The Last Battle | Star Wars Rebels 3.6 Review

The Clone Wars return with a vengeance in Star Wars Rebels

“The Last Battle” was a trip to the past that hit us right in the feels. It was a tribute to the Emmy-award winning series Star Wars The Clone Wars. As a fan of The Clone Wars, I’m still not happy that the show was cancelled and that we didn’t get all the remaining stories from seasons 6–7–8. So obviously having a Rebels episode in tribute to TCW was great to watch, especially since the episode was written by Brent Friedman and directed by Bosco Ng, two Clone Wars veterans.

With this episode, it just felt I was watching a new episode of The Clone Wars, all the feels were there! We got Captain Rex, we got droids, Jedi, a battle, the music! Kevin Kiner used themes he had composed for TCW — the “Battle of Christophsis” track and for the end of the episode the TCW fanfare. It was delightful!

The episode saw Rex leading Ezra, Kanan, Zeb and Chopper on Agamar in the ruins of an old Separatist Supply Ship to get munitions. But to their surprise, the droids of this ship weren’t deactivated. They were still functioning and it was the Super Tactical Droid Kalani — as seen in The Clovis arc — who was in charge of them! Kalani wanted his last battle of the Clone Wars to determine who the winner was: the Republic or the Separatists. Rex, Kanan and Ezra undertook a mission to reach the bridge of the ship to free Zeb. The second part of the episode focused on the droids and the rebels having to team up to to get away from Imperial troops and escape Agamar.

Rex leading the group was just awesome. It’s always great when Rex has action scenes. This dynamic is exactly what Star Wars Rebels needed! The battle droids were still brainless as in TCW, the difference was that they got an update making them look like more like in the movies. Our heroes had to fight droidekas as well! And like Anakin and Obi-Wan in Revenge of The Sith, they got trapped by ray shields. Brent Friedman was the perfect choice for this episode as he was able to re-capture the spirit of the series.

My only problem with the episode was that, as always, Ezra did his reckless, annoying act, mister ‘I solve every single problem’. It was he who made both Kalani and Rex realize that none of them had won the war. But rather than the Empire had (or to be more precise: Palpatine created the war and won it, controlling everything from the very beginning to the very end). It was obviously a great scene to see these two enemies finally accepting the truth, but it was annoying to see Ezra finding the solution once again. With all the mistakes Ezra has made, it’s hard to believe that he’s the one who can find all the solutions.

Rex and the droids teaming up was a great moment, two former enemies fighting the Empire. Only one droid got abandoned but it’s a droid so he can be replaced, can’t he? (wink)

The Ghost crew also got a new Phantom — a Neimoidian shuttle that Sabine will repaint.

10/10 Surely one of Rebels’ best episodes, a fantastic tribute to my favourite Star Wars show of all time: Star Wars The Clone Wars!

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