conshb

Probably one of the most underrated episodes of Rebels. Pure fun, great action, and at its heart - as with every episode of the show - are the characters and their evolving relationships. It's heartwarming to see Rex and Kanan overcome their differences, quit bickering and become good friends and loyal comrades -this development plays out very naturally across the course of the mission. On top of that the Rebels team brought in a great ship design from star wars legends for the interdictor cruiser, and all the sound effects for it are really cool. What's not to love? Stealth Strike is a classic.

I'm amazed this episode has so many people being negative. For my money, the Coruscant plotline - while technically a detour which takes up most of the episode's runtime - is some of the best worldbuilding, best acting and best writing to come out of any of the Disney+ Star Wars shows. It feels like Jon Favreau popped over to the Andor editing room, watched an episode, thought "hey this is good stuff, I should try that" and inserted a story of complex motivations, flawed institutions and heartbreaking intrigue. In terms of cinematography, tone and scale, it feels far closer to Andor than The Mandalorian, but what can I say? It's a welcome change from previously stilted, awkwardly structured and relatively emotionless episodes. Whatever new approach Chapter 19 was presenting, I think I prefer it.

In the midst of so much negativity in the Star Wars fandom I usually don't like being so negative. But I've genuinely never been so bored by an episode of TV. No character development, no theme, nothing funny or even fun in the slightest. It was like watching a bunch of unremarkable, archetypal characters figure out a video game puzzle level for 20 minutes. Entombed was a struggle to watch and I had to take a couple of breaks to force myself to finish it.

It's not even that I mind side-quest or perceived 'filler' episodes. Star Wars Rebels excels at the art of those kind of stories, throwing in fun missions in different corners of the galaxy - they're unrelated to any kind of overarching plot, but you get to know the characters better as they're put in situations which challenge aspects of their personalities. The Bad Batch rarely focuses on any one character and as a result I don't feel particularly invested in any of them.

You can knock it out of the park with occasional episodes all you want, if the work isn't put into the characters with smaller episodes like this, it will amount to nothing.