Star Wars: Ahsoka

[Khev]

Watched the latest episode again. Man this is just a fun show. So many moments that were just a joy to watch. I even got a kick out of the one naysayer dude's antics at Hera's hearing.

Rosario gritting her teeth in exaggerated fashion while being pursued through the debris field was very reminiscent of cartoon Ahsoka's facial expressions.

The editing between all the parallel duels and battles is just fantastic.

Thrawn definitely isn't a Hans Gruber or Sherlock Holmes, he's more along the lines of the Red Skull in The First Avenger (the Blue Skull? lol) And for this series I think he fits in just fine without feeling "lame" (to me anyway.)

As an OT guy it's definitely a surprise that I feel much more nostalgic watching Hayden as Anakin than I do Anthony Daniels as 3PO.

 

[jye4ever]

Rosario is killing it as Ahsoka I absolutely lust for that woman lol

So stunningly thick in all the right places.

 

[Khev]

Rosario is killing it as Ahsoka I absolutely lust for that woman lol

Dude she doesn't even look like an alien. Even her head gear just seems like some ornamental thing that someone like Cleopatra would wear.

And yeah she is absolutely rocking the long white gloves.

 

[ScoutingForToys]

Obviously Ray Stevenson is a joy to have in the SW universe, and he will always be beloved as Titus Pullo of the 13th.

But I'd like characters who are clearly written out of the SW universe, to just stay out. I'm at the point now, where I expect one of the future Spiderman movies to have Tom Holland prepare to deal with Uncle Ben coming back to life.

"Uncle Ben is back!" - Peter

"They stopped protesting those little boxes of rice at the grocery store finally?" - Ned

"Will I look like a 15 years old the rest of my life? I don't want to have to compete for the same 2 roles a year with Maisie Williams anymore" - Betty

They've been so vague up to now as to what Baylans plans are, how he's going to achieve it and who or what is calling to him, unless something big happens with him in the final episode, I vote for just dropping his character and plot line completely moving forward.
I can see them being forced to recast for season 2, I just don't want to see it happen.
Then again, Ray as Baylan is the best part of the show for me personally so I'm unlikely to come back for a 2nd season anyway.
The show is OK. With the exception of a Baylan and perhaps Thrawn, I dont much care about any of the others and I'm not at all invested in them.
In the case of Sabine, I really don't like her.

As many will know, I'm not really into any animation very much. I typically put live action above animation, however...
Every reoccurring character from animation, was done better in the animation.
The Rebels/TCW version was so much better.

So even though the pew pew stuff is decent enough, without a deeper connection to these characters, I can only enjoy the show on a surface level.

I'd have rather they had done this show as an animated sequel to Rebels and that's coming from me.

 

[xipotec]

Maybe its psychological, But did Ray look a bit worn in this episode? I mean he looked tired and hollow.

I went back and looked at his first appearance, and maybe its makeup, but he looked rough?

As far as his arc goes, They will have him finish it with wide shots and a bit of cgi ala Leia in ROS.

Overall this feels a bit of a filler episode to me. The biggest takeaway was Ezra and Shin....

I think people are expecting too much from Thrawn. This "master" tactician thing can only be done so far or else you cannot have the heroes win. Disney CANNOT go full Sherlock on this, the audience is not that.....ehm.....advanced enough to understand that level of material. Overall , Thrawn will have a plan with some backups, that will eventually end the same way Rebels did, his arrogance will undo hum.

Specifically his refusal to take Ezra seriously.

 

[The Buffinator]

Watched the latest episode again. Man this is just a fun show. So many moments that were just a joy to watch. I even got a kick out of the one naysayer dude's antics at Hera's hearing.

Rosario gritting her teeth in exaggerated fashion while being pursued through the debris field was very reminiscent of cartoon Ahsoka's facial expressions.

The editing between all the parallel duels and battles is just fantastic.

Thrawn definitely isn't a Hans Gruber or Sherlock Holmes, he's more along the lines of the Red Skull in The First Avenger (the Blue Skull? lol) And for this series I think he fits in just fine without feeling "lame" (to me anyway.)

As an OT guy it's definitely a surprise that I feel much more nostalgic watching Hayden as Anakin than I do Anthony Daniels as 3PO.

Same for me but then I always found 3PO annoying lol. I am enjoying Hayden's performance now whereas I thought he was a complete miscast in the PT. He's simply a more mature, believable actor now. In the PT he simply didn't have the ability to convincingly portray the range of emotions needed for the role. Of course having someone other than George Lucas writing his dialogue and directing him helps too, along with the ability to draw from all of Anakin's character development in TCW cartoon series.

Maybe its psychological, But did Ray look a bit worn in this episode? I mean he looked tired and hollow.

I went back and looked at his first appearance, and maybe its makeup, but he looked rough?

As far as his arc goes, They will have him finish it with wide shots and a bit of cgi ala Leia in ROS.

Overall this feels a bit of a filler episode to me. The biggest takeaway was Ezra and Shin....

I think people are expecting too much from Thrawn. This "master" tactician thing can only be done so far or else you cannot have the heroes win. Disney CANNOT go full Sherlock on this, the audience is not that.....ehm.....advanced enough to understand that level of material. Overall , Thrawn will have a plan with some backups, that will eventually end the same way Rebels did, his arrogance will undo hum.

Specifically his refusal to take Ezra seriously.

Not only that but Thrawn's in a situation where there are constraints on his resources:

• What troops he has left are being held together with duct tape and witchcraft;
• The Chimaera's capabilities have probably been compromised after all this time;
• The Ring Of Sion is his ticket home so he's not going to risk it being damaged if he can help it;
• Baylan just bailed on him.

As I've mentioned before, I think that (some clunky Filoni written lines aside) Thrawn has so far been shown to have (1) a keen military mind given the constraints placed on him and (2) a laser focus on his primary objective. Expecting much more than that at this stage is unrealistic. The big question will be if Filoni can deliver the "master tactician" when he has more available assets and a larger field on which to deploy them.

Regarding Rebels, did his arrogance really lead to his downfall? Even if he considered Ezra to be as powerful and dangerous as Darth Vader he still wouldn't have been able to predict the Purrgil attack lol...

 

[Khev]

What troops he has left are being held together with duct tape and witchcraft;

That's hilarious because it's literally true.

 

[Khev]

Ooh, someone posted this and said "When someone asks me about the Sequel Trilogy..."

 

[The Buffinator]

Throw him down a reactor shaft?

Apparently that's the one absolute way someone will definitely live in the SW universe. ( Palpatine and Maul)

Come to think of it, the Emperor was thrown down the shaft, you could see him "blip" and detonate at some point, then not long after, the half finished Death Star blew up.

I mean Mace Windu coming back is a cakewalk compared to Palpatine, Maul and Boba Fett. All he needed is a hang glider.

( There's a book version of short stories about Jabba's Palace and the Bounty Hunters, and Dengar, in that version, finds Boba Fett, after he survives the Sarlacc, and saves him, cleans him up, fixes him up, and brings him back to health. I thought that was a far more interesting "fix" compared to what happened in BOBF)

I don't wish to sidetrack the thread and I'm not defending the ridiculous decision to bring Palpatine back, but I think they meant for us to assume that the Palpatine cloning efforts were already underway prior to the events of ROTJ - i.e., while he was still alive. Of course based on how his return unfolded on screen in TROS it's clear that I've thought it through more than JJ and company actually did lol...

 

[Dark_Knight_89]

I don't wish to sidetrack the thread and I'm not defending the ridiculous decision to bring Palpatine back, but I think they meant for us to assume that the Palpatine cloning efforts were already underway prior to the events of ROTJ - i.e., while he was still alive. Of course based on how his return unfolded on screen in TROS it's clear that I've thought it through more than JJ and company actually did lol...

The problem isn't with the fact that a character came back via cloning or otherwise (cloning is an established part of Star Wars lore). The problem is the fact that it was PALPATINE that came back, and thus undermines Anakin's character arc and the entire point of the original 6 movies.

Even if they did try to explain it in a movie tie in novel, and even if that explanation is sound, it should never have been Palpatine to come back in the first place.

 

[The Buffinator]

The problem isn't with the fact that a character came back via cloning or otherwise (cloning is an established part of Star Wars lore). The problem is the fact that it was PALPATINE that came back, and thus undermines Anakin's character arc and the entire point of the original 6 movies.

Even if they did try to explain it in a movie tie in novel, and even if that explanation is sound, it should never have been Palpatine to come back in the first place.

Again, I wasn't defending the Palpatine decision but merely addressing the part about his surviving being thrown down the reactor shaft of a Death Star that subsequently exploded.

 

[darth dennis]

I don't wish to sidetrack the thread and I'm not defending the ridiculous decision to bring Palpatine back, but I think they meant for us to assume that the Palpatine cloning efforts were already underway prior to the events of ROTJ - i.e., while he was still alive. Of course based on how his return unfolded on screen in TROS it's clear that I've thought it through more than JJ and company actually did lol...

The absolute surest way to sidetrack a thread...

 

[The Buffinator]

The absolute surest way to sidetrack a thread...

 

[ajp4mgs]

Not only that but Thrawn's in a situation where there are constraints on his resources:

• What troops he has left are being held together with duct tape and witchcraft;
• The Chimaera's capabilities have probably been compromised after all this time;
• The Ring Of Sion is his ticket home so he's not going to risk it being damaged if he can help it;
• Baylan just bailed on him.

As I've mentioned before, I think that (some clunky Filoni written lines aside) Thrawn has so far been shown to have (1) a keen military mind given the constraints placed on him and (2) a laser focus on his primary objective. Expecting much more than that at this stage is unrealistic. The big question will be if Filoni can deliver the "master tactician" when he has more available assets and a larger field on which to deploy them.

Regarding Rebels, did his arrogance really lead to his downfall? Even if he considered Ezra to be as powerful and dangerous as Darth Vader he still wouldn't have been able to predict the Purrgil attack lol...

If I hadn't been watching the show, I'd read your post and assume that Thrawn was the underdog and being overwhelmed by his adversaries' resources. He was being opposed by THREE people, ONE starship, and ONE droid. That's it!

And those three started as one (Ezra) who was unarmed. The second one came to him in handcuffs and weapons removed. The third one, along with the lone ship and droid, was isolated in a debris field.

Meanwhile, Thrawn has a functioning star destroyer that has been retrofitted enough to (I'm guessing) survive an intergalactic hyperspace trip. There are also at least two functioning gunships from within this star destroyer (and if the next episode shows even more, then whoo boy! ) and tons of stormtroopers. Their duct tape status would only be relevant if they were being asked to take on equal numbers of opposition.

He then gets the Ring of Sion and its perimeter defense capabilities. And within that ring is a squad of fighter ships.

And speaking of the number three, he has had three magic-powered witches on his side who say that his every wish is their command.

He then gets Morgan Elsbeth (even dueled Ahsoka fairly well in Mando) and two lightsaber-wielding Force users.

All of these resources were available to him when his only opposition was an unarmed Ezra and a handcuffed Sabine.

Remind me again how he's being a competent military leader? And I'm not talking "genius" at this point, I'm lowering the bar to merely *competent.* Filoni even went out of his way to make the crab people pacifists, meagerly firing back with a slingshot. I'm not entirely convinced that he isn't trolling on some level and making this into a Thrawn parody by way of subtext.

Buff, I always enjoy reading your take on things, but when it comes to making Thrawn seem resourceful rather than actually having a humongous advantage of resources... come on, man. Seriously?

 

[Khev]

Ah but ajp, what you fail to realize is that Thrawn is so brilliant that he actually knows he's on a Disney+ SW series facing Filoni's pet characters that have absolute plot armor. They even went out of their way to show him playing actual 4D chess while surveying the battlefield. He realizes that any attempt to destroy the heroes during a pre-finale filler episode will result in failure so him conserving resources and biding his time until the theatrical release actually is pretty ingenious, from a certain point of view.

 

[ajp4mgs]

Ah but ajp, what you fail to realize is that Thrawn is so brilliant that he actually knows he's on a Disney+ SW series facing Filoni's pet characters that have absolute plot armor. They even went out of their way to show him playing actual 4D chess while surveying the battlefield. He realizes that any attempt to destroy the heroes during a pre-finale filler episode will result in failure so him conserving resources and biding his time until the theatrical release actually is pretty ingenious, from a certain point of view.

 

[Khev]

In all seriousness though Thrawn would have literally won if Shin's Stormtroopers had simply obeyed her command to fire. Then it would have been down to just Ahsoka versus both squads of Stormies plus Shin and possibly even Baylan.

So for me that puts Thrawn back into Hans Gruber territory where Karl refused to obey his command to box McClane in, thus allowing the rest of the movie to happen.

As has already been mentioned in order to have an ESB Vader or Gruber or Thrawn you either have them literally defeat the heroes or fail only on account of rogue or foolhardy underlings like Ozzel, Karl, or Shin's troops (plus Baylan deserting.) That way the bad guy's get to still be "geniuses" but without actually killing the good guys.

 

[The Buffinator]

If I hadn't been watching the show, I'd read your post and assume that Thrawn was the underdog and being overwhelmed by his adversaries' resources. He was being opposed by THREE people, ONE starship, and ONE droid. That's it!

And those three started as one (Ezra) who was unarmed. The second one came to him in handcuffs and weapons removed. The third one, along with the lone ship and droid, was isolated in a debris field.

Meanwhile, Thrawn has a functioning star destroyer that has been retrofitted enough to (I'm guessing) survive an intergalactic hyperspace trip. There are also at least two functioning gunships from within this star destroyer (and if the next episode shows even more, then whoo boy! ) and tons of stormtroopers. Their duct tape status would only be relevant if they were being asked to take on equal numbers of opposition.

He then gets the Ring of Sion and its perimeter defense capabilities. And within that ring is a squad of fighter ships.

And speaking of the number three, he has had three magic-powered witches on his side who say that his every wish is their command.

He then gets Morgan Elsbeth (even dueled Ahsoka fairly well in Mando) and two lightsaber-wielding Force users.

All of these resources were available to him when his only opposition was an unarmed Ezra and a handcuffed Sabine.

Remind me again how he's being a competent military leader? And I'm not talking "genius" at this point, I'm lowering the bar to merely *competent.* Filoni even went out of his way to make the crab people pacifists, meagerly firing back with a slingshot. I'm not entirely convinced that he isn't trolling on some level and making this into a Thrawn parody by way of subtext.

Buff, I always enjoy reading your take on things, but when it comes to making Thrawn seem resourceful rather than actually having a humongous advantage of resources... come on, man. Seriously?

Now look, if you keep introducing logic and facts into this we're never going to agree lol...

Seriously though, I think we're both making a couple of assumptions that may or may not pan out at the end of the day:

• You're assuming that (prior to the Eye of Sion's arrival) Thrawn has been viewing Ezra as a threat and has been actively trying to eliminate him, whereas I think he's only been keeping tabs on him due to the need to focus his activity & resources elsewhere (like keeping his star destroyer in working order);
• I'm not convinced that his numerical advantage over the good guys is as great as you're assuming. I think he may be orchestrating an elaborate bluff to further buy himself the time he needs to escape. His cryptic response to Morgan when she asked why he wasn't sending more than 2 squadrons to support Baylan & Shin has me thinking that the majority of his troops may have died, either as a result of the trip to that galaxy, the hardships they endured over the 10+ years or some other to-be-revealed event (maybe related to Baylan's quest?). Hence the alliance with the Nightsisters and moving Sabine, Baylan, Shin (& eventually Ahsoka) as far away as possible before they could sense his ruse. I think the troopers loading his cargo are likely magically resurrected ones, unlike the real ones manning the gunships.

As for Morgan Elsbeth, she's now too busy standing at Thrawn's side & questioning his decisions (so he can expound upon his strategy to the audience) to be considered an actual asset anymore.

 

[TheClient]

( There's a book version of short stories about Jabba's Palace and the Bounty Hunters, and Dengar, in that version, finds Boba Fett, after he survives the Sarlacc, and saves him, cleans him up, fixes him up, and brings him back to health. I thought that was a far more interesting "fix" compared to what happened in BOBF)

I actually read that story for the first time just this summer. It was hilarious.

I was previously unsure why Dengar held such fascination with parts of the fandom, but I get it now.

Due to his tragic backstory, he feels nothing but emptiness and RAGE. He rescues a hot dancing girl who wants him. He knows she wants him because of a psychic gizmo that let’s him know what she’s thinking (but not the other way around). Every teenage boy’s dream!

At the end he rescues Boba Fett who agrees to be the best man at his wedding. Then they do the Arnold/Carl Weather’s arm-wrestle handshake from Predator.

So good.

 

[MeatHookGekko]

The problem isn't with the fact that a character came back via cloning or otherwise (cloning is an established part of Star Wars lore). The problem is the fact that it was PALPATINE that came back, and thus undermines Anakin's character arc and the entire point of the original 6 movies.

Even if they did try to explain it in a movie tie in novel, and even if that explanation is sound, it should never have been Palpatine to come back in the first place.

According to rumor, David Fincher wanted Lando to be the projectible "villain" in any SW sequels. ( Core concept was Lando becoming the largest formal high level arms dealer in the galaxy and selling weapons to the New Republic and also secretly to the remnants of the Empire, to foster a "perpetual war") IMHO, makes complete sense from a narrative standpoint. The Holy Trilogy gives you inklings into the flawed nature of Lando, Han and Leia, and clearly Fincher wanted to complete their character arcs.

Kershner and Lucas had completely opposite views of how to use the Lando character and to lay groundwork for the rest of his role in the trilogy, and Fincher clearly sided with Kershner.

A credit to Fincher is he doesn't try to reinvent the wheel. The Lando character is really self serving and completely dangerous. However this is one case where I won't completely blame Kathleen Kennedy. The use of the Lando character runs into the same road blocks that Cassar and Howard Gordon ran into with President David Palmer in Fox's 24. You are literally forced into a corner. You can't make him flawed or wrong, but if only for being too trusting to those close to him that betrayed him. Which doesn't fit the Lando character at all. When the Operation Fast And Furious scandal hit the public, there was no way Jeffrey Katzenberg was going to allow that kind of plotline to fly without completely sabotaging the film.

Lando Calrissian is, by total effect, a pure token character in the most practical sense of down to the bone functional storytelling. He's that way because the mandate was that he had to be completely non offensive in every possible category. Michael K Williams as Omar Little from The Wire shows that you can have a complex and flawed three dimensional character who is a villain. You don't tell a compelling story without taking some risks. Narratives that resonate are the ones that ask you to consider some much larger questions. Which is why Lucas infused so much Joseph Campbell and Kurosawa to start. But then it morphed less as real art and into just another "product". Another energy drink.

Fincher is a filmmaker. He makes films. He doesn't make product. He's not churning out granola bars and almond milk off an assembly line.

On this point, Tarantino, despite all his other exhausting tics and manic behavior, has always been right - You have to be completely honest about your characters. Be true to who they are and why they've become that way. And eventually they'll tell you where you need to go.