Legacy is one of the finest episodes of Rebels yet, and a game-changer for the series.
Warning: This review contains spoilers for the Star Wars Rebels episode, “Legacy.”
“Without hope, we have nothing.”
A very powerful quote from Star Wars Rebels episode “Legacy”, and it sums up the feeling of the episode perfectly. The quote comes from a Force vision of Ezra’s mother, just after Ezra learns his parents have died. I’m not going to sum up this episode too much as there is plenty to discuss; what a serious and poignant episode!
In brief, Ezra has Force visions/dreams about his parents, where they are, and what happened to them. He feels he has to go to Lothal to get answers (follow the white rabbit….er, loth-cat); Kanan and Hera help him prepare, but the team gets split up as the Empire arrives on Garel. Kanan and Ezra take off to Lothal, the remainder of the team fight off the Empire and manage to escape their temporary base.
Jumping right in, we have to dissect Ezra’s showdown with Kallus and his emotions during this fight scene. Ezra is exceptionally eager to get off Garel and head to Lothal to find answers about his parents. His anger at the Empire disrupting his plans takes center stage here; it was almost scary to see how angry he can get (and he’s just a teenager) – he used the Force to toss Kallus like a rag doll (perhaps signalling that Ezra is farther along in his Force training than previously thought). My jaw literally dropped when I saw the power Ezra commanded. Then he tries to go after the Inquisitors! Kanan tries to reel him in, but Ezra is really connected to his anger here. It’s easy to make a comparison (yet again) between Ezra and a younger Anakin Skywalker. Thankfully Kanan was able to stop Ezra’s advance on the Inquisitors; I’m positive Ezra could not have beaten them, even as angry as he was.
I want to take a moment here to lay out my opinion on where I think Rebels is heading with Ezra’s character. In Rebels Recon, the writers discuss how they don’t want to viewers to draw similarities between Luke and Ezra – how Luke was always searching for what happened to his parents, and that was a driving force in his life. In “Legacy” we definitively find out Ezra’s parents have died (while helping fellow prisoners escape the Empire). So now the storyline of finding his parents has been cut – Ezra won’t be going down that path any longer. What I get the general sense of, however, is that the show’s writers are perhaps seeing how a character very much like Anakin might play out if he doesn’t turn to the dark side. Already this season there have been many parallels between Ezra and Anakin, and even more in this episode. Just think about it; how different would the Star Wars universe be if Anakin Skywalker never turned to the dark side, if he became a Jedi Master instead of a Sith Lord? I think that’s where the Star Wars Rebels writers might be going…the possibility of having a character much like Anakin, but perhaps not influenced by fear, anger, and hate. Ezra takes the knowledge of his parents’ death about as well as could be expected (with support from Kanan); he understands why they fought, and that they were proud of him. Anakin never had that finality; he never knew his father, and his mother died horribly (and in his arms). Perhaps the solid support that Ezra has in Kanan is the deciding factor in how his future may play out.
The end of this episode is just beautiful. Ezra has a Force vision of his parents, and gets closure on how they are proud of him. After his vision, Kanan comes up to talk with him. It’s a visually stunning scene – night on Lothal with twin moons. This again draws similarities between Anakin and Ezra (i.e. Tatooine’s twin suns), yet also gives us another opposite idea of the characters. Note the blue tones in the scene, which is opposite of Tatooine’s brighter orange hues. The episode ends on a hopeful note; hope for the Rebellion and for Ezra’s future. This is one of the best episodes of Rebels, and I can’t wait to see more.
Star Wars Rebels will return January 2016.
Courtney Martin is a graduate of Indiana University and works in publishing. She’s an avid Star Wars fan and wrote the recipe blog Courtney Cooks Star Wars on suvudu.com. When not enveloped a science fiction or fantasy novel, she is watching television with her husband and son, doing crossword puzzles, or playing with her Shih Tzu, Burt.