STAR WARS “Rebels Theme” (Limited edition Disney 2015 picture disc single)
Music by KEVIN KINER

You know where I stand on remixes, right?  Most of them are shite, especially when you try to dance-ify music that was not intended for dancing.  If that kind of remix is your thing, that’s cool.  You appreciate something that I do not.  I just recommend that you hit the “back” button on your browser right about now, that’s all.

I liked Star Wars Rebels.  Although it did come across more “kiddie” than Clone Wars, the era and characters it covered were more to my liking.  The Imperial era, not the Republic.  Of course, it later grew and merged with Clone Wars into a greater lore, but that is not for this review.  Just saying, check it out if you haven’t.  It’s on your Disney Plus.

Rebels’ composer, Kevin Kiner, was tasked with coming up with a new theme cue.  He did this by incorporating and adapting John Williams’ original cues.  It’s almost like a mega-mix of hero themes, in 55 seconds.  It’s just a cartoon after all, not a feature film.  Kiner’s rendition of these landmark themes is perfectly suitable to the show and honours the era in which it is set, and the spark of rebellion.

Though Star Wars Rebels has two volumes of music available on soundtracks, they were never issued on physical formats.  This single is the only place you can get a physical copy of Kiner’s “Rebels Theme”.

Unfortunately, the exclusive B-side of this single is the horrid “Flux Pavilion’s The Ghost Remix”.  It adds digital beats, noise and manipulations to the “Rebels Theme” and extends the thing by five times!  For the hell of it, there’s some laser blasts, some Wookiee howls, and some yelling.  This is utter garbage that young kids might enjoy, but makes me wanna hurl.  It deviates so far from the blueprint that it’s clear the ol’ hyperdrive needs some recalibrating.  The remix is at least memorable, for whatever that’s worth.

The picture disc is nice though.  On the A-side (which is unfortunately the remix side!) it’s hero Ezra Bridger with Jedi Kanan Jarrus and droid C1-10P, aka “Chopper”.  On the B-side, the original “Rebels Theme”, you get an Imperial Stormtrooper taking aim to fire (and miss)!  One of the coolest things about the Rebels show was that it used old Ralph McQuarrie designs from Star Wars pre-history.  Chopper is based on preliminary drawings of R2-D2.  Likewise the loveable character of Garazeb Orrelios is based on early designs for Chewbacca.

Being that the decent B-side is 55 seconds long while the remix is five times that length, the rating for this single cannot be high.

2/5 stars