point as this hyper intellectual master planner. I mean, they made Vader look like a punk when he showed up and that’s Darth Vader.