DVD Talk Forum - Star Wars: Rebels (Disney XD) -- Season 3 Discussion Thread

I recently watched this season and enjoyed it. There's further ties back to The Clone Wars, but tellingly there's no Vader or Ahsoka. Ezra's potentially fall to the dark side is teased, but aside from the season opener, they dial back from that fairly quickly.

A big arc/villain this season is Maul. It was interesting to see his end. I did like the final fight with Kenobi, and I understood why it was so brief. It's rare for Star Wars to show that level of restraint. I do wonder how Maul's appearance in the movie Solo was supposed to slot into this timeline though. We never see him in charge of Dark Sun in this show.

It was also interesting watching this season after already having seen Rogue One. I had forgotten the name of the character Forest Whitaker played in that film, so I missed the connection when watching The Clone Wars recently, but here it clicked that they're the same character. This episode seems to be laying the groundwork for the rebels finding out about the Death Star.

The other big villain this season is Thrawn. I was a fan of the Zhan books in the early 90s, so it was good to see him. One issue with Thrawn is that he's supposed to be so brilliant, yet he also needs to ultimately lose. In the books this worked because he was part of the last remnants of the Empire after ROTJ, so was working with limited resources and military might. In this, he has the full backing of the Empire, so he really shouldn't as often defeated as he is in this who. They do try to get around this with Kallus as a spy, which Thrawn deduces and trys to work to his advantage. It also helps that his defeat on Atollon is partly due to the Bendu, which he didn't have knowledge of so couldn't anticipate.

The Bendu was also an interesting character, a supposed "neutral" force user, one apparently not afraid of the dark side of the Force. He served as an interesting mentor of sorts for Kanan in the beginning of the season. I guess having such a powerful being not interested in either side and only interested in defending its home when it comes down to it explains why the Bendu isn't involved with either side in the OT movies.

I also liked Sabine's arc with Mandalore and her family. I started watching The Clone Wars and this show after seeing The Mandalorian, so it's interesting to see the backstory filled in for what lead to that show.

Overall I'm enjoying the show. I still think this show's a bit more focused that The Clone Wars, which went off on tangents more often. Hopefully the 4th and final season manages to wrap this show up in a satisfactory way.