Rebels Impressions: “Art Attack”

With the premiere date for Star Wars Rebels just announced, Disney XD has ramped up their promotion of the new series with four exclusive clips that will air throughout the month. The first of these new clips; titled The Machine in the Ghost, was shown on August 11th.

The next clip appeared this past Monday, August 18th. Titled “Art Attack”, the three minute short features the voice talents of Tiya Sircar as Sabine Wren. In the clip, fans are introduced to the teenage girl dressed in Mandalorian gear who is an explosives expert who just also happens to have a flair for the artistic.

Enjoy the latest look into the world of Rebels, in the video below:

"“… copy that. This is gonna be fun… very fun.”"

In “Art Attack”, we are introduced to our young heroine on Lothal, as she prepares to create a diversion to help her friends escape from the planet’s surface. After scaling a wall, Sabine leaps into the middle of an Imperial TIE fighter airfield and begins sneaking around to avoid detection by the Stormtroopers on guard duty.

Sabine produces a small device which appears to be a weapon of some kind, which we soon learn isn’t quite what it appears to be. The nearest Imperial troops notice a strange sound and rush towards Sabine‘s location to check it out. Upon discovering her, the Troopers realize the source of the noise they’d heard. The device that Sabine is using is of the spray painting variety and with it, she has tagged the wing of a TIE fighter… in stylish purple, no less.

The Imperials are none too happy to find this intruder defacing one of the expensive spacecraft that they were assigned to protect. Drawing their blasters, they order her to stand down. The young Mandalorian is too fast for the pair of hapless Troopers and they quickly lose track of her. Sabine playfully darts about the airfield, drawing Imperial blaster fire that somehow never finds it’s target.

"“You call that shooting? I think you boys need a little more time on the practice range!”"

Soon enough, other Stormtroopers join in the search for the intruder. Sabine makes her way back to the artwork that she had started and decides to add one final touch. Suddenly, a lone Trooper approaches her from behind and orders that she surrender. Once again proving herself too quick to be captured, Sabine takes the Trooper down with a well placed kick and makes her escape from the airfield.

The squadron of Stormtroopers assemble and their commanding officer demands a report on the pursuit. One of them remarks that they’ve arrived at the same spot where they first caught the intruder. He stops to take a closer look at Sabine‘s artwork and realizes that there is more to it than just paint. Unfortunately for the Imperials, he realizes this a few ticks too late. Sabine has planted a powerful explosive onto the TIE fighter wing, next to her purple painted tag.

One explosive and colorful diversion later, Sabine leaps back over the wall that she had scaled earlier, in acrobatic fashion. After making contact with her friends via her helmet’s comlink, she stops to admire her own handiwork. Her mission complete, she turns away from the now smoldering airfield and towards her next target.

Imperial Stormtroopers respond to an intruder in the new Star Wars Rebels clip, Art Attack.

The 16 year old Mandalorian explosives expert with an artist’s touch, Sabine Wren.

The first thing that fans should notice when watching this new clip is that we’re instantly transported back into the Star Wars galaxy, the one that we all grew up with.

The clip begins with the Rebels logo amidst a starfield, accompanied by the familiar Star Wars Main Title brass fanfare by series composer Kevin Kiner. The title card dissolves to reveal the night sky of planet Lothal, complete with two brightly shining moons. The music fades away, as if to follow the camera’s movement towards the planet’s surface. The music disappears, and we’re left with the sounds of nocturnal creatures nestling among city walls. The industrial noises of the nearby Imperial airfield drift through the streets as we see a few citizens wandering about.

The sounds of a struggle interrupt the peaceful evening and we see a man being thrown to the ground by one the Empire’s elite. Longtime Star Wars fans will recognize that the man in question resembles early designs for the character of Han Solo, based on artwork by Ralph McQuarrie.

An early sketch of Han Solo and Princess Leia, from concept art by the legendary Ralph McQuarrie.

McQuarrie‘s work is to be a major influence on the look of Rebels, according to Executive Producer Dave Filoni. This is plainly evident in the designs of several characters from the show, including the hulking alien Zeb Orrelios.

One other thing that attentive fans may wonder, is whether or not the Stormtrooper we hear barking out orders here is voiced by Matt Lanter [Anakin Skywalker, Star Wars: The Clone Wars].

When Sabine Wren finally enters the picture, she’s sporting a very distinctive helmet. Mandalorian in design but pink in color, it’s clear right off the bat that Sabine has style and she’s not afraid to flaunt it. In fact, every piece of her armor appears to have been customized with colorful artwork.

Leaping down from her rooftop perch, the light footed Sabine quickly makes her way towards the walls surrounding the airfield.  The music that Kevin Kiner presents here is incredibly effective, evoking the same feelings of tension as in the scene from Attack of the Clones in which Anakin Skywalker sneaks into a Tusken Raider camp. In Rebels, Kiner draws upon many of the musical cues composed by John Williams for all six existing Star Wars films.

After making contact with Hera Syndulla [Vanessa Marshall], Sabine prepares for her next move. As Sabine scales the wall toward her target, the music builds with use of another John Williams cue, this time the iconic The Force Theme. The camera follows the heroic Mandalorian to the top of the wall, to reveal several Imperial TIE fighters amidst the massive airfield.

Sabine Wren overlooks the location of her next target; an Imperial airfield housing several TIE fighters.

We hear a new musical theme, light and graceful, as Sabine darts from one hiding spot to another, making her way towards the nearest TIE fighter. Perhaps this theme will be used throughout the series, to accompany Sabine in her exploits.

The voices of the Stormtroopers who respond to Sabine‘s spray paint should sound familiar to fans… or, at least one of them. The Trooper on the right in this shot is clearly voiced by Dave Filoni, which is just awesome. The other Trooper may or may not be voiced by Steve Blum [Zeb Orrelios, Star Wars: Rebels]. Later on the clip, we’ll hear Filoni‘s Trooper actually speak the infamous line; “You Rebel scum!”.

There’s a lot in this sequence that harkens back to the original trilogy of Star Wars films. First and foremost, fans will delight in the fact that the Imperial Stormtroopers in this series are just as easily bamboozled as they were in A New Hope. The other small detail that might go unnoticed is the sound of the Stormtroopers’ armor. Listen closely as they run towards the sounds of Sabine‘s painting… there’s that familiar plastic sound that we heard so often in the first three films. Filoni and crew prove once again that they’re serious about producing classic Star Wars.

Next, we see a really great shot of Sabine standing underneath a TIE fighter, as she bangs on it’s wing to draw the attention of her pursuers. What’s cool about this shot is, we get a true sense of scale to these fighters that we’ve never really had onscreen before.

Sabine is able to evade the Stormtroopers’ blaster fire, which isn’t a surprise to any longtime fan of the Wars. It’s a well known joke that Imperials have proven to be poor shots in previous films… just take a look at the Death Star detention block escape scene from Episode IV.

It’s absolutely fantastic that we’re getting a healthy dose of humor in this new Star Wars series. The tongue in cheek style of dialogue that appeared in A New Hope is given another chance here in Rebels, and fans should be pleased.

Sabine enjoys mocking her would be captors, as she continues to evade them with ease. Tiya Sircar is just wonderful with her delivery of lines like “Over here, bucketheads!”.

Sabine takes time to tag her insignia onto the wing of an Imperial TIE fighter in “Art Attack”.

"“You guys are too predictable! Always by the book… I read your book, it’s a short one.”"

While the squadron of Troopers regroups and then divides again to find Sabine, Kiner brings back a variation of the main Star Wars Rebels theme. Sabine returns to the work of painting the TIE fighter wing that she began earlier, only to be interrupted by Filoni‘s Trooper one last time. She makes short work of the poor sap and then in a daring escape, she leaves the airfield a burning scrapyard and her Imperial pursuers covered in colorful paint.

"“Forget the explosion… look at the color!”"

This clip was first shown at Disney‘s Star Wars Weekends, earlier this summer. The beautiful and talented Tiya Sircar appeared during the second of five weekends included in the event. During an onstage interview with Ashley Eckstein [Ahsoka Tano, Star Wars: The Clone Wars], Sircar spoke about the character of Sabine and what fans could expect to see from the show.

With these new Rebels shorts, Lucasfilm Animation has demonstrated incredible strides in their ability to produce animation that blows everything else on television straight out of the water. As with the previously aired “The Machine in the Ghost”, fans are given an exclusive look at the characters that will be featured in the new series, set to premiere on Disney Channel this October 3rd.

This clip is the perfect introduction to the character of Sabine Wren. She’s brave, sassy and dangerous. Sabine is able to get the drop on an entire squadron of Imperial Stormtroopers and not even break a sweat in the process. Fangirls and boys alike will no doubt thrill to the adventures of this new Star Wars heroine.

“This is gonna be fun…” Indeed.

If you missed out on the first exclusive Rebels short “The Machine in the Ghost”, check out our complete breakdown of that, here.

What do you think of Sabine, Dork Siders? Let us know by leaving a comment below!