The Series (5/5)

    Earlier this weekend I was cleaning up my spare room having started a new project the prior week, and stumbled on some classic Star Wars spinoff DVD's, this included the maligned Ewok Adventure films, but also some cartoons, that I hadn't watched in some time including a DVD just marked Star Wars: Droids. This series as its central characters starred C-3PO and R2D2. Having just wrapped up the third season of Star Wars Rebels on Blu-ray I was craving more Star Wars, and decided to have a nostalgic go around with these. 

     It was not pretty, It was also a reminder of how far we have come along with Star Wars related media. Though one can also say Disney has pretty strong control over how Star Wars is made and marketed we no longer seem to have Star Wars Christmas specials, Ewok Adventures, and cartoons like this, and in their place, we have extended narrative cartoons like Dave Filoni's Clone Wars and now Rebels, which is about to start its 4th and final season.

    The third season, however, follows the narrative progression the series has been on so far with the Ghost crew continuing its adventures in the galaxy to put down the Empire. In that time Ezra has been promoted, and advanced as a Jedi, but has also been willing to take some turns toward the dark side.  We also see Admiral Thrawn enter the universe as a new villain for our heroes to go up against. While the series does have it's own corner of the Star Wars universe it's building we also have appearnces from such classic and returning characters as Darth Maul, Saw Guerrera, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Mon Mothma.

    The series maintains the quality standard it has built up across the first 2 seasons, and actually has improved. The stories keep getting better, and the characters are becoming deeper and more well rounded as time passes. Also, the show feels less reliant on the “Skywalker” side of the Star Wars universe, and so while we do get the occasional cameo from a familiar face, it feels like we are having mostly original adventures in a galaxy far far away, which makes it more enjoyable than most modern Star Wars media.

Audio/Video (4/5)

    Rebels is animated in a simple computer animation style, but that is replicated perfectly on this Blu-ray. The series is presented in a 1080p AVC encoded 1:78:1 transfer that preserves the shows OAR, colors are replicated well, detail is excellent, and there really is nothing to complain about here.

    The Dolby Digital 5.1 track in English isn't perfect, but it is quite good, and gets the job done quite clearly.

Extras (4/5)

    We get "Rebels Recon" an indepth analysis of each episode. Aside from that there are selecct episode commentaries with members of the crew.   There are also featurettes that explore the background of the returning classic characters.

Overall

    Star Wars: Rebels Season 3 manages to continue pushing this series forward  with a whole slew of quality new episodes. The Blu-ray looks and sounds quite excellent, and has a nice slate of extra features. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.