It’s been a few weeks since the mid-season finale of Resistance, but with the second half of the season drawing near, a series of shorts have been published on the Disney Channel YouTube page. The shorts are 1-2 minutes long each and while not necessary to the overall story, they add a little bit more to some of the characters on the Colossus.
Having seen these were out and missing having any Resistance to watch, I put 20 minutes to one side last night to have a look at the shorts.
The Search for Kaz
Yeager is working on a targeting computer and wants to show Kaz how to work on it, so sends BB-8 to find him. The rest of the short follows BB-8 around the Colossus as he looks for Kaz.
Nothing much to write home about with this short. While I’m always going to enjoy more BB-8 in the show, there is not really much to mention here other than again praising the variety in the character models on the Colossus. I would also assume as well that this is the targeting computer from “Synara’s Score”, which would explain Kaz’s increased proficiency in that episode, but if that were the case I think this could have benefited from a quick line mentioning Doza wanting everything sorted quickly.
Dart and Cover
In Aunt Z’s Tavern, Kaz is showing off his darts ability to a number of patrons including Torra and Neeku. After doing well, Bucket decides to have a go and shows that he is also an accurate darts player.
I like this episode more than the last as even though it didn’t advance the story, it did help to strengthen the links between some of the characters, while furthering Kaz and Bucket’s rivalry. It was also a nice callback to the pilot episode where Kaz was shown as a proficient darts player. The one thing that put me off in this episode was the familiarity between Torra and Kaz leaving this episode hard to place. I would assume that this is set after “Secrets and Holograms” as they do not appear too familiar at the start of that episode, but there is nothing in the episode to confirm that and that would lead to quite a jump forward in time from the first short.
Neeku’s Reward
Yeager tells Neeku that due to his recent hard work, Yeager will buy him whatever he wants for lunch. Neeku decided to buy a gorg from Bolza Grool’s stand, however it escapes and causes mayhem in the marketplace.
I’ll be honest and admit that I’m not as drawn to Neeku as many people I’ve seen discuss this show, while I also feel that Bolza Grool’s bad luck in the marketplace is getting a bit old now. It was a nice episode and a bit of fun, but not one that I’m likely to rewatch.
When Thieves Drop By
Flix and Orka deal with a thief that tries to rob the Office of Acquisitions at blasterpoint.
There’s not really much else to say on this short. It was nice to get some more of Flix and Orka but the thieves in this episode are so dumbed down I was not overly interested – however for children this may be great.
Treasure Chest
Flix and Orka visit Synara at the loading docks, where they buy a sealed chest that has recently been recovered by the salvagers. Back at the Office of Acquisitions, they manage to open the chest to find it full of thermal detonators, which all activate and begin counting down. The pair try and fail to defuse the explosives, however when the countdown ends the detonators fail to go off, allowing the pair to dispose of them back into the sea.
This was a fun short and my favourite of the Flix and Orka ones. The pair have a great chemistry and they are generally fun to watch. All I will say against this episode is that the detonators appear to have an incredibly long fuse, although that also appears to be the case with the detonator Leia threatens Jabba with in Return of the Jedi. This episode also makes me think that all of the shorts up to now are set before “Synara’s Score” as the loading docks appear to be in too good a condition to have gone through the attack on the Colossus yet.
GL-N
Flix and Orka are at Aunt Z’s Tavern with their pit droid, GL-N. As the droid looks a little down, Orka pours the rest of his drink into GL-N’s bowl. While Flix and Orka talk, they do not notice GL-N get hyper from the alcohol and cause a disturbance in the tavern.
I can imagine that kids will have enjoyed this episode, but I’m still sat here hours later trying to figure out how droids can drink.
Bucket’s Quest
Bucket has lost his helmet so retraces his steps around the Colossus in an attempt to find it.
To me, this felt like a better version of “The Search for Kaz”. It was nice to see how attached Bucket is to his helmet and Kaz commenting on his feeling of nakedness without it. Droids on this show are shown to be very human and it did feel a little weird seeing a group of droids laughing at him without his helmet, but it was nice seeing Flix and Orca take advantage of his situation to try and make a bit of money.
Unmotivated
Hype Fazon takes his astromech, R4-D77, to the Office of Acquisitions as he thinks R4 has a bad motivator. Flix and Orka agree to look at the droid, who causes mayhem when he refuses to be worked on.
This show needs more Hype Fazon! He is so over the top but I am really enjoying him both in the shorts and in the few episodes that he’s featured in. Again, the humanness of the droids is on show and it is interesting to see a droid that does not want to be worked on as I’m pretty sure most of us have felt the same about a trip to the doctor or the dentist at some point.
The Need for Speed
The aces are racing to determine if Hype Fazon will stay the number-one ranked Ace. Torra is determined to win and the pair throw barbs at each other as the countdown begins. Torra takes an early lead and increases her lead by using her boosters, but Hype remains close behind and passes her in the final stretch as she used all of her booster fuel too early.
This was probably my favourite of all the shorts! The show was heavily marketed on the Aces, but the first half of the season has seen them have quite limited time on screen. The animation is often at its best when showing the ships flying and this also felt like one of the more complete stories of the shorts. I also really like how Torra is shown to clearly be a top-quality pilot, but the early use of her booster fuel shows her youth and lack of experience, while the banter between her and Hype – including Hype calling himself the racer who always pushes him to win – was brilliant! Hopefully this is a taster of what we will get in the second half of the season.
Sixty Seconds to Destruction
The Aces fly out to escort in a shipment, but the freighter has been damaged in a pirate attack and is unable to slow down or change course. The Aces latch onto the ship and manager to bring the ship to a stop just in time to avoid crashing into the Colossus.
Along with “The Need for Speed” this was probably my favourite short as it again focuses on the Aces, this time showing the more serious side of their role. It’s great to see them all working together for the first time since “The Triple Dark” and again we get more Hype Fazon!
Buggle’s Day Out
Torra leaves Buggles with Kaz while she is busy, but Kaz manages to immediately lose him. Kaz chases after him, putting himself in danger, but cannot catch him. Torra arrives back with Kaz still searching for Buggles. Buggles is in the Fireball and presses some buttons, causing the ship to take off and fly out to sea.
So, first things first, whoever signed off on the title needs to check their grammar as it should be Buggles’ not Buggle’s. Now that’s out the way, it was nice to see Kaz and Torra together again, but this again felt a bit too similar to “The Search for Kaz”. Also, I still can’t figure out if Buggles looks cute or weird…
The Rematch
Kaz and Torra prepare to fly in the Fireball and the Blue Ace to test the Fireball’s engines, but Kaz keeps acting as if it’s a race. The flight is going well but as they are flying back towards the Colossus, the throttle handle breaks off in his hand. Kaz manages to jam the handle back into place just in time to land the Fireball with some degree of control.
This was probably my third favourite and you can probably see a correlation in that my favourite episodes are the ones that involve large amounts of time in the ships. I enjoy the banter between Kaz and Torra and also Tam’s frustration at Kaz flying “her” ship, while it also shows that Kaz is a good pilot once again to be able to still land the Fireball safely after the handle broke off.
As a series of shorts to give us a bit more to some of the characters and get us excited for the second half of Season 1, these episodes are OK. Some are definitely more interesting to me than others, but I can imagine kids (the target audience) really enjoying these. As with many of the Kaz and Torra ones, I wish it was a little clearer when they were set as they seem more familiar with each other than at the start of “Secrets and Holograms” but “The Search for Kaz” and “Treasure Chest” suggest that all of these could potentially be set before “Synara’s Score”.
I’m hoping that the greater focus on Torra, Hype and the rest of the Aces in some of these episodes means that they will start to have larger roles in the second half of the season, as I think that they have all been underused so far, and I really hop this is hinting towards more racing or even just flying in general once the show returns.
It is a bit of a shame that Yeager does not appear in these other than quickly in “The Search for Kaz” as I still think that he is one of the more interesting characters in the show, and I also would have been interested to see at least one of the shorts following a character from the First Order, potentially putting Vonreg and Pyre on-screen together.
I must admit that I was surprised these shorts were posted on the Disney Channel’s YouTube channel rather than the Star Wars or Star Wars Kids channels, as it meant that I completely missed these being released until I saw someone posting about them on Twitter, however I do understand that as the show is on the Disney Channel, having this keeps everything in a similar area.
So those were my thoughts on the shorts, what did you think of them? Thanks for reading and May the Force be with you…
The Canon Padawan 