The Inquisitors are back! After spending a few episodes to really focus on the lesser seen members of the Ghost Crew and to expand the universe of Rebels, the Fifth Brother and Seventh Sister return to wreak havoc and… hunt children?
Lets jump into our Five Thoughts on Star Wars: Rebels‘ “The Future Of The Force”.
1. Opening On The Villains
One of my favourite things about A New Hope is the fact that the opening scene establishes, among other things, just how threatening a villain Darth Vader is. Before we ever get to Luke or Han, we see Vader terrorising Leia because of her link to the Rebel Alliance and it shows him as a terrifying foe to go up against meaning his presence throughout the rest of the film is incredibly tense. This episode does a good job of emulating that by showing, in the most Disney-friendly way they could, the two Inquisitors massacring a ship full of civilians in order to kidnap an infant.
Even if you missed their introductory episode, you immediately know who these two are, what they want (mostly) and how threatening they are in the first few minutes. It was brilliant opening from both a writing and directing aspect.
2. Ahsoka Tano, Light Of My Life
Ahsoka Tano versus two Inquisitor, both with double-bladed and spinning lightsabres? You would think it would be no contest, right? Well, turns out it was because Ahsoka just wrecked house against them and it was beautiful. Sadly, Ahsoka wasn’t used as much as I would have liked in this episode as she really only had the three scenes, but that seems likely that it was due to time constraints more than anything and, thankfully, this episode used its time with her wisely. She was badass and got to show off her new, more mature fighting style in this episode and immediately showed up the two new villains as being chump bitches when going up against a real Jedi.
3. Children Of The Force
This is an episode about two Inquisitors murdering a bunch of kids. This is a Disney show, everyone.
This episode was pretty much a thematic sequel to a Clone Wars episode called “Children Of The Force” which had Darth Sidious kidnapping Force-sensitive children to do… something to them on Mustafar. His plane was to create an army of Sith spies which would overwhelm the Jedi and completely go against the Rule Of Two. Here, it looks like he’s back to his old tricks with the Inquisitors and, even though it’s not explicitly stated, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Fifth Brother and Seventh Sister were stealing Force-sensitive kids to indoctrinate them as future Inquisitors. We don’t get a real answer as to why they were stealing kids this episode, but I hope it’s something explored further in the seasons.
4. Brothers And Sisters
So… how exactly are the Inquisitors not just Sith? How does the existence of these evil Force users that are clearly under the tutelage of Darth Vader and Darth Sidious not classify as Sith apprentices? What does this mean for the Rule Of Two? Does Sidious even care about the Rule Of Two anymore?
Am I asking questions that literally only I care about? probably.
Still, I hope this season gives a better look at who the Inquisitors are, why the Inquisition exists and how the creators try to justify them as not being full Sith.
5. Beginning Of The Dark Times
So this was a dark episode. I was really quite surprised at the darker, more mature content in this episode. It reminded me a lot of how “Always Two There Are” felt kind of like a horror film while this episode has a darker, cat-and-mouse thriller feel to it. This feels like we’re really getting into the episodes that made Dave Filoni say that this season is the Empire Strikes Back to last season’s A New Hope. If that’s true, I can’t wait to see where that leads, especially now that the Inquisitors know where the Ghost crew’s current home base is and will clearly be looking to strike at them there.
The Clone Wars‘ best moments came once the show finally embraced the darker, more mature storytelling of Season Three onwards and I really hope this season is fast tracking to that point.
