Star Wars Resistance: An Overview

So I finally finished both seasons of Resistance the other day, and I have to say it was worth the time. Really.

I know Resistance doesn’t get that much respect, or attention for that matter. And I understand why–it doesn’t have the same gravitas or stakes as The Clone Wars or Rebels. It was made for a younger audience, after all, and isn’t quite as dark or tragic. But does that mean it’s bad? Heck no!

Resistance is Disney/Lucasfilm’s animated answer to the sequel trilogy, just as Clone Wars was to the prequels, and Rebels was to the OT. So here’s the basic rundown:

Kazuda Xiono is a young New Republic pilot recruited by Poe Dameron to be a Resistance spy on the refueling depot called the Colossus. The Colossus is a huge station in the middle of the waterworld Castellon. Poe introduces Kaz to Jarek Yeager, a former Rebellion soldier who fought at Jakku. Yeager is now a mechanic on the Colossus, but is privy to Poe’s activities and helps him when he can. He reluctantly agrees to take on Kaz as a mechanic on his payroll, as a cover. Apparently there has been some First Order activity on the Colossus, and Poe (as well as Leia Organa) would like to know what might be going on there.

Poe Dameron and Kazuda Xiono star wars poster prints
Poe with Kaz

Kaz is enthusiastic in his new duty as Resistance spy, perhaps a bit too eager. He’s young and naïve, prone to boasting (he happens to be a very good pilot), but also friendly and sweet, and just a tad clumsy. Okay, a lot clumsy. Turns out he’s the son of a wealthy New Republic Senator on Hosnian Prime, and apparently his father has micromanaged his life thus far; Kaz is eager to do something to prove to his father that he can do his own thing. He also believes in the purpose of the Resistance. But nobody is supposed to know any of that, so he’s just a mechanic for Yeager. Kaz, though an exceptional pilot, is a terrible mechanic, which leads to some problems, as you can imagine.

Also under Yeager’s employ is Tamara Ryvora, a young woman who left home to be an ace pilot in racing, but lost everything and is now trying to save enough to get another ship. Another member of Yeager’s team is Neeku Vozo, a Nikto who is a very skilled mechanic and my absolute favorite character in Resistance. He’s just so sweet and kind-hearted, and takes everything quite literally, which leads to some very funny moments. He takes to Kaz immediately, but Tam, not so much. She comes around after a while, but mostly just criticizes Kaz constantly.

Yeager, Tam and Neeku

No Star Wars show is complete without droids, and Poe left BB-8 behind on the Colossus to help Kaz (until he comes back to reclaim him for a “mission to Jakku”, at which point he leaves behind another roll-y, CB-23, who is just as adorable). Yeager’s team has their own droid in Bucket, who literally looks like a bucket of bolts with a helmet on.

The Colossus is a refueling depot, but it also has racing–and it’s own team of “Flying Aces” that put on a race every week to entertain the crew and people who live there. They’re also supposed to protect the station, from pirates and other undesirables. They’re made up of a group that includes a Rodian named Hype (who’s pretty annoying, most of the time), an former Imperial, a woman with (strangely) a Russian accent, a guy in a yellow suit whose face we never see, and a young woman named Torra Doza, who happens to be the daughter of the mysterious Captain of the Colossus. Torra eventually becomes friends with Kaz, and over the course of the show, Captain Doza becomes less mysterious. Turns out he used to be an Imperial, but defected when he met Torra’s mother, a Rebel back in the day. We don’t meet Torra’s mother until the second season, however, as she’s a Resistance fighter now.

CB-23 and Bucket

Anyway, Kaz tries to fit in and do his “spying” thing, and it turns out he does give Poe and Leia important information about the First Order, who’s been nosing around a lot. We see Phasma early on in Season One, but the main antagonist becomes a golden-armored stormtrooper named Pyre. The First Order wants the Colossus for its own fueling needs, and comes up with a plan to take it over: they hire some pirates to attack the station and make the Captain feel he needs to let the First Order onto the station to help defend it. Captain Doza increasingly feels uneasy with the agreements he makes with the First Order, until he decides enough is enough. The First Order aren’t willing to give it up so easily, and when they find out a Resistance spy is on board, they make it their business to occupy the station.

That’s the basics of it, and most of Season One; I won’t go into detail about everything, or much of Season Two (which is actually even better than S1) except to say that the Colossus is actually a space ship and takes off from Castellon, and the First Order pursues them relentlessly.

There are a few cameos besides Poe (who’s always fun) and Phasma; later we get General Hux, and even Kylo Ren. Once Poe comes back for BB-8 for that mission to Jakku, we know that the events of The Force Awakens is beginning; we even see Hux’s mad speech on Starkiller Base through a hologram. Things get pretty personal for Kaz just then–his parents live on Hosnian Prime, and when the planet is destroyed, he’s distraught, naturally.

The big crisis of the end of Season One and all of Season Two is that Kaz’s friend, Tam, joins the First Order. Naively, she feels the First Order are simply bringing order and safety to the station; when she finds out that Kaz and Yeager have been lying to her about being with the Resistance, she’s extremely angry (unreasonably so, in my opinion). She feels betrayed by the people she had come to see as family, and lets herself be recruited by a new character, Agent Tierney. (Another character named Rucklan, who’s kind of a jerk on the station, also joins. I had no idea that Elijah Wood voiced him until I saw it pointed out elsewhere, and then I couldn’t unhear Elijah Wood, lol). Season Two was about getting rid of the First Order pursuing their station, and getting Tam back into the fold.

Agent Tierney

I just found it a joy to watch Resistance, simply because it was entertaining and quite funny sometimes, and I knew my heart wouldn’t get ripped to shreds over tragic events. I even wish there was a Season Three that coincides with The Rise of Skywalker. I’d love to see the crew of the Colossus join the Battle of Exegol (maybe they do–there were a lot of ships that Lando brought with him, and maybe the Colossus is there; I haven’t taken the time to study all those ships–I’m convinced someone else did take the time and made a list of all the recognizable ships, so maybe it’s research time!)

If you’ve got some time on your hands and never watched Resistance, you might want to give it a go. Like all the other animated series, it takes a while to get going, and is geared toward the younger audience, but grows as it goes along.

And I haven’t even mentioned Flix and Orka:

And pirates!

And a B-1 battle droid:

And Buggles!

And…oh, nevermind. Trust me, it’s fun.

My Star Wars Weekend Update

Happy weekend, dear readers and Star Wars fans!

This week I’ve been charging through Clone Wars: Wild Space, a Legends novel by Karen Miller. It’s part of a series of Clone Wars books she wrote in the early 2000’s. I’m not quite sure how I feel about it yet, lol. It’s compulsively readable, and that’s why I’m tearing through it; but the characters seem to be a bit…off, I don’t know. All they seem to do is argue with one another, constantly, for one reason or another. I picked up the book because of some fan art I’d seen a few weeks ago, of Bail Organa and Obi-Wan Kenobi:

Bail Organa and Obi-Wan Kenobi: Mission to Zigoola #bail #organa #kenobi #star #wars
Mission to Zigoola, by Chris Trevas on Twitter.com

Naturally, I had to know what was going on here. The plot seems promising, if they could all just calm down and stop butting heads with one another. It’s kind of annoying. But we’ll see; I’ll probably finish it this week and post my thoughts on it on The Star Wars Reader.

I’ve also started to re-read Light of the Jedi, by Charles Soule, just to refresh my memory on the events of the book, in preparation for The Rising Storm, coming out June 29th. Man, I can’t wait for this book! I need to know what’s going to happen to my guy, Loden Greatstorm. As I mentioned before, I’m quite anxious about him. He’s my favorite High Republic Jedi, and at the end of LOTJ he was captured by the nefarious Nihil. (Don’t you hurt him, you sleemos! Lol. But oh, I know they will).

On the Disney+ front, I enjoyed the latest Bad Batch episode “Cornered,” and will have my thoughts on it posted probably Monday. And I finally finished Resistance–yay! As I mentioned earlier, the last few episodes of Season One got more compelling, and all of Season Two was quite good. I’ll write a post about both seasons sometime this week.

The podcast continues to be fun, and this week I’ll do one on Heir to the Jedi, by Kevin Hearne. It’s a Luke-centric story, taking place between ANH and ESB.

So on Thursday, I got my second Covid-19 shot and planned to take it easy on Friday, maybe watch a few movies (I was in a prequel kind of mood), since a lot of people report feeling tired, etc. the next day after the second shot. Well, I was tired–so much so, that I slept most of the day! Not even enough energy to watch a movie. In truth, I felt like I got hit by a truck, lol. Some body aches, headache, no appetite, etc., but mostly exhausted. So no Star Wars, just dreamland. By Saturday, I was completely fine and back to work. Totally worth a lost day to finally feel safe against Covid.

Finally, for my non-Star Wars indulgence, I watched Halston on Netflix, and I LOVED it. I suppose it’s not for everyone, but Ewan McGregor proves (as if he has to) that he’s an actor on an Emmy Award-level. He just blew me away with is portrayal of fashion designer Roy Halston, a brilliant, tragically flawed man who “changed the face of American fashion.” The five-episode series was quite a ride!

What have you been up to this past week? Let me know in the comments and we’ll talk about it!

My Star Wars Weekend Update

Hello and happy weekend everyone!

I hope you all had a fun Star Wars Day this past Tuesday, May the Fourth. I didn’t do anything Star Warsy in particular, except to watch the first episode of The Bad Batch, which I just loved. You can check out my review of the episode here. I just finished watching the second episode tonight, and I’ll be posting a review of that one probably on Monday. I’m really enjoying this new Star Wars content, as I suspected I would.

Omega

I also checked out the two Star Wars specials on Disney+ that dropped on the Fourth: Biomes, and Vehicle Flythroughs. Biomes is about 20 minutes long, and takes you on a tour of several Star Wars worlds, like Hoth, Tatooine, Crait, and Mustafar. It’s really cool, and I can picture just having it on in the background while working on some Star Wars project. Vehicle Flythroughs are two five-minute shorts that take you on a tour of the Millenium Falcon and a First Order Star Destroyer. Again, really neat and fun to get a close up look at these ships. Check them out if you have a few minutes.

I also (finally) finished Season One of Resistance. It got much more interesting during the last few episodes, and I’m hoping the second season will continue this. I don’t think I’ll do a review of each season; probably just a quick overview of both seasons when I’m done.

From the Star Wars Resistance animated series
Commander Pyre of the First Order

I’m planning on recording my first podcast this coming week, probably Tuesday when my daughter will be doing school (she’s still doing school remotely even though we had the choice to send her back to school–but we weren’t comfortable with that yet. Though on the bright side, both my husband and I have gotten our first Covid-19 shots, and will be getting our second ones in a couple of weeks). My husband will be working all day on Tuesday as well, so I’ll have a nice chunk of quiet time to figure the whole podcast thing out. It seems pretty intuitive and easy for a newbie to do; I think the hardest part will be accepting how my voice sounds on the recording, lol. I don’t think I have a terrible voice, I just think we all believe our voices sound weird on recordings, like the answering machine and voicemail, etc. But I’ll get over it, lol.

So I decided some time ago that for my fiftieth birthday this year (in June), my birthday present to myself will be a Star Wars tattoo. I’ve never gotten a tattoo before; it’s kind of a thing for the younger ones, I guess, but I never even gave it a thought until now. I wanted to do something wild and crazy, lol (for me, anyway). I want the big 5-0 to be something fun and to be celebrated, and not something to be dreaded.

You’d think my first tattoo would be my child’s name and date of birth, or my husband’s name and our wedding date, something like that. Nope. I decided to commit to my inner nerd and get the Jedi Order symbol, probably on my right shoulder.

This would be a cool tattoo, yes?

I just love this symbol. Not only do I think it’s beautiful, but it’s the symbol of the Jedi Order, and I’m a Jedi girl all the way, lol. If I manage to get through the process without fainting, I might even add the Rebellion firebird symbol on my left shoulder. But we’ll see, lol. Of course I’ll post pictures when it happens.

Finally, for my non-Star Wars indulgence this week, I watched the movie Tolkien.

(Hyper venolates) EEEEEEEEEK!!! Omgomgomgomgomg! Yay!! I'm sososos watching this!!

My viewing of The Fellowship of the Ring last week in the theater reminded me that I had wanted to see this movie when it came out, but I had never gotten around to it. So I watched it last night, and it was wonderful. I don’t know how accurate it was, and I think I saw somewhere that the Tolkien family didn’t like it or approve of it (not sure why) but I thought it was great. An amazing man, an amazing life, and an amazing story. Tolkien influenced so many creators that followed him, including George Lucas, and for that I’m grateful, not only for Middle Earth but for a galaxy far, far away as well.

Star Wars Resistance: Give It A Go

So with two months to go until The Bad Batch makes its debut, I need a Star Wars show to watch. I’ve watched everything there is to watch several times already, and I need something new to explore. The only thing I haven’t seen yet is Resistance, the animated series set during the time of the struggle against the First Order.

I know, I know: most people don’t like it. It’s for young kids, it’s nowhere near the quality of Clone Wars and Rebels, yada yada. I’ve heard it all. But I like to decide for myself, so I thought I’d start watching and give it a go.

And you know what? It’s not bad. It’s not great, but I’m only two episodes in. I don’t hate it. I’ve heard a lot of people say they don’t like the animation style, but I kind of like it. It’s very different from both Clone Wars and Rebels, and it should be, really. It needs to be its own thing.

Kazuda Xiono and Neeku Vozo star wars poster prints
Kaz and Neeku

So Resistance is about a young New Republic pilot named Kaz who is recruited by Poe Dameron to spy for the Resistance on a large aircraft refueling station called the Colossus. He’s supposed to work undercover as a mechanic while he roots out a First Order contact. He’s young, has been a bit sheltered, and tends to be found by trouble. Poe Dameron sees something in him, though, and leaves him in the care of Yeager, an old friend of his, as well as BB-8 to keep an eye on him. We meet a few characters who will undoubtedly be regulars, including Neeku, a sweet, wide-eyed alien who takes everything Kaz says literally. I like him; he has a child-like innocence that is endearing. I also like the time period; we’ve had so much Clone War and Empire era stuff, I’m ready for sequel trilogy era stories.

And it’s produced by Dave Filoni, so it can’t be that terrible, right?

I probably won’t report on every single episode I watch, but will rather give my opinion on it as a whole when I finish it. Since it’s only two seasons of 21 and 19 episodes (25 minutes long each), it shouldn’t take too long. Stay tuned!

Have you watched Resistance? If so, what did you think? (But please, no spoilers!) Comment below and we’ll talk about it!