As fantastic and rewarding as the new live-actionStar Warsfilms have been for fans of the iconic franchise, the animated seriesStar Wars: The Clone Warsand its follow-up seriesStar Wars Rebelsare every bit as entertaining. They serve to fill in the gaps in time between films but also feature truly interesting and complex characters who go on life-changing adventures throughout the many worlds of theStar Warsuniverse. If you’ve only watched the movies, you’re missing out on a wealth of quality storytelling from theStar Warscanon.
Luckily, the Season 3 Blu-ray of the excellent Disney XD series is now available. With over 8 hours of footage, fans can relive all of the Season 3 adventures that saw Ezra Bridger attempting to balance his role as a leader against a brush with the Dark Side of the Force, while Sabine Wren and Hera Syndulla struggle with their own personal family drama, to say the least. That’s just the tip of the Star Destroyer since the imposing and impressive villain Grand Admiral Thrawn continues to hunt the crew of the Ghost throughout the season. There’s a lot to explore in the episodes alone, but the Blu-ray’s bonus features make this a must-own forStar Warsfans who need to discover everything there is to know inStar Warscanon.
Season 3 ofStar Wars Rebelstakes place between the events ofStar Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the SithandRogue One: A Star Wars Story; Season 4 is looking likely to run smack into the events that set up that latter anthology film, all of which lead toward the original film trilogy. One of the many great things aboutStar Wars Rebelsis that it exists in this interstitial space where there is a lot of story to mine and lots of colorful, charismatic characters who populate it. Sure, the connections that tie the animated series to the live-action films are great for fan-service, but they’re the cherry on top of a solid foundation of story. All of that is offered up to new and old fans alike in the excellent Season 3 Blu-ray.
Now’s the perfect time to get caught up on Season 3 before the fourth and final season of the series airs this fall. But if you need another reason to pick it up, here are just a few bits of trivia I gleaned from the Blu-ray’s bonus content;spoilersfollow:
In the episode “Iron Squadron”:
Episode “Inside Man”
Episode “Ghosts on Geonosis”
Episode “Warhead”
Thrawn’s belongings include the Holy Grail, Clone Commander Gree’s helmet (trooper decapitated by Yoda inRevenge of the Sith), a bust of an Abednedo, the same species as Ello Asty, Ralph McQuarrie’s drawing of what became Lothal, which is the first direct use of his art in the series.
That final confrontation between Maul and Kenobi went through a lot of different iterations, including Kanan accompanying Ezra to Tatooine. Some of those deleted scenes made their way to the bonus features.
Definitely check out the Bonus Features to get glimpses at the upcoming Season 4!
