Star Wars Rebels Recap: The Last Battle

Tonight’s episode of Star Wars Rebels was an homage to the show’s forerunner Clone Wars. While the story doesn’t necessarily push the overall plot along, it does provide viewers with some back story and even a sense of closure.

Summary

The Last Battle takes place on the planet Agimar, where a Separatist battle station lays scraped. The boys from the Ghost crew head planet side to see what they can salvage from the station when they run into a battalion of droids. In order to win their freedom from the super tactical droid, Kanan, Ezra, and Rex have to relive a battle from the clone wars, essentially a war games scenario with deadly consequences.

The Value

It’s easy to get frustrated with filler episodes. Sometimes shows give us episodes where nothing of great importance happens, or at least, nothing of great importance seems to happen. You can look at this episode like that, and if you do, then it was likely disappointing. But, if you look at the episode as more about character development than plot progression, than this one was a win.

The Last Battle is all about Rex getting over the Clone Wars. Throughout the episode, we see Rex falling back into the same patterns he had when he fought alongside Anakin and Ahsoka. There is a moment when we see Rex experience a flashback, hearing the voice of compatriot Commander Cody.

What’s unique about this episode is that it shows the toll battle has on soldiers. It tries to explain that even clone troopers can get PTSD. We’ve seen that in the extended universe to some degree, but we haven’t seen much of it from the cartoons. When you take into account who the target demographic for the show is, I think it’s a clever way to help kids understand what it’s like to be a soldier.

Clones vs. Clankers

Another major component of the episode is the comparison between the clones and the clankers. As a clone, Rex was programmed to fight; he even says as much at one point in the episode. Similarly, the droids in this episode, and in the prequels, are the exact same, designed for combat. But what happened when the fighting ends?

There’s a moment in the episode when Ezra makes a very astute observation.

“I know the Jedi were wiped out. The Clones were decommissioned, and the droid army was just shut down. The Clone War ended, but why? If none of you won, then who did?”

The Republic and Separatists were so busy fighting each other that they missed the real enemy.

Future Alliances?

At the end of the episode, the two groups unite to fight their common enemy, the Empire. Together, they are able to survive long enough for two transports to safely leave the planet. The two groups part ways. The Ghost crew has a new transport ship, Phantom 2, and the droids head off into space.

The question that arises in my mind is what will happen to the droids? Will we see them or maybe more droids like them in the future? Droids are a big part of the universe and we have seen the rebellion make use of them from time to time. Will they eventually turn to fight for the rebellion?

An even bigger question is what happened to those Separatist factions that didn’t assimilate into the Empire? Will we start to see more Clone Wars era foes become friends to the rebellion?

I think that it’s likely that we will.

What do you think? As always, leave a comment in the section below and tell me what you think.