Let’s sit down and talk.  Just you and me, Resistance.   I’m trying really, REALLY hard to appreciate you.  I know you are going out of your way to give me me what I like with all the Space Turtle engineers, a sly Kylo Ren shoutout, an Asty cameo… but I swear that goofball Kaz tripped over things 7 times in 22 minutes.  7 TIMES!  Why?  I’m clumsy but I don’t trip and fall seven times a day! Can Kaz maybe, just maybe get a clue?  And for the love of Yoda, can he stop falling down all the dang time?

The Children of Tehar starts with a Kaz screwing up yet another project (imagine that) and he goes off to drown his sorrows in a glass of water at Z’s bar.   Once there he sees a hologram of some missing kids that if he found, he’d get a huge reward.  So he and Neeku fall down a couple times and eventually with the help of those fantastic Space Turtles, find the lost kids.  Who to nobody’s surprise, would rather not be found.  Seems these kids just escaped from the planet Tehar which just saw the mighty Kylo Ren wipe out a whole town of people and everyone these kids know.

In an effort to save these kids from a cool gold plated First Order trooper, Kaz’s character thankfully shows his first glimpses of being not being just a clumsy guy in a jacket who knows NOTHING about engineering.  Though he still screws up a lot in the process, as soon as Kaz hears about Kylo busting up their town, he springs into action to do anything to try and keep them safe.  It was good to see and it may be a hint of what’s eventually to come once the First Order does much much worse to everyone HE cares about.

While Children from Tehar is a much better episode then the blond kid episode or the nighttime biker gang episode, it’s still sad that just a namedrop of a film character like Kylo Ren can make a whole episode come alive.  When Kaz was talking to Ello Asty at the end, I almost passed out and I completely forgot all about plight of the runaway kids. The show is good but the original characters just aren’t there yet.   These new shows always take time, but I feel like by Rebels episode 5, we already knew we liked Hera, Zeb and Kanan.  Kaz just isn’t doing it for me and wonder if anyone is actually laughing at his constant buffoonery?

I’m sticking with you Resistance because you have promise and I feel like you’re building towards something.  Maybe it’s Hosian Prime blowing up, the discovery of Neeku being the First Order spy, a cameo from King Prana, a song by Asty or maybe it’s just Kaz falling down some more?  Either way, I’m still on board for now.

B

High Tower is a real mixed bag of an episode.  It’s like a bag of Chex Mix but there’s a lot of the weird bread things and not as many cereal squares.  Isn’t that always how it goes though?  Thankfully, the episode moves at a brisk and breezy pace and really stands out storywise compared to the last couple of bits of the story we’ve gotten. Sadly,  it also fails yet again to connect the viewer with the main character at all and often feels slightly uneven.  Kinda like a handful of Chex Mix.

A lot actually happens in this episode to move the show forward.  Like, A LOT.  We are finally introduced to one of the ace pilots, the charming Rodian named Hype Fazon.  We get our first idea on how the First Order is using the Colossus, and who’s dealing with them. We get to see some real relationships between Hype, Tam and Torra, and the elite in the High Tower are first made aware of the bumbling spy that is Kaz.  It’s a lot crammed into 22 minutes and once the cool red armored stormtrooper person shows up, it’s hard to really feel bad for Kaz as he goofs through his latest failed spy mission.

As I watched Tam and Hype talk about past regrets and attempt to make amends, I realized that those two characters right there and that story was a lot more engaging than our main character’s has been so far.  In two or three exchanged lines, I wanted to know way more about them then see Kaz mug and scream his way down a hallway while being chased by stormtroopers.

I know we are only on the 4th or 5th episode of the first season and the show is for kids and that Star Wars has been and will always be for kids (from a certain point of view) but Kaz so far is like the Uber-Ezra.  These shows don’t always need a main character who is constantly in over his head and messing up for kids to be into it.  Kaz needs to figure out what he’s really doing and the show needs to figure Kaz out before I begin the letter writing campaign to make the whole show about Tam and Torra.   Now I’ll go back to my Chex Mix.

B – 

In some ways, in a lot of ways, this third episode of Resistance should have had warning signs pasted all over it.  This week we have resident goof Kaz meeting a gang of cool troublemakers led by the Star Wars Ken doll looking guy Jace Rucklin (voiced by Elijah Wood).  This gang of hooligans (which contains a Sullustan I wanted to know more about) want Kaz to steal some Corellian Hyperfuel (nice Solo shout out!!) from his goodhearted boss, Yaeger.  If that sounds like it’s going to have about  as much as a heavy handed learn your lesson as a very special episode of Punky Brewster, you’re absolutely right it does.

Somehow through that predictable story line, Fuel for the Fire manages to soar in ways last week’s The Triple Dark crashed.  This episode’s not so subtle lesson actually allows Kaz to grow the tiniest bit as a character this time.  He runs off with these rough and tumble pilots as he feels like he’s just … kinda… useless doing anything else.   He’s just about admits he’s not good a spying so far or pretending to be mechanic.  The guy is a pilot and here comes some weirdos saying, “hey, screw the man and that lousy job!  Let’s go fly!”  And he jumps at it!  Now of course these rascals want to steal and they cheat and all that stuff and we know how all that will naturally end up.

By the end of this episode, Kaz starts to realize that he has it pretty good on the Colossus.  He’s got friends, a sympathetic boss, a support system, a loyal BB unit and an important mission from the best pilot in the Resistance who also has the best jackets and hair.

It’ll be interesting to see where Kaz now goes in the upcoming episodes.  Will he revert back to a  “I don’t know why I’m here” or will he start to work with his team some more?  Regardless,  Fuel for the Fire is a pretty nice step in the right direction.

B+

Ah, the second episode.  The party of the big series premier is done, Poe Dameron is gone, the cake and ice cream has to go away and we have to start getting into what this show is actually really about.  We know the basic premise that this goofball from the New Republic, Kaz is pretending to be a pilot/mechanic on this big space aircraft carrier thing while actually Leia and Poe want him there figuring out who is a spy for the First Order.   Got that?  Okay, so does this this story actually get its feet in the Crait salt and take us on our first steps into a larger world here?  Well, yes and no.

While The Triple Dark features a bit more of a look at the day to day life on the continually fascinating Colossus, the biggest thing weighing it down is once again our main character, Kaz.  I know it’s only the second episode, but the fact that he suffers from Ezra syndrome and he’s kinda whiny, kinda an idiot, not a good fake mechanic and not a good for real spy make me wonder just what is he good at and why is he our main character?  The show picks up energy whenever Yeager or Tam are on screen because so far they’re a heck of a lot more interesting then the kid who is walking into poles and electrocuting people.   Those two have had hints of interesting backstories that tie to The Saga and frankly their not walking around slipping on banana peels all the time.

I’m not saying everything in this episode is a misstep though.  I love the Triple Dark pirate marauders, the grumpy Neimoidian is beautiful and the scene when the station’s pilots suit up and get in their fighters to defend the Colossus is Star Wars Gold.

Resistance so far is still like a new pair of shoes that look great but might just might be rubbing against my heel a little weird right now.  Maybe they’ll stretch out and I’m sure they will get more comfortable over time.   BUT  if this keeps up with the “I’m Kaz and I have no clue what I’m doing” stuff by the time Hosnian Prime blows up then me and these cool new shoes may have issues.   I gotta remind myself that Clone Wars started a little weird and the first few regular episodes of Rebels were extremely off.  So far Resistance is finding its groove at it’s own pace.  I just better not get a blister.

C+

“It’s a film for 12-year-olds. This is what we stand for. You’re about to enter the real world. You’re moving away from your parents. You’re probably scared, you don’t know what’s going to happen. Here’s what you should pay attention to: Friendships, honesty, trust, doing the right thing.”   -George Lucas 

He’s right, you know?  Star Wars was always designed to be stories for young people. Many of the fans out there are people who discovered it when they young and as we’ve heard them say so many times, had it capture their imagination.  Fans grow older, life gets more complicated and some expect their old childhood buddy Star Wars to grow and get more complicated with them.  Time to go out, get a job and pay your taxes, Star Wars!  Depending on what story you watch and from what perspective you view it with, the galaxy far far away may have actually gotten more layered for a older viewing audience.  Heck we just had that a little movie who’s big lesson was one of observing failure as one of life’s greatest teachings tools.  But often the best way to view the saga is through the eyes of the young.

Star Wars Resistance, the latest show from Lucasfilm animation embraces the whole “for the 12 year olds” thing like a Wookiee hug.   It’s a fast paced, candy colored story about a likeable goofball named Kaz Xiono who is tasked with pretending to be a new hot shot pilot so he can secretly spy on the growing sinister First Order.  Kaz, like many of the characters and much like Ezra Bridger in Star Wars Rebels, can sometimes come on a little too strong, even for a kids show.  Star Wars is always about the underdog becoming the hero but the idea of yet another show about a slightly whiny, slightly bratty dark haired young guy being our focal point for a series makes me sigh a little.

The show does shine with the fact that at least  right now Kaz’s mission is refreshing small in it’s scope.  The fate of the entire galaxy is not resting on his shoulders which is rare for a Star Wars main character.  There’s no Jedi here (yet), no lightsabers, and not one mention of The Force.   We are able to have episodes just letting us get to know the interesting folks sound Kaz, the cool aliens that live and work on the Colossus and just focus on some seriously fun ship racing moments.

It’s always been my thought that the Star Wars galaxy is big enough and diverse enough to tell all kinds of stories about all kinds of characters and Resistance is a big step in that direction.  The animation here is fluid and bright and is a perfect match to the show’s breezy tone and the sound work by the pros at Skywalker Sound is especially exceptional.   And most important of all, the aliens and creatures on display pull from the backgrounds of the prequels, sequels and some lesser seen OT classics.   It’s a nice marriage of the entire saga and you can feel the affection for the universe coming from every frame of the show.

Both of the previous Star Wars animated shows started with fairly basic introductions to their worlds and characters and grew much more complex over time and I have a feeling the same is true with Resistance.   If what we see in series opener The Recruit is any example, Kaz and the this story of ace pilots and the Resistance will be with us for a while and will be a welcome addition to the saga.

B+