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General
- The Empire as a whole shows how deadly effective they are even with a less grand presence in the series than they're usually depicted. Given the horrors and atrocities they've committed without the presence of Darth Vader, shows they only used him as a last resort.
- The various firefights throughout the series are portrayed as far more dangerous and realistic than is the norm for Star Wars. There's no ducking hails of blaster bolts, or both sides standing in the open trying vainly to hit each other: you find cover, or you die, with plenty of demonstrations to back this up.
- Every time the Imperials start shooting blasters at people who have none. Yeah, these are usually rioters, on Narkina 5 or Ferrix, and in true Star Wars fashion the underdogs ultimately win, but every time an Imp pulls that trigger, someone dies. The true cost of this Rebellion: scores dead to buy the smallest chance of making a small stand against Imperial tyranny.
Episode 6: The Eye
- Beehaz's death by heart failure is disturbing in how mundane and realistic it is for the setting. After being forced into hard labor at a rapid pace for several minutes without break, the overweight, elderly man is seen fruitlessly gasping, clutching his heart, before keeling over like he'd been shot.
- Nemik suffers a horrific death when most of his body is crushed by a sliding crate, with the Sickening "Crunch!" being one of the worst parts of it. Immediately after being freed, Nemik can only cry how he can't feel his legs, but that crunch and the position it hit his body makes it clear to the viewer his legs are the least of his problems. He's left to suffer in agony until he finally dies while the doctor tries and ultimately fails to save his life.
Episode 7: Announcement
- The lengths Luthen Rael would go to further the rebellion's cause makes him quite terrifying in himself. Wearing the facade of a jovial antique shop dealer/collector on Coruscant is a ruthless rebel spy who is willing to let the entire galaxy suffer from the Empire's tyranny if it means more people will be inspired to rise up against it.
- This is a man who has to practice smiling, otherwise he won't remember how to do it.
- Just after the rise of the Empire, anti-Imperial protestors threw rocks at a platoon of clone troopers on Ferrix. Seeing how robotic the clones act in the scene is harrowing, especially after witnessing their humanity and empathy in The Clone Wars. All of it is long gone, replaced with cold ruthlessness.
- Cassian being "hung onto" by the KX-Droid. It throttles Cassian against a wall. Cassian is desperately trying to explain to the droid that the Shoretrooper meant to watch him. He has to use all his strength to keep the droid from crushing his throat, something it could do with nothing more than a slight squeeze!
Episode 8: Narkina 5
- The Imperial prison on Narkina 5 is horribly unsettling. Though clean and bright inside, it torments its prisoners by forcing them to work on the same project for their entire 12-hour shift, using a punishment and rewards system to encourage productivity, (punishment is being subjected to the pain of the electric floor, reward is getting flavor added to your food), saps the will out of all of its inmates, and will actively shock anybody who falls behind by using electrically-charged floors. It gets even worse when one poor prisoner takes his own life, and virtually everyone is numb to it. Their only reactions are to complain about how inconvenient it is for them, having to spend the rest of the night with his body in the hall or his table being a man down for their shift tomorrow, making it unlikely they won't get last place. The whole thing is cold, carefully calculated cruelty to break the inmates' spirits and keep them working hard on their widgets.
Episode 9: Nobody's Listening!
- Then there is the dark truth of the prison. No one leaves. When someone serves their sentence, instead of getting to go home, they'll just get moved to another prison, and if anyone on a level ever caught wind of this terrible truth, the guards have no qualms about having that entire level slaughtered to prevent the truth from getting out. The Imperials had them all killed just to cover up a mistake, and shows how little the lives of 100 men mean to the Empire.
- The ISB torturing Bix for information. Instead of traditional methods, they use the screams of the Dizonite children the Empire slaughtered. And Dr. Gorst, the Faux Affably Evil Torture Technician, describes how they got the sounds in a casual, friendly way. Bix's bloodcurdling scream and despondent state after the ordeal absolutely sell just how barbaric this particular method of torture is, even by Imperial standards.
Episode 10: One Way Out
- Luthen is revealed to be willing to throw his fellow rebel operatives under the bus to protect his operations, and forces a deep-cover mole who recently becomes a father to continue to work for him by threatening his newborn child's life. Luthen's methods make him no better than the Empire and he clearly knows it, yet that won't stop him from doing what needs to be done anyway, whatever the costs may be. The scene with the mole (Lonni Jung) is especially terrifying, as it involves Lonni communicating with Luthen while inside a malfunctioning elevator whose lights occasionally flicker out. The conversation itself starts with Luthen seemingly threatening his baby daughter. When he finally meets Luthen face-to-face and goes more into his familial life and asks to be relieved of duties, the scene turns more and more tense as Luthen talks about how Lonni cannot leave, and you straight-up expect Luthen to pull a You Have Outlived Your Usefulness on him and execute Lonni and there, especially as the whole scene seems set up to turn Lonni into a Mauve Shirt. Thankfully that doesn't happen here, but...
- In fact, the opposite happens. Luthen considers Lonni too valuable to risk, so won't act on his intelligence that the ISB is wise to an upcoming attack by a Rebel cell. Thirty men are going to die pointlessly because Luthen wants the ISB to think they're getting a handle on things. When we see the hoops the ISB jumped through to keep their knowledge of the attack hidden and not tip off the Rebels, it would be easy to claim there was a fault somewhere in that chain that warned the Rebels off. . . but Luthen won't take that risk. Thirty men are going to die for his idea of the "greater good," and won't even know why.
Episode 12: Rix Road
- While awesome, the riot on Rix Road is still unsettling for the brutality inflicted by the Empire and even a bit of what the townspeople inflict on their oppressors. Dedra gets an especially harrowing moment where she's kicked around so much she's like a shirt in a washing machine, crying out in pain and unable to get to her feet. Then the rioters pick her up, for a moment holding her in the air spread in the midst of them. It looked like they were going to try ripping her limb from limb. . . or any number of even less pleasant things.
- We also get the dubious pleasure of seeing Imperial Stormtroopers the way the oppressed peoples of the galaxy would see them — not as an incompetent bunch of terrible shots, but anonymous representatives of tyranny who are more than happy to start mowing down unarmed civilians.
- As if Narkina wasn't bad enough, want that extra bit of horror? The components the inmates are making are parts of the Death Star superlaser.
