“Fighter Flight” Star Wars Rebels Season One, Episode Two

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Sometimes it’s just fun to play around in the Star Wars galaxy.

My earliest memories of Star Wars weren’t actually the movies–they were the toys. Sure, I had seen the first two movies at some point, but my brand-new brain hit the record button some time after that. I can remember being taken to a local Medi-Mart (Walgreens absorbed that whole chain ages ago), where my parents bought me a Chewbacca figure from The Empire Strikes Back Kenner line. I’m pretty sure that’s my first fully formed Star Wars memory. If that sort of memory sounds familiar, you may have enjoyed “Fighter Flight” as much as I did. This episode takes Zeb and Ezra on a rather superfluous mission that winds up being a fun adventure, forging “an eternally even” friendship in the process.

Have you been watching the “Rebels Recon” series on StarWars.com? If not, I highly suggest you do. StarWars.com social media correspondant Andi Gutierrez offers some fascinating insight into each episode by talking with the creators and actors on Rebels. This week, she talked with Dave Filoni, who described the inspiration for “Fighter Flight” coming from his time playing with Star Wars toys as a child. He would routinely put the heroes in the TIE fighter cockpit, and got the chance to bring that experience to screen with this episode. It’s a great look at where the creative direction is coming from for Rebels–a clear, life-long love of the franchise. Sometimes you just have to celebrate the things you love, and I could almost see an invisible hand grasping that TIE fighter–clearly modeled after the vintage Kenner vehicle–as it flew through the crowded streets on Lothal.

Audiences have still not seen Ezra receive any Jedi training, but we do see him practicing using the Force. Is his training implied by his practice? Assuming there have been a few days since the events of “Droids in Distress,” Kanan may have set Ezra on a path to concentration and control with his Force abilities. But there is plenty of skepticism among the ranks, with Chopper playing pranks on Ezra and Zeb teasing him outright later in the episode. One can wonder just how much Force ability the crew has seen Kanan demonstrate. When it comes to Jedi prowess, knowing someone possesses it is much different than seeing it in action.

Zeb must have been having a rough few days. His plans to exact vengeance upon Kallus for the Lasat genocide were all but squashed when Kallus ignobly beat him in a bo-rifle duel, only to be saved by a young kid who, by as much luck as by ability, was able to knock the imperial agent to the ground. As if it weren’t enough, that same young kid–who he hardly knows–is now his cabin-mate and will not stop reminding Zeb of that terrible, humiliating day. I’d be a little edgy too.

Enter Hera into the situation, who has had enough of their bickering. As always, the affable leader knows just what they need, and devises a “wild bantha chase” for the two of them to go on as a bonding process. They’ll grab supplies and try to get a meiloorun fruit in the process–a fruit not grown on Lothal and a near-impossible task. It’s hard not to like Hera. She is always concerned for others and talks to her crew with focus and attention. Even when she tricks them, she is doing it with the intention of bringing out the best in Zeb and Ezra. And it worked, with the caveat that a stolen TIE fighter may have given her a good headache that afternoon. Perhaps it’s karma for tricking them into finding that meiloorun fruit in the first place.

Meanwhile, Sabine is inspired by Ezra and Zeb’s previous altercation, and she decides to immortalize it–in Zeb and Ezra’s cabin! Hera’s reaction to Sabine’s behavior throughout the episode speaks a lot to Sabine’s flair for the artistic, as well as her tolerance of it. Her handiwork is clearly all over the ship: you see it in the cockpit and even on Zeb’s armor Did Sabine touch up the Jedi logo on Kanan’s pauldron? It seems as likely an idea as any. However a specific Easter egg caught my eye–Sabine has been drawing caricatures of Cad Bane and Embo on the walls of her room! I doubt this is a throwaway tidbit of information. After all, the Ghost is the rebels’ home, and the walls of that ship are going to be shown frequently. So, what does it mean that Sabine not only know who these two bounty hunters are, but decided to put them on her wall? Maybe she was raised by bounty hunters, and these are her heroes? Perhaps they are legendary figures in the underworld of the Empire, no longer active but still talked about in story and myth. Did she know personally know Cad Bane and Embo? These are questions worth considering and I hope Dave Filoni give us that answer.

By working together to solve a mess they got into themselves, Ezra and Zeb came out all the closer, with both of them seeing eye to eye as “siblings” in the rag-tag family pulled together by Hera and Kanan. It’s easy to see that they found they had more in common with each other than they previously thought, and found a way to get along and enjoy each other’s company. What’s interesting is how this story of sibling dissent and eventual understanding takes place in an episode so rife with references to the classic Kenner toy line. Besides the TIE fighter and Filoni’s inspiration for this story, it also featured is the Imperial Troop Transporter, a fan favorite for generations.  Couple that with background characters like Blue Hammerhead, and there is some serious action figure inspiration here. I think it says a lot about what mattered when we played with these Star Wars toys as children. In the end, they were pieces of plastic, but the relationships we built with our brothers, sisters, and friends are what truly mattered. While many a backyard action-figure all-out battle for all-time did have a tendency to cause friction in those relationships (after all, there could be only ONE!), we always made up with one another. There’s something to be said about the way Ezra and Zeb came together by sharing a toy TIE fighter, an innocence and simplicity in friendship that is all too often lost in the modern world, and this reflects some of the fondest memories I’ve ever had with the franchise, and why Star Wars will always be something special beyond just a story.

Final Thoughts:

• Will that whistling sound grow into the more common Force rumble as Ezra gets stronger in the Force?
• Gotta love Zeb jumping directly at the TIE fighter. He’s just having a great time just like we would and certainly knows how to stay in the moment.
• The TIE fighter flying over the Lothal landscape is majestic. This show really succeeds in beautiful vistas and gorgeous lighting. It gets more impressive with each episode.
  
• Rodians talking English/Basic is always weird to me, and probably always will be. Imagine if a wookiee spoke Basic! that would be weird, too.
• Is “karabasts” a Lasat curse word?
• Simple ANH Easter egg: “That’s not the Tie you’re looking for.”
• Can Ezra get rid of the slingshot by now? It’s time to put it down and take up a lightsaber!
• “Wait…you did all this…for Fruit?!” For some reason, fruit seems to be the go-to MacGuffin for Filoni. This was executed really well, but I’m not sure how many more times Star Wars can go on produce runs.
  
• Ezra is an in-universe Star Wars collector! I love his reaction to the helmet that Zeb offers. I think every collector has been there, and it was a fantastic, relatable moment.
• Millennium Falcon (or just a Corellian freighter?) poster shows up again.