THIS is the kind of content I wish was explored on Rebels. I'm not talking about just Mandalorian or Sabine arcs, but content that acutally fleshes out characters and the Star Wars universe as a whole. I hate that we're constantly given one-off, goofy episodes that don't really have a big impact on the universe as a whole. "Trials of the Dark Saber" thankfully did the opposite of that. I loved how it touched on the lore of the first Mandalorian Jedi, the Jedi-Mandalorian War, Sabine's relationship to her Mandalorian family, and Sabine's relationship with those who will follow her in the future. This episode even transcended the cliches of other shows and movies whereby the female protagonist is looked down upon during their training because they're female. We learn that Kanan's reservation over Sabine's training isn't because she happens to be female, but it is truly due to Sabine's unwillingness to want to lead the people who betrayed her in the first place. I found this to be refreshing because the show could have gone down that path, but it was above that sexist junk. It was because of Sabine's reluctantness that it truly added to who she was as a character. With Sabine, we're always given this persona of a courageous and confident Mandalorian who is willing to jump into battle whenever she can, but this episode really broke her down to a human character. We were shown her faults, and by the end of the episode, we stood up with her ready to see her fight to regain her Mandalorian family.
As for the rest of our characters in this episode, Kanan's stubbornness and impatience as a teacher showed itself once again as we see how he basically has a difficult time training students in general. I find this to be natural and needed as it creates an interesting dynamic when having him grow into that role of being a mentor. This is especially true now that he has force-sensitive and non-force-sensitive students. Even if training Sabine was just for this episode, I think it allows him to grow more as he continues to mentor Ezra. For Ezra, I think that it was important to have him take a backseat for once. He's constantly being shown taking the lead on missions or he's in the main brunt of things, but we haven't really had him be the supporting character with other characters this season. I enjoyed having him practice with Sabine and not think that she couldn't handle the responsibility that came with the Dark Saber. We're given a sense as to how much he's learned under Kanan, yet we see that he hasn't mastered everything, which is important to have in a show where he's basically the main character we're going to follow until the end.
The one character I was disappointed in was Fenn Rau. I was hoping that he would have more insight into Sabine's training given that he is a more experienced Mandalorian. I would have liked to see Sabine use some of Fenn Rau's teachings and combine it with the training she got with Kanan, but I understand that they used the Mandalorian armbands for that specific reason, especially when you consider that they only have 20 minutes for each episode. On a side note, I wasn't disappointed with him as much as I was confused by his appearance, but what was the point of having the Bendu appear of Sabine kicked him? She never mentions having talked to him, so I'm just confused as to what we were supposed to interpret from that scene.
Overall, this episode was incredibly done. From the writing to the animation, this episode will go down as one of the best Rebels epsisodes we have ever had. My only wish is that the rest of the season does not disappoint and gives us more filler like how almost all of Season 3 has felt. For those who've loved this episode as much as I have, but haven't seen any of the Clone Wars animated series, I would recommend watching all the Mandalorian episodes as you get a taste as to who House Vizlsa was and what they stood for. Even if you have seen The Clone Wars, I still think it would serve as a nice refresher for the rest of the season along with the Son of Dathomir Darth Maul comic.
No comments:
Post a Comment