I’m exhausted for the night, so I’ll leave things here for now. I’ll go into more detail about where I’d take the series storywise in a follow-up post tomorrow.
Damn, if that wasn’t a long sleep. 😉
I’ve revised some of the ideas I had for a re-written Rebels since I created this thread.
- The show would last five seasons, consisting of thirteen hour-long episodes each.
Not anymore. In fact, I wouldn’t make it a series at all. I’d make it a trilogy of feature-length films. Why? Because the Rebels Trilogy would serve as a mirror of the OT. The number and types of characters, their motivations, their trials and tribulations – they would all parallel those of the OT, only approached from the whole opposite direction. Whereas the OT was fundamentally optimistic, the RT would be fundamentally pessimistic. Luke began as an optimistic kid, went through some low points, but completed his Jedi training and lived happily ever after? Ezra starts as a pessimist, evolves into a cautious optimist while running with the Ghost crew, but ultimately fails as a Jedi and does not have a happy sendoff. The Rebels won at the end of the OT? They do at the end of the RT, too, but their victory is joyless. A villain redeemd themself at the end of ROTJ? Happens in the RT as well, but a hero also succumbs to the darkness, rendering that small triumph moot. Etc, etc, etc.
- Dispensing with the incompetent stormtrooper garbage, I’d do a complete 180 with the troopers; I’d make the stormtroopers as deadly and formidible as possible – crack shots with their blasters and skilled hand-to-hand fighters – to make them credible threats to our heroes.
I’d like to amend this a wee bit. In the first episode of the RT, the stormtroopers on Lothal would begin as incompetent – a cowed backwater slave world isn’t exactly a place the Empire’s finest troops would be stationed – but by the second episode, those jackasses would be replaced with the formidable killers mentioned above.
- The Pau’an inquisitor would look like this
and weild a standard-hilt lightsaber with a blue blade.
- The Fifth Brother would wear a different uniform and wield a green lightsaber which can be re-configured into a razor-edged flying disc when in bladeless mode.
On second thought, I’d just combine the two characters. That’d bring the dark side characters down to three: Jerec, the Pau’an, and Sariss – a perfect unholy trinity.
- Ahsoka would remain a part of the series, but she’d be a Sith instead of a former Jedi (in keeping with my personal canon) and she’d wield her green and chartreuse lightsabers instead of white-bladed replacements.
I’d jettison Ahsoka altogether. I like her, but her presence would only bog the narrative down.