REVIEW: Star Wars Rebels "The Call"
SPACE WHALES! Look at all the space whales! Ok, I'm good, I just had to get out the obvious joke out of the way. I mean, come on, that's what these creatures, called purrgill, are really are, space whales. Anyway, this week's episode of Rebels was admittingly on the weaker end. That doesn't mean it was horrible, but I would describe the episode the way that anime fans would call, "filler."
We start out the episode with the crew on the Ghost with the ship nearly out of power. They are on a mission to steal fuel from a mining guild outpost before the Empire picks it up. It is then that encounter the purrgill. This is when we get a division among Hera and Ezra. Ezra thinks the creatures are amazing while Hera wants to destroy them because they have been known to crash into ships, killing pilots before. It is an interesting dynamic that is one of the episode's strengths as you can see both sides of the issue.
However, it almost feels like Ezra is too interested in the creatures as he spends most of the episode gazing at them than listening to what the crew has to say. Again, I know he is still young and has never seen anything like this before, but still priorities.
It is then that the Ghost is attacked by TIE Fighters owned by the mining guild. After they destroy them, the Ghost follows the purrgill to the outpost. It is there that the rest of the crew, minus Ezra who is not paying attention, decides to destroy the gas surrounding the outpost, which will, in turn, destroy the outpost as well. The group makes it with the outpost's workers being distracted from the purrgill.
Kanan, Ezra, and Sabine have to literally dive onto the outpost from the Ghost because the ship is low on power, which is a cool scene. The three fight off a few of the workers and that is when Ezra finds out what is the main goal of the plan. He is able to figure out, since he spends the episode gawking at them, that the purrgill need the gas to survive and that destroying the gas will harm them.
So, what does Ezra do, stops the whole plan and makes them change the whole strategy to save the purrgill. Again, I know you want to help the creatures, but still, Ezra, priorities. I would think that the Ghost crew and the mission is more important. Anyway, more guild workers again and Ezra ends up falling off a platform and onto one of the purrgill. He ends up loses his helment briefly. It is a cool scene how Ezra's eyes literally glow to connect and read the minds of the creatures, but yeah, let me bring up the obvious point. How did he survive in space for that long?
Seriously, about 30 seconds to a minute of episode time is spent with Ezra without his helmet on. I have no idea how Ezra didn't instantly die from not having his helmet on in space, but I guess I'm clearly not supposed to think about too much. On a positive note, I do like how one of Ezra's powers is his connection with animals, which was called the beast trick ability in the old Star Wars canon. It seems that Ezra is more of a thinker and connector of the force than a pure fighter, at least at the moment.
Anyway, while Ezra talks to the creatures, the workers of the guild attack the Ghost and crew as they load the ship with fuel cells. It is a decent action sequence with the highlight when Ezra leads the purrgill to attack the workers. Two of the purrgill even grab the outpost's leader and drag him to his death. Yeah, kinda brutal when you think about it. Actually, he looked like a krill, and what do freaking whales eat? Hah, even the show itself made a whale joke.
In the end, the crew got the fuel and destroyed the outpost and what happens next? The whales literally travel through light speed. So yes, Star Wars Rebels is saying that space whales were the ones who came up with hyperspace travel. I don't know what to say to that.
Overall, this episode wasn't horrible, just kind of mediocore, although it did have cool elements in it. However, seriously, a filler episode about space whales? Yet again, a big part of Star Trek 4 dealt with whales and people love that movie, so I guess sci-fi and whales go hand in hand.
