REVIEW: Star Wars Rebels "The Last Battle"
I'll be honest, in terms of the grand scheme of the story of the show, this episode really didn't amount to much. However, this episode had a different, and more sincere purpose. This episode was a straight up tribute to the Star Wars the Clone Wars TV show and a love letter to its fans. After the premature cancellation of the show and massive disappointment by many, this episode almost acts like a final salute from Dave Filoni to the Clone Wars faithful.
The episode starts out with Rex, Kanan, Chopper, Ezra, and Zeb being dropped off at the site of an old Separatist warship to find proton bombs for the Rebellion. The four organics are soon captured by a force of battle droids. They are taken to their commander, a super tactical droid named Kalani who wants to "finish the clone wars" by having one last battle to decide who would win and who should have properly come out on top in the war.
One thing I did like about this episode though was that almost each character had a different perspective and mentality. Zeb's species never fought in the war so wanted to not fight. Rex, who had some PTSD flashbacks in the episode, treated this as his last chance to do battle for the Grand Army of the Republic and was keen to yell at anyone, particularly Ezra if they did not follow strategy. Meanwhile, Kalani wants to truly comprehend just how the droids lost the war despite their greater numbers and is using his programming and logic to try and finish the war as he thought it should have played out.
Meanwhile, Ezra, who was born right when the war ended, has no real perspective from other side, instead, telling Rex and Kalani that neither side was really meant to win the war and that by fighting and killing each other, it paved the way for the true winner of the war, the Empire. Yeah, despite all the crazy action, there is surprisingly a lot of philosophical thinking you can do about the Clone Wars thanks to this episode. All sides are right in their own way but in the end, the Clone Wars was simply an elaborate plot by Sidious to overthrow the Jedi and the Republic and replace it with his rule by the Sith and the Empire.
Anyway, other than bringing up themes and characters from the Clone Wars, there were other...less subtle tributes to the Clone Wars. The battle droids, once again voiced by Mathew Wood, are the source of the comic relief and are idiots like the first few seasons of the show. During the fight between the Rebels and the droids, classic Clone Wars battle music is played and the actual fight itself is reminiscent of battles from the show. In the end, the Rebels make it to the command station but the droids refuse to surrender. Meanwhile, the Empire catches a transmission that was sent from Chopper before the battle, and the Empire sends a group of troopers and AT-ATs to deal with them.
When the Empire lands on the planet, Ezra convinces both Rex and Kalani to work together to try and escape the station. They both end up agreeing, which I'm not sure how I feel about that. I mean, yes, logically, it does make sense to work together to defeat a common enemy. However, I was surprised just how easy it was to convince Rex and Kalani to work together. Let's not forget that they literally just spent the entre episode trying to kill each other but also, they were sworn enemies throughout the Clone War with their entire life goal, or programming to defeat each other. I understand why they teamed up, I just thought it was too quick of a turn around for me.
Anyway, the final battle is short and sweet with both sides using their respective tactics to defeat the Imperial troops and escape on old Separatist shuttles. Kalani and the remainder of the droids part ways with the Rebels which is weird because I thought they would join the Rebellion. The Ghost catches up with the Rebels with Kanan proclaiming they have a new Phantom.
Yes, that is the logo they used at the end of the episode and yes, they played the classic Clone Wars credits song at the end as well. As you can tell, I really enjoyed this episode. Yes, I can admit it was really a filler episode and you probably won't get as much enjoyment out of it if you never saw or enjoyed the Clone Wars. However, even if that is the case, the action is great and the story, while having a few holes, actually serves up some deep questioning about Star Wars lore. Plus, if you did love the Clone Wars like I did, this episode truly feels like a deep, sincere, fanservice farewell to the show.
