“The Future of the Force,” was quite a bit different than other recent episodes of Rebels. In fact, it reminded me a lot of Clone Wars, and that’s a very good thing!
Recap
We open on board a passenger ship where an older woman is trying to comfort her baby. The woman tells the baby that they’re safe now and a new life awaits them; but no sooner have the words left her mouth than their ship is captured by a star destroyer. The baby starts to cry, but as she quiets her. Darth Vader’s Inquisitors appear and head straight for them. She tries to escape, but it’s no use. The Inquisitors block her exit and tell her not to worry. They say that they just want to be friends, but they first have some business to attend to. One of the Inquisitors throws his lightsaber at the rest of the passengers like a helicopter blade, and we smash cut to the title.
On Garel, Ahsoka pays a visit to Kanan to tell him that she comes on Jedi business. She tells him she has monitored transmissions from Mustafar trying to find out what she can about the Sith Lord. She has no answers yet, but she did discover that his Inquisitors have a secondary mission. They’re making retrievals, but that’s all she knows; she doesn’t even know what they’re retrieving. She has two sets of coordinates that need to be investigated. She will take one, and she wants Kanan and Ezra to take the second.
Kanan and Ezra, accompanied by Chopper and Zeb, head for the planet Takobo. They don’t know what they’re looking for, only that they need to get whatever it is before the Inquisitors do. They decide to split up, with Kanan and Ezra following the coordinates while Zeb and Chopper look for any Inquisitor ships.
Out in space, Ahsoka follows her set of coordinates, which lead her to the now lifeless passenger ship. She boards the ship and begins to look around, seeing the destruction left behind by the Inquisitors. She hears a feeble voice calling for help. It’s the old woman. The woman tells Ahsoka that the red blades took her granddaughter, and that her granddaughter has “It.” Ahsoka calms her, telling her to rest and that she will find her granddaughter.
Back on Takobo, Chopper and Zeb have found two of the inquisitor’s ships. As they prepare to blow them up, they hear whimpering from inside one. It’s the baby!
Kanan and Ezra follow their coordinates, which lead them to a room inside a housing unit that looks like it has been forcefully entered. From inside they can hear someone weakly moaning. When they push their way through the broken door, they find a female Ithorian named Oora lying on the ground. She tells them that Inquisitors came for her baby, Pypey. They didn’t get him though, as she managed to have a droid smuggle the baby out of the house. They tell her that they will find her baby and that she should get to docking bay 12 as soon as she is able.
Kanan calls Zeb to tell him what is going on. He wants Zeb to get out and look for the droid with the baby. Zeb leaves Chopper with the first baby, and sets out to find the droid. He finds the droid quite easily, but not a minute later the droid is destroyed. The Inquisitors found them! Zeb takes off running with both Inquisitors in hot pursuit. He calls Kanan and tells him he’s going to hide in the tower at the grid nine intersection, and he ducks inside. The Inquisitors follow him, leaving a probe droid outside to stand watch.
When they arrive, Kanan and Ezra sneak past the droid and into the tower. They find Zeb, but now they have to get out and the baby Ithorian won’t stop crying. They begin arguing about how to make him stop crying, but all the noise draws the attention of the Inquisitors who start cutting their way through the floor after them. They narrowly escape, but the crying gives Kanan an idea. He tells Ezra to keep moving with the baby, and to keep his comlink on. He then runs in the opposite direction.
The two Inquisitors follow the sound of the crying baby away from Ezra and Zeb, only to find that Kanan had hidden his comlink for them to follow.
The group reconnects on the top floor. Kanan tells Ezra that he has to take the baby to safety using the cooling ducts while he and Zeb draw the Inquisitors away. The only chance they have for this to work is for Ezra to calm the baby down. Suddenly he realizes that the baby is sensing Ezra’s fear! The baby is strong with the Force! This explains why the Inquisitors are hunting them. They’re afraid the children will grow up to be Jedi!
As Ezra crawls through the cooling system, the Inquisitors can sense his presence and begin stabbing the ducts above them. Just as they get to Ezra’s location, Kanan and Zeb show up to draw them away. Ezra and the baby make their way to the ground floor and flee the building. As they leave, Ezra tells the baby that maybe he can come live with them on Garel. Unbeknownst to him, the Inquisitor’s droid is listening and has recorded every word.
Inside the tower, Kanan and Zeb seem to be having trouble defeating the Inquisitors. “Time for a new strategy,” Zeb tells Kanan. He then picks Kanan up, running away from the fight as fast as he can. As they near a window Kanan shoots it out and they leap through, landing in a passing speeder. The Inquisitors call for reinforcements and then leap after them, following in another speeder. They catch up to Kanan and Zeb, and, while Kanan does manage to shoot down their speeder, one of the Inquisitors throws his lightsaber. The lightsaber slices off one of the engines, bringing it down as well. They take off for the docking bay on foot.
Ezra arrives at the hanger, but to his dismay finds that it has been locked. He radios Kanan, but Kanan is a little busy; the whole group is closing in on the docking bay and they have no way in. Kanan and Zeb turn around to engage the Inquisitors, but Zeb is easily taken out with a single Force push. Kanan and the Inquisitors go at it, but with two of them Kanan is soon taken down. Ezra tries to engage, despite the fact that he’s holding a baby, but he is easily taken out with another Force push. Suddenly the bay doors open and Ahsoka steps out, drawing her lightsabers.
Ahsoka tells Ezra to get the baby to the ship, and then leaps into action. Ezra rouses Kanan and Zeb and the three take off for the ship. Ezra tells Kanan that Ahsoka can come to them if they get airborne.
Outside the Inquisitors put up a good fight, but Ahsoka quickly gains the upper hand. However, as soon as she has them beaten, their reinforcements arrive. Just as it looks like she’s done for, the ship takes off. Ahsoka leaps into the air and grabs ahold, swinging herself inside.
As they leave the planet, reuniting Oora and Pypey, Ahsoka tells the group that she’s seen this scenario before. During the Clone Wars another Sith Lord was capturing Force sensitive babies, but the Jedi stopped him. This time there are no Jedi. It’s up to them alone now.
Back on Takobo, the Inquisitors find the wreckage of their ships that Zeb and Chopper left. As they survey the damage, the probe droid they left at the tower flies back to its mistress and lands in her hand to replay Ezra’s message. The inquisitor listens and smiles, saying, “We would love to visit you on Garel.”
Review
I loved this episode. It was almost like having Clone Wars back. We had a strange species playing a central role, a totally new story with hints that it will continue in the future, and, most importantly, Ahsoka was back and Ahsoka was incredible!
When Ahsoka stepped out of those doors I was flipping out. That shot was so amazing, I was fist pumping and shouting, “Yes!” to the ceiling! As great as the newer characters of Rebels are, I have an Ahsoka shaped hole in my heart when she’s not around. Her presence single-handedly makes this show 10 times more awesome. I really hope she sticks around for a while longer. As good as this show is recently, it can only improve when Ahsoka is there.
Chopper was also great in this episode. I loved the dark humor with him acting like he wanted to blow up the ship with the baby in it, only to turn around and begin playing with it and even, in his own robot-y way, make faces at it! Chopper has been getting more and more entertaining the further we get into this series. I really hope this trend continues.
One thing I want to make a note of is that I don’t think we ever got a definitive answer as to why the Inquisitors were rounding up Force sensitive babies. Yes, they don’t want them to grow up to be Jedi. But do they have plans for them beyond just kidnapping? I assume they need the babies for something, otherwise they could have just killed them. Are they going to train them as new Inquisitors from birth? I am very interested to learn more about their plans.
Also of note in this episode is that, as far as I can remember, this is the first time we actually heard the names of the Inquisitors spoken. Or at least the names they go by. I have a feeling their parents didn’t name them “The Fifth Brother,” and “The Seventh Sister.” I’ve known their names from Disney’s press releases and interviews with the cast. But, since they’d never been named in the show itself, I held off from naming them in my reviews just in case such info might be interpreted as a spoiler. I’ll be happy to be able to refer to them by name from now on.
Before I close this out, I just have to say I love it when we get very non-human characters in significant roles. The Ithorians are about as non-human as they come, and even though the most prominent Ithorian was an infant, I still really loved that it was so very non-human. I loved all the little touches with it, right down to the purple drool coming out of both mouths. Star Wars is at it’s most fun and its most interesting when we get creatures and aliens, and this episode was no exception.
Final Thoughts
I thoroughly enjoyed “The Future of the Force.” From the aliens to the Inquisitors to Ahsoka Tano herself, there was just so much to love. This season has been getting better and better, and I can’t wait to see what will come next!
What did you think of this episode? What do you think the Inquisitors’ plans for the babies will be?
Edited by: Hannah Wilkes
