Star Wars Rebels Season 4 episodes 1-2 review - Heroes of Mandalore

Welcome back to Star Wars Rebels. Disney has decided to air 2 episodes each week, back-to-back in 1 hour blocks. I hope it’s not to burn off the episodes but being the last series, I suppose it doesn’t really matter that much. Anyway, let’s look at the first 2-parter: Heroes of Mandalore

Heroes of Mandalore

I have no opening joke for this episode, I’ll just get to it

Though a two-parter in nature, each episode has its own distinct story. Part 1 is about Sabine trying to rescue her father from imperial captivity and the second is them trying to destroy a weapon capable of targeting Mandalorian armour.

There is some really good stuff in these episodes, especially for Sabine as she demonstrates her worth as a leader, co-ordinating multiple attacks through the episode and ultimately all of them were successful. She strikes a major blow against the imperial presence on Mandalore

Ezra gets his moments to shine, him jumping from the transports as they went over the cliff so he could give his jetpack to Sabine’s father was entertaining and his mishaps with controlling the jetpack were amusing, if somewhat out of no-where, I could’ve sworn he’s used them before without difficulty, but I digress, I might be wrong.

Kanan gets his share of, not sure how he can detect blaster bolts whilst being blind but whatever. His conversation with Hera hints at something coming down the road I’m interested in. Chopper gets a few moments of both action and comedy.

Let’s talk about the other mandalorians, Sabine’s mother and brother are essentially side-lined in this episode, Sabine’s father has nothing to do other than be rescue and Fenn Rau is just really there, there’s only one Mandalorian that batters, Bo Katan, veteran from the clone wars, former member of Death Watch (something they conveniently brush under the rug) and sister of the former Duchess Satine.

She is supportive but becomes critical upon realising Sabine made the weapon. There is some character development around that weapon, but I think it would’ve been more poignant had the weapon actually killed Sabine’s actual family, like it was thought to in the cliffhanger. I know they just killed Commander Sato in the last finale, but this show needs to grow more of a backbone, it’s played it remarkably safe, and that’s not just this series. You need to raise the stakes, have someone we care about die, or at least someone someone in the series cares about! Sato doesn’t really count, sorry!

But this is minor compared to my biggest issue with this episode, and unfortunately it lies on Bo Katan again. Sabine had sabotaged her weapon so instead of Mandalorian armour, it was stormtrooper armour it worked on, except is was non-lethal, only painful. Bo Katan didn’t like this and told her to stop, only for the next thing to be them blowing up the star destroyer. This paradox of morals is perplexing to me, I know they’ve argued this before but it’s particularly bad here, coming from Bo f*cking Katan, former member of Death Watch! 

What’s so strange about this is that there are easy workarounds, saying the machine still had to be destroyed, it didn’t have to be a moral play. It was also supposed to be a moment that convinces the audience that she’s be the rightful leader of Mandalore, and all I’m thinking how much of a hypocrite she seems.

This is a solid opening episode with some nice character work, but a couple of elements prevent this episode reaching it’s potential greatness.

Rating 7.5/10