Star Wars: Ahsoka

[Ramatuelle]

I tried to give the cartoon series an honest go but because I was not a kid when they came out they are just too much for kids. The overly noisy, fast paced, goofy lore (a planet of the force embodied by a father son daughter?? What??? Ok…) I know there is a lot of fans who like it so I promise I’m not hating on something you may love it’s just not for me, and that’s fine.

I cant stand Rebels either, but let me tell you. One reason I tolerate things like TCW & TBB is because, strangely enough, these overtly childish shows also contain some of the most knock down drag out emotionally wrenching and intense moments in all SW.

Tolerate some childish stuff? You will do it. Then you get to the part where your friend is lying on the ground dying, and you look up to see an eagle soaring overhead, symbolic of the squad you abjured and left behind, the only real friends you had and you were too blind to see it. They soar free like that eagle, who knows where - while you stand before an absolutely hateful superior officer who denies help to save your friend. Your squad is gone and the Empire has betrayed you. You pledged to serve.... Nothing. You have nothing. You loved your status as a soldier of the Empire and their response is to spit on you. Just another clone; used equipment.

And then your friend dies.

You aint gonna find that in live action. Sad to say!!

 

[Raymond F.]

One thing I will say is this. I was in middle school when the prequels came out. Already a huge OT fan but I was just old enough to appreciate those and young enough to appreciate the prequels. Even though I was old enough to know damn well that they were bad as compared to the originals I really allowed myself to get lost in the hype. All these years later they are nostalgia to me. They are very much Star Wars as flawed as they are.

It could be because Star Wars was a rarity and it could be because they were from George Lucas directly they gives them a bit more credibility then. But let’s face it. Today the consumption of content is at a light years pace as opposed to then. Do anything Star Wars in as watered down a fashion as it is now is likely to resonate with someone.

That biker chick with the rock song is about as un -Star Wars as I could imagine but yet it will still be Star Wars to someone weather I like it or not,

I guess I have to assume that this new Ashoka series is just for the kids (or the few non kids) who watched the cartoons. Them and then alone.

And it’s not for me, or the casual fan I know who loved the OT or even the fans of the first season of Mando. And I have to just accept that and it’s fine

 

[Venzhe]

Can we get a separate thread for fandom ennui, nihilism, and despair?

Most of this thread is more about people needing to find a new hobby rather than the tv show.

 

[Ramatuelle]

No. We cannot get a new thread. Despair will happen here, there and everywhere.

No one has dragged The Last Jedi into this yet, and be glad. The last time that happened we had like twenty pages of clan warfare.

 

[DioramaMaker]

Tough crowd. I've been pretty meh to disappointed with everything post Mando S2, with the exception of Andor, but I've rather enjoyed these two first episodes.

At the very least, this feels like I'm watching Star Wars. Whether that's what everyone considers Star Wars might be debatable...but I've certainly got the viewership credentials starting with the OT as my fundamental space opera experience in life. That's also backed by being the prime target audience (in age and interest) for the prequels when they came out.

What I am not is a Star Wars animation consumer (with the exception of the original Tartakovsky clone wars series). I don't know much about the background of the show beyond what I've gathered during some obscure wookiepedia dives. That's being said, I would rather a show build on a history of lore rather than ignore it. And honestly, whether or not it's the lore you know, you should too. That's one of the biggest complaints about the newer media I hear from "purists", it doesn't align with the existing content.

But what I find curious is that within a few minutes of the first episode, I found this to be a far more compelling direction for a sequel trilogy of sorts. Naturally given it's place in the timeline it's an easy comparison to make, but my brain wasn't actively going there. That thought sort of weaseled it's way out on it's own.

From muppet specials, Ewok and Droid cartoons, Luuke clones, rabbit mercenaries, to a moon taking out Chewbacca...I grow a little tired of the hating on new stuff bad/old stuff good charade that gets regurgitated so often. What was sanctioned as cannon back in the day went just as far off the rails as some of the stuff we see now, and just the same, people picked and chose what they wanted to accept into their view of Star Wars. No media will outlive Star Wars, it's been self sustaining for decades and will evolve one way or another. Even when Star Wars is quiet, it still produces merch, discussion, and interest.

What I can criticize is a lack of child-like vision and delicate planning; it's the thing that drove the sequels off the cliff, it's where Mando lost focus, and it's how Obi Wan has a decent movie contained in a meandering miniseries. Uninspired content is the worst offender Star Wars can have because the world offers so much; at the very least I feel like two episodes in, Ahsoka has the aforementioned vision and planning. Whether or not I end up jiving with it is anyone's guess, but so far I'm willingly stepping on the ship for this trip across the galaxy.

Remember, the toys you buy from a movie that came out 46 years ago was, and is, from a franchise that George himself said is for kids, but the fact you care for it so deeply means that it transcends that. But despite that, it doesn't change that it should still fit that bill.

 

[Asta]

Tough crowd. I've been pretty meh to disappointed with everything post Mando S2, with the exception of Andor, but I've rather enjoyed these two first episodes.

At the very least, this feels like I'm watching Star Wars. Whether that's what everyone considers Star Wars might be debatable...but I've certainly got the viewership credentials starting with the OT as my fundamental space opera experience in life. That's also backed by being the prime target audience (in age and interest) for the prequels when they came out.

I don't know if it's because I'm back in a more sympathetic mood towards Star Wars but I felt Ahsoka was more what I expected from a live action series, as opposed to TBOBF and OWK. For a start there was less to laugh at in the first two episodes of Ahsoka.

From muppet specials, Ewok and Droid cartoons, Luuke clones, rabbit mercenaries, to a moon taking out Chewbacca...I grow a little tired of the hating on new stuff bad/old stuff good charade that gets regurgitated so often. What was sanctioned as cannon back in the day went just as far off the rails as some of the stuff we see now, and just the same, people picked and chose what they wanted to accept into their view of Star Wars. No media will outlive Star Wars, it's been self sustaining for decades and will evolve one way or another. Even when Star Wars is quiet, it still produces merch, discussion, and interest.

I liked Jaxxon.

He was wacky, as were most of the original comic book stories, but there was something about them. At the time that was the expanded universe, until I started reading the novels.

What much of live action Star Wars has missed is the vision and care expressed in the novels from the late '70s into the '90s. Lucasfilm chucked them from the canon, and Disney were free to create something new instead which felt a lot less authentic.

Ahsoka bringing in Thrawn and the Remnant has the chance of doing what the Sequels failed to do, in telling a tale of the New Republic without the likes of the clown Kylo, or Stormtroopers who aren't Stormtroopers.

 

[Otomofan]

That biker chick with the rock song is about as un -Star Wars as I could imagine but yet it will still be Star Wars to someone weather I like it or not,

No, it won't.

Cause "Star Wars" as a concept or idea or feeling won't mean anything to someone just discovering it in 2023. The only audience that doesn't already have any kind of understanding or connection to SW at this point would be children that have never seen any SW content. And children today couldn't possibly care less or be impressed by some try-hard girl with purple hair riding a bike in front of a blue screen. They've already been exposed to so much content at this point that this TV show is just more background noise to them.

We love SW because it was so unique and special and imaginative and it was so much bigger than life that it dwarfed everything else. Those few precious hours (minutes) of content were so powerful and sacred to us because they were so rare and precious. Even with blockbuster movies becoming more common in the early 80s, nothing else compared to the feeling of revisiting the trilogy.

Even by 1999, that feeling was already being diluted when "The Matrix" showed up a month earlier and outclassed The Phantom Menace. And that was only the beginning. In the two decades since, Star Wars has been so watered down by the constant barrage of mediocre releases that there's not even a hint of the original "taste."

Star Wars isn't special to kids anymore. It's just another legacy dinosaur show their parents or grandparents like. Some random video shot in someone's kitchen on youtube or tiktok will have more meaning in their life than anything "Ahsoka" spews out.

 

[Mondragon]

Tough crowd. I've been pretty meh to disappointed with everything post Mando S2, with the exception of Andor, but I've rather enjoyed these two first episodes.

At the very least, this feels like I'm watching Star Wars. Whether that's what everyone considers Star Wars might be debatable...

From muppet specials, Ewok and Droid cartoons, Luuke clones, rabbit mercenaries, to a moon taking out Chewbacca...I grow a little tired of the hating on new stuff bad/old stuff good charade that gets regurgitated so often. What was sanctioned as cannon back in the day went just as far off the rails as some of the stuff we see now, and just the same, people picked and chose what they wanted to accept into their view of Star Wars. No media will outlive Star Wars, it's been self sustaining for decades and will evolve one way or another. Even when Star Wars is quiet, it still produces merch, discussion, and interest.

True...

I don't know if it's because I'm back in a more sympathetic mood towards Star Wars but I felt Ahsoka was more what I expected from a live action series, as opposed to TBOBF and OWK. For a start there was less to laugh at in the first two episodes of Ahsoka.

I liked Jaxxon.

He was wacky, as were most of the original comic book stories, but there was something about them. At the time that was the expanded universe, until I started reading the novels.

All true.

As someone who also grew up in the wake of the movie release with Splinter, the first Han Solo Novels, and of course the Star Wars Comics including yes Jaxxon and The Star Hoppers, (after Splinter the actual first Expanded U. tale). And eventually the more celebrated novels, there was always the solid OT film canon, and a secondary loose canon attached to it, depending how well I felt the ancillary material served and expanded on the OT characters and premise, vs. leached off and degraded the OT characters to serve it's suposed "new "characters and concepts.
I always could just pick and chose what I recognized as canon, and it's the same now, how I see all the Disney material, no different than I saw the Star Hoppers, which set the bar pretty low out the gate.
Yet I still enjoy it.

In fact in a weird way Ahsoka and the re-emergence of the Rebels crew in live action, actually (for better and worse) feels the most reminiscent of first reading the adventure of the Star Hoppers Crew. Which both feels parasitic (not adding much) and derivative of the original material, yet also a whimsical offshoot, completely in the spirit of the original.

While mostly base level easy applied tropes (borrowed no less from 7 Sam and Mag 7), it's actually funny how straight 1 to 1 derivative the Ghost Crew was of the Star Hoppers crew (though some Rebels fanatics might be loath to acknowledge it):

-Hera Syndulla - the headstrong, green alien (long ears, flight suit) Pilot and owner of the ship - Jaxxon
-Kanan Jarrus - the oldest of the group, symbolic remanent and Jedi diehard idealist, can still blindly believe, have faith in the cause of the old bygone way - Don-Wan Kihotay (now replaced by Ahsoka)
-Zeb Orrelios - the big, loyal, gruff muscle of the group (also possibly last of his kind) - Hedji the Spiner
-Sabine Wren - the colorful feisty female warrior, former hunter/pirate gun slinger and weapons expert (now add a lightsaber and she's the ultimate girl badass cliche- Amaiza Foxtrain
-Ezra Bridger - the Young upstart, troublesomee street kid, joins the cause (obvious hopeful Luke analog)- Jimm Doshun (self identified Starkiller Kid)
-C'P Chopper -the droid of the group, cantankerous, somewhat reckless, mechanics/repairs - F.E. Effie

We've come full circle to the best of the worst, it's like the firkin poetry-bolder he started, rolled right on "rhyming" completely out of his control.

 

[jye4ever]

Rosario always puts me in the mood for some chocolate milk.

 

[Asta]

I totally missed this Easter egg:

 

[jye4ever]

Hopefully in the next 23 minute episode many of the pacing issues will be resolved.

 

[Asta]

A Homer Simpson workplace homage:

Which they also did before in The Manadalorian:

 

[Sassafras]

I cant stand Rebels either, but let me tell you. One reason I tolerate things like TCW & TBB is because, strangely enough, these overtly childish shows also contain some of the most knock down drag out emotionally wrenching and intense moments in all SW.

Tolerate some childish stuff? You will do it. Then you get to the part where your friend is lying on the ground dying, and you look up to see an eagle soaring overhead, symbolic of the squad you abjured and left behind, the only real friends you had and you were too blind to see it. They soar free like that eagle, who knows where - while you stand before an absolutely hateful superior officer who denies help to save your friend. Your squad is gone and the Empire has betrayed you. You pledged to serve.... Nothing. You have nothing. You loved your status as a soldier of the Empire and their response is to spit on you. Just another clone; used equipment.

And then your friend dies.

You aint gonna find that in live action. Sad to say!!

Well said, tho I'd argue for me Rebels for all its excess - and IMO true of CW as well, and bouts of nauseating cuteness - remains surprisingly well written.

Fully fleshed out characters that I "get" within minutes of introduction. Great voice work. Some surprisingly heavy themes "for a cartoon" and some lines that are pretty funny. Narratives that flow well. The imagination of the created worlds, planets, culture, ships is staggering. Great voice work

This from someone who "wasn't interested in these cartoons". I even re-watch.

I'd have to watch Ahsoka tho even if I hated the show, 'coz I can't stand it if there's a crossover and I wasn't there for it, like the blatant Mando insert into BOBF which was awesome. Basically, by sneaking in crossovers, Filoni has me whipped.

 

[xipotec]

I haven't watched Ahsoka but I did watch this. It does not make me want to watch Ahsoka.

So.....I have not watched the show to judge for myself......I am going to let some random Youtuber make up my mind for me...

 

[jye4ever]

Have you seen Rosario open her mouth wide

You can back up a semi in there!

She is built for Shaq, certainly not me lol

Ahsoka rocks!

 

[Mondragon]

I'd have to watch Ahsoka tho even if I hated the show, 'coz I can't stand it if there's a crossover and I wasn't there for it, like the blatant Mando insert into BOBF which was awesome. Basically, by sneaking in crossovers, Filoni has me whipped.

I imagine Mando will enevitbly cross back in, so be prepared...

 

[goatchumby]

Star Wars isn't special to kids anymore. It's just another legacy dinosaur show their parents or grandparents like.

I had thought that as well, until my youngest went bonkers and wanted to consume everything that is Star Wars. Sadly, none of the kids at his school seem to share his interest or enthusiasm so there’s definitely some truth to your words.

However, he’s hesitant to watch Ahsoka (he prefers the animated cast) and he immediately rejected Caravan of Courage

 

[Mondragon]

he immediately rejected Caravan of Courage

At least you are easing him in with the painfully saccharine shlock that is Caravan of Courage and Ewoks, and didn't just spring the Holiday Special on him. You don't want to cause permanent damage.

 

[goatchumby]

At least you are easing him in with the painfully saccharine shlock that is Caravan of Courage and Ewoks, and didn't just spring the Holiday Special on him. You don't want to cause permanent damage.

 

[wormlander]

That's pretty much my thoughts on Filoni.

I think with the current state of Star Wars you can either walk away from it altogether or just pick and choose the bits you like and reject the rest.
For me, Star Wars is the OT, some select EU, Rogue One and season 1 of Andor. Hopefully Andor season 2 won't disappoint.
I used to have Mando season 1 & 2 on the list above but season 3 was so bad it retroactively ruined season 1 & 2.

I'm not watching Ahsoka. It's a continuation of a cartoon series I didn't like, with characters I didn't like and it's from Filoni.

That's the best approach to take. Watch what you want and ignore the rest.

Then you'd better be careful. Andor season 2 might not only destroy the first season but Rogue One as well...