Star Wars: Ahsoka

[jye4ever]

Luke heading off to train a young "Yoda" while Boba Fett takes the throne of a criminal empire is as good an ending as I'm sure we'll ever get.

 

[davejames]

The opening is the worst offense.

That captain was the dumbest **** to ever be on screen: "They're not Jedi, but **** it, let them come on board anyway when we have a highly sought after criminal - and, I'm such a dumb-ass I'm going to go down there and confront these vile imposters and see for myself what type of fool would dare do such a thing!"

The fool was the captain, all his crew, and any audience member that was okay with this opening.

What a ridiculous, idiotic, inane, unintelligent, sad excuse for writing.

But hey, it's got the SW brand on it, so it must be good!

To be fair, it is fairly consistent with how over-confident and full of themselves the New Republic seems to be at this point.

But yeah, even allowing for that it's still pretty clunky writing on Filoni's part.

 

[Ramatuelle]

Luke heading off to train a young "Yoda" while Boba Fett takes the throne of a criminal empire is as good an ending as I'm sure we'll ever get.

It was even deeply symbolic! Luke was trained by Yoda, and now he as a mature and seasoned Force user will train Yoda's replacement. Although I hope Grogu tends to be less obtuse about human motivations than Yoda was, cause myyyy gods did Yoda make some mistakes.

Boba turns the tables on his former oppressor! Cool. Symbolic. Now instead of roughing it he is gonna have ice cream for breakfast every day, if he wants to. For a while anyways. Boba is a nomad after all. And here he is, living with a woman who is both beautiful and deadly. All nice and cosy in that penthouse.

And there the franchise should have rested, for several years at least.

 

[Mandible]

To be fair, it is fairly consistent with how over-confident and full of themselves the New Republic seems to be at this point.

But yeah, even allowing for that it's still pretty clunky writing on Filoni's part.

Agreed. But also, imagine if they were doing a prisoner transfer of someone heinous - Ted Bundy as an example - there's no way they'd make any stops, deviations, anything; let alone allowing some randoms to board their vehicle.

It was so laughable and nauseating at the same time I think I threw up in my mouth a little bit.

That, and when Sabine solved the McMuffin in 2 moves were the breaking points for me. Just lame...

 

[Dark_Knight_89]

Maul didn't survive in any Star Wars movie I ever saw.

Wasn't his "resurrection" brought to you by the same hack that gave us this rancid turd?

I guess in Filoni's SW universe, lightsabers are just made of Nerf material.

So, you never saw Solo, then?

 

[Otomofan]

Fell asleep about a third in, never bothered to finish it.

 

[MeatHookGekko]

You do know that Maul was brought back whilst Lucas still owned and controlled Star Wars, right? Everything was approved by him. He always said killing Maul in TPM was a mistake.

But sure, blame Filoni.

I've said this before, but the biggest mistake was not setting Anakin as an adult at the start of the Prequels. You only have three films to establish how Anakin went from good to bad and became Vader, while managing to get someone pregnant at the same time in an organically plausible love story. While 10 hours of run time might seem like quite a bit of time, for a fully fleshed out three dimensional set of characters, that's pushing it ( Think of it like a 10 episode prestige TV series ( one hour each) instead)

Was such a waste of Liam Neeson overall. Rebooting him as General Anakin in middle age would have made the narrative much simpler. Then add some flashbacks when he was younger and mixed them into the story.

IMHO, good storytelling is very compact. Think of all the extraneous characters in TPM. Qui Gonn, Maul, Young Anakin and Jar Jar Binks were all excised by the next film. That's a lot of major characters to turf all at once. Terence Stamp, a phenomenal actor, wasted. Sio Bibble, Ric Olie, Captain Panaka, Tarpals, etc, etc. Just a ton of wasted screen time for non memorable characters ( I remember their names because the figures were peg warmers, for basically X number of years after the film came out)

The Sequel Trilogy had the same problem. What was wrong with following a young man who became a Stormtrooper for the wrong reasons and the right reasons at the same time? ( Too much idealism and also didn't want to starve) He finds a survivor and scavenger that he spares and they fall in love and get into a few adventures. What's wrong with that?

Star Wars has to try to get smaller, not bigger. You can have merchandising input into the scripts. You can have action set pieces. You can have cheesy humor. But tune down the stakes a bit. Focus on 4-5 main characters and really develop them. Invest in them.

I remember seeing both of Joel Schumacher's Batman films and wondered why he didn't just steal some scripts from Batman The Animated Series. That's the thing about Star Wars, if you struggle to find something ground breaking, just steal your story from something already established. Stranger Things is a quasi repackaged Goonies. And that's OK. One of the strangest things I've seen in television is Z Nation, on a shoestring budget and stuffed with pretty limited actors, having a stronger narrative most of the time compared to a lot of The Walking Dead.

Can you make something that will still stand on it's own even if you remove the Star Wars specific elements from it?

 

[MeatHookGekko]

I definitely wouldn’t say Ashoka is a Mary Sue, she’s a well written and fleshed out character. The problem with her for me is that she’s worn out her welcome. She should have died at the hands of Vader like Lucas wanted, Anakin thus killing both his apprentice and his master. Of course Filoni would never allow his orange waifu to be killed off. I’ll bet he’s already planning that Ashoka/Trapper Wolf love story.

I've got a wait and see approach on this show. I'll give Filoni a full season and see what happens.

I don't think the Ashoka character is a problem as much as Rosario Dawson, IMHO, is a mediocre actress and is probably heavily miscast here. But there are some interesting elements. That's the thing about these Disney Star Wars shows. They aren't devoid of some interesting elements, it's just that everything feels more like a rushed product, basically another version of some energy drink, over an actual labor of love. However, Filoni has made some cool stuff in the past, so maybe this needs a little more time to hit it's stride.

 

[jye4ever]

Bad writing or not Rosario looks amazing.

I just love looking at the character.

Yes the missing bug eyes makes her look different than the animated version but the samurai aesthetics more than makes up for it.

 

[chrisstbh]

Yup, one of the stupidest things to come from the SW universe. So dumb it's beyond comprehension how people were okay with. Maybe the cartoon fans are more forgiving than the live action ones?

Maul coming back was actually one of the best things to happen to Star Wars .

Also “cartoon fans” are also fans of the live action…

 

[ZE_501]

Bad writing or not Rosario looks amazing.

I just love looking at the character.

Yes the missing bug eyes makes her look different than the animated version but the samurai aesthetics more than makes up for it.

She's fine when she's fighting but I don't think she sells the gravitas of a wise warrior, it comes across as stilted and flat. Maybe that'll change.

 

[Mandible]

Maul coming back was actually one of the best things to happen to Star Wars .

Also “cartoon fans” are also fans of the live action…

Cut in half, fell down a thousand foot well, lives to tell the story... sorry, but that was just silly.

No doubt the character was "cool" and when they brought him "back" they ended up doing some good things with him - but him living was so farcical it was ridiculous.

Should have been him for the three PT's - then Anakin kills him in 3 and takes his spot. Get rid of geriatric Dooku and asthma ridden Grievous. Lucas was so obsessed with toy sales by that stage, he surrounded himself with imbecilic "yes" men, and lost himself up his own ass.

 

[jye4ever]

She's fine when she's fighting but I don't think she sells the gravitas of a wise warrior, it comes across as stilted and flat. Maybe that'll change.

Well I was more focusing on looks than acting because you know..it’s me.

 

[ZE_501]

Well I was more focusing on looks than acting because you know..it’s me.

Actual footage of @jye4ever on this forum:

 

[a-dev]

Jye's been phoning it in. I think he wants to be banned.

 

[ebor]

Not fully disliking this show. Ahsoka is an interesting character- and I like R. Dawson’s approach to portraying her. I just hope this doesn’t become the ‘Sabine show’ much like The Obi- wan show became little ‘Orphan-Annie erm… Leia show’

Will watch episode 2 today…

 

[Sassafras]

She's fine when she's fighting but I don't think she sells the gravitas of a wise warrior, it comes across as stilted and flat. Maybe that'll change.

IMO they seemed to be doing less of that and giving her a bit more life, which to me is better for this actress. Some actors just enter and radiate presence. Don't think Dawson does, which for me was a real fail earlier. Of course, a clunky script at times didn't help. Filoni - sigh. Tho he can do great visuals.

On the other hand I'll forgive a lot as she actually seems to be a competent fighter who put the work in to get the lightsaber moves right.

 

[Sassafras]

Well I was more focusing on looks than acting because you know..it’s me.

I'll back yah on that tho. Still can't forgive the Y-tuber who pointed out that the Calamari couldn't possibly use the weapon at his belt coz of the flipper hands, so not only was the captain a pompous idiot, the master at arms outfitting his guard is incompetent.

Looks are important.

Tho I don't care if Sabine survived a light saber stab; she's supposedly a tough Mandalorian and also, interestingly, neither Shin nor Baylan seemed to be stone cold killers, so Shin just getting the job done makes sense. Unlike Maul who IMO would make sure an opponent was dead; at least until Rebels and he saw himself as betrayed.

So far I don't find the show as horrifying as Obi-Wan which is refreshing to my psyche that not only sat through an Inquisitor doing parkour and screaming "I'll get you and your little dog too" or something like that, but also sat through Lizzo trying to act.

 

[Khev]

I just hope this doesn’t become the ‘Sabine show’

I'm okay with this being the Sabine show.

 

[davejames]

IMO they seemed to be doing less of that and giving her a bit more life, which to me is better for this actress. Some actors just enter and radiate presence. Don't think Dawson does, which for me was a real fail earlier. Of course, a clunky script at times didn't help. Filoni - sigh. Tho he can do great visuals.

On the other hand I'll forgive a lot as she actually seems to be a competent fighter who put the work in to get the lightsaber moves right.

I think Rosario probably realizes that the costume and makeup radiate plenty of presence all on their own, which I would agree with. And she inhabits it perfectly.

The only issue I have is just with how one-note the character's been written so far, as this calm and wise Jedi who's always in control and constantly folding her arms while giving that little smile of hers...

I'm really hoping the series will challenge the character and let us see her get angry or desperate or scared, like we often did in the cartoons.