Star Wars Rebels: The Siege of Lothal
June 21, 2015 1:55 PM - Season 2, Episode 1 - Subscribe

The crew of the Ghost return fighting with the nascent Rebellion's Phoenix Squadron before being drawn back to Lothal by an opportunity to gain valuable intelligence. Awaiting the team on Lothal is a dark lord of the Sith, Darth Vader, who is prepared to crush the rebels by any means necessary.

Trivia!
  • Ezra's appearance updated to show the scars from his fight with the Inquisitor.
  • Mentioned, but never seen Governor Pryce, was supposed to have died in the shuttle blast instead of Minister Tua.
  • The first draft of the script intended to have Lando physically present on Lothal.
  • Some of the A-wing designs mirror the designs created by Ralph McQuarrie for Return of the Jedi art.
  • Commander Sato's ship is a repurposed medical frigate from the Clone Wars.
  • The blast marks from Vader's deflected blaster shots from Sabine will be incorporated into her armor design.
Chopper Casualties: One electrocuted Storm Trooper.
posted by Atreides (20 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
I was not a fan until the last couple of episodes of season 1, but man the season finale and this are really sucking me in.

I have a soft spot for heroes winning by just surviving (see early BSG reboot) and they're really hitting these notes with Vader.
posted by humans are superior! at 3:29 PM on June 21, 2015


They really have done a good job of showing the Empire (And especially Vader in this episode) to be a threat.
Alright, not stormtroopers, they're still cannon fodder...
Also nice that Vader is essentially an unknown but terrifying threat at this point.

Sounds like he's not going to be around that much though and a new inquisitor will be dispatched.
I think this is a very good choice. You just can't have the heroes win (or even consistently escape) from the ultimate badass every week and keep him credible.
Although at some point Ashoka Tanoh at least has to be killed off, before a new hope anyhow.

Maybe Kanaan and Ezra might have survived, but no way can you have Vader's apprentice alive during the original trilogy,
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 4:05 PM on June 21, 2015


Chopper's reactions behind Hera in the opening battle were just hilarious.

I may have shouted at the big reveal. The thing I like about this show is that it feels like real Star Wars. Sometimes it's jokes. Sometimes it's scary. Although I'm not too sure how I feel about Ezra and Kanan being able to outwit Vader so easily when The Inquisitor kicked their ass so thoroughly. I did giggle when Sabine learned why you don't shoot at Force users.

I do love the McQuarrie designs. Lando's protocol droid made me really happy.


P.S. They show terrible transfers of Doctor Who on Disney XD now?
posted by ob1quixote at 9:49 PM on June 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


Okay, kind of a derail, but does anybody understand the scheduling on this show? I'm trying to TiVo it, which is made difficult by the fact that Disney a) apparently shows nothing on XD but Star Wars Rebels reruns 24 hours a day, and b) refuses to tag the reruns or use logical episode numbers. Most of them just show up as "Star Wars Rebels," so last season my TiVo went berserk and gorged itself on reruns of the same episodes over and over again until the disc choked and I couldn't record anything until I went through and wiped dozens of them.

This season, Siege of Lothal shows up in the guide - amid endless Season 1 reruns - as Season 2, episode 3. And then gets rerun about 50 times in the next two weeks. There is no sign of any subsequent episodes or indications of what Episodes 1 and 2 might have been. So WTF is going on?

The questions that will actually help me : 1) is Siege of Lothal a multi-part episode or a standalone? That's one of my concerns about the Episode 3 thing.

And 2) Does anybody know what episode 2 (4?) is called and when it's going to air?

I'm pretty much on the verge of going the hell with it and waiting for this to show up on Netflix or Amazon someday.
posted by Naberius at 9:39 AM on June 22, 2015


Naberius: “Okay, kind of a derail, but does anybody understand the scheduling on this show? ”
“The Seige of Lothal” is season 2, episode 1. The next episode is called “The Lost Commanders” and is, for whatever idiotic reason, not airing any time in the next two weeks.

I noticed the same thing where Disney just stopped trying on marking episodes with original air dates and titles for a while. I had to cancel my series recording. It seems fine now though. Except for the fact they premiered a show at a new day and time slot and don't plan on airing it on that day and that time for the next month at least before taking a break. One presumes the people who make the schedules aren't lawn maintenance technicians who do programming on the side, but you wouldn't know it from the choices they've made with regard to this show.
posted by ob1quixote at 1:22 PM on June 22, 2015


Yeah, I had no clue about episode numbers last season, they're all over the place.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 1:40 PM on June 22, 2015


To throw another wrinkle in the confusing Disney episode nomenclature, on iTunes, the Siege of Lothal is considered its own standalone movie, while the regular episodes are separate.

Anyway, I enjoyed the hell out of this, and my 3 1/2 year old followed along for most of it, then jumped up to go get his Star Wars toys. Made a dad proud.

I really feel like Rebels nails the Star Wars vibe in a way that the prequels really failed to do. I loved seeing our heroes barely escape Vader, and I'm looking forward to more.
posted by Fleebnork at 4:20 PM on June 22, 2015


Okay, so I'm not the only one.

I did get Siege of Lothal by recording it manually. I guess this means I can ignore the one pass when I go on vacation for a couple weeks, and worry about it when I get back. good to know. And if I do miss one, it's not like it's gone forever. Dear God will Disney give me another chance to catch it. And another. And another. And another...

Thank you all, and please now go back to discussing the show itself, and I will join you when I have watched it.
posted by Naberius at 5:15 PM on June 22, 2015


The rendering on Vader's helmet is stunning.
posted by bq at 8:07 PM on June 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


I loved this one. I was the magic age when I saw Star Wars and this really felt like Star Wars to my inner ten-year-old. They were terrified of him, and he earned it. They dropped a chicken-walker on him and he fended it off! And sure, they got away, but it cost them the Rebel flagship to do it, and a BUNCH of fighters.

Also, for those of us who remember Clone Wars (I still haven't watched S5 and S6), all the feels about Ahsoka and Vader. The conversation with the Emperor was another callback to the original trilogy, as so many details were (e.g., the tracker on the shuttle), and the way he referred to her as Skywalker's padawan was just chilling.
posted by immlass at 10:00 PM on June 24, 2015 [4 favorites]


Hmm, Wikipedia has this listed as a film, rather than as part of Series 2.

That said, it has production 201/202 and series 1 pilot is also credited as a film. That might explain the wierd episode numbering.

Also big chunks of this are in the Trailer for Series 2. (Lotta clone wars regulars in this...) so...
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 4:51 PM on July 8, 2015


Meh to Lucasfilm. They did the exact same thing in Season 1 with "Spark of Rebellion," which initially was released as the first two episodes of Season 1, but then, perhaps based on its successful premiere, relabeled an independent movie. (Which stinks, as you have to buy it separately from Season 1 on Amazon, for example). The Siege of Lothal wasn't presented as anything other than the premiere of Season 2 up to the point it aired, so it's not surprising they're pulling the same stunt again. Hopefully with SDCC happening this weekend, we'll get back to Season 2 again.
posted by Atreides at 6:40 AM on July 9, 2015


It's so annoying, I hope they don't torpedo rebels with all this nonsense.
It's a good show which inspired me to go and watch clone wars (which is also more or less, a good show)

Of course it reinforces the idea that the only thing more powerful than the force in the star wars universe is the power of coincidence.
(Why are they drinking Jawa Juice and watching Tattooine pod racing in Coruscant. No one should even know where Tattooine is! gah! etc. etc.)
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 7:51 AM on July 9, 2015


Oh, also, immlass I just watched series 5 of the clone wars. You should watch it, if only because it's got a bunch of relevant Ashoka bits in. It starts off with Ashoka training and helping a band of rebels...
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 7:52 AM on July 9, 2015


Of course it reinforces the idea that the only thing more powerful than the force in the star wars universe is the power of coincidence.
(Why are they drinking Jawa Juice and watching Tattooine pod racing in Coruscant. No one should even know where Tattooine is! gah! etc. etc.)


Actually, this kind of flows into a problem that dawned on me last night as I was thinking about the show. Central to this episode is the Phoenix Squadron which is composed primarily of A-wings. This establishes that the Rebels had A-wings before the events of the original trilogy....BUT, the A-wing doesn't even show up until Return of the Jedi.

After some googling, apparently a number of game producers incorrectly used the A-Wing in time periods set before it's introduction - which had been after the Battle of Yavin, and then rather than sweep those goofs under the rug, a retcon was established where a very similar fighter called the R-22 Spearhead existed in this time period - and which formed the basis for modification into the A-wing. Amusingly enough, I searched for R-22 and the "Siege of Lothal," and found a number of similar discussions going on. Heh. NITPICKY STAR WARS FANS UNITE.
posted by Atreides at 9:18 AM on July 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


Darth Vader in this is a real threat, I thought that would be the amazing thing about the episode.

And then I realize that it's goin to bring Vader and Asohka together, and that was a weirdly powerful luck in the guts.

Then they too it off with Vaders weird damaged third person talk about "Skywalker", and you're left wondering how gaslit he is at this point.

It's amazingly done all around.
posted by Artw at 10:41 PM on October 19, 2015 [1 favorite]


Again I'm amazed at how much the animated shows for kids get what the prequels should of been and failed to be. This is the shit that we wanted.
posted by Artw at 10:43 PM on October 19, 2015 [1 favorite]


That's really how I started feeling in Clone Wars and basically the same team is now at work, improving still, on Rebels. The really crazy thing, how much of the show is really created for kids is definitely questionable. It airs at 8:30 pm on a school night. When I was near or about that "age range" I had a bed time of 9pm, so that time period was spent preparing for bed.

I definitely think it's a family show, but no one but the advertisers and toy sellers I think really pitch it as just a kids show.
posted by Atreides at 8:09 AM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]


It's a rare equivalent to something like the A Team back in the 80s, or Doctor Who in the UK now.
posted by Artw at 8:38 AM on October 20, 2015 [3 favorites]


Incidentally, their success gives me hope for the next round of films.
posted by Atreides at 8:44 AM on October 20, 2015


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