Ahsoka Ahsoka Episode 1.03 - Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

Yeah, that was my primary motivation for this thought. Also, they already dodged having Grogu be there. Would feel a bit too convenient if it happened again.

 

George had a lot of great ideas. And others that weren’t so great.

 

I gave this a 10/10.

This had SO much cool stuff in it from start to finish. The opening for one of Sabine training, I just love how it has vibes like the OT (at least for me) with a modern look. The whole score that that accompanied it added to the tension.

One word: PURGIL! I was not expecting that and it was just so cool looking. Add to that the dogfight...what a cool sequence. It had a real Rebel feel to it. Also, Ahsoka going outside the ship? That's insane. The only time I've seen or read about someone doing that was Darth Vader.

I wonder how much we'll see of Hera from here on out or it'll be primarily Ahsoka and Sabine. I'm okay with that I suppose. I am glad we saw Jacen finally. Man, that senator that was talking down to Hera....SMH. I'm glad she gave it back to him.

I'm not sure what happens next week. I mean it's Sabine and Ahsoka vs. Baylan, Shin, & Marrok. If this was later in the season I'd be worried. Speaking of which when it ended I thought no it can't end there! I need more! I hope next week's episode is longer.

 

I don’t know the answer to the first question. As for the second question, aren’t the bolts hitting the ship’s invisible shields?

 

Re: slow pacing, let's not forget many said the same about Andor too. Before and after Aldhani

Re: the turbolasers exploding without hitting anything, it's called flak, it goes with the ww2 ship motifs.

 

I find the discourse around this series to be so strange. On one hand, it seems that it is the greatest show ever made and on the other, they think it is an insult to all entertainment. How peculiar.

 

Welcome to the Star War.

 

I’m lukewarm on it so far, but it’s annoying seeing some of the responses from those who clearly have just given into hate, be it of Disney or an entire gender.

 

Star Wars Explained, the expert of all SW experts, has a good discussion on this topic of talent vs. discipline. He agrees that anyone can use the Force with sufficient discipline. In fact, I would argue that more people in the world lack discipline than talent (for many reasons), and this is why they don't achieve all they might want to.

He discusses this and Lucas's thoughts on it a number of times in the video below. Moreover, he argues that Lucas used midichlorians to critique the PT Jedi, and how they had largely lost the spirit of what was most important about a Jedi; measuring the "talent" of an individual was an example of how they had gone wrong.

 

Finally got a chance to watch it. Great ep. Very Lucas-y.

Loved:
The space-fights
The space whales
The space walk
The sparring session
The final scene with Baylan.
And...struggling to use the Force. Hell yes. Make it challenging.

Didn't love.
That rising floor table is really unsanitary. They just fought on that floor. Now they're eating on it lol. (Just kidding)
The scene with the Republic council members. They all just seemed too...clean and bright. I dunno. And they are dumb as hell.

 

These Senators are making the Jedi Council seem astute. SWTV hasn't been shy about revealing the 1,001 idiotic things the NR did. A leader should know his people, who to trust, who to listen to, etc. Given Hera a small force was a no brainer.

I'm trying to think of something scathing to say about Senator Xiono, but I can't manage political correctness. If I didn't feel sorry for Kaz before, what a tool for a parent.

 

It was fun, though nothing spectacular.

- Training scene was fine, obviously Filoni’s not shy about his Samurai influences.

-Dogfighting was also fine, though felt a touch too much like ANH. But I did like the stunt Ahsoka pulled outside the ship.

-Huyang continues to be great. (Speaking of openness to the Force. If a 25 thousand year old droid who lived and breathed Jedi philosophy can’t utilise the Force that must suggest some level of biological necessity.)

-New Republic scene was much what I suspected it would be. I was shocked by how much of an antagonist Xiono was being, considering his son is the charming doofus of Resistance. But then again, he was a Neville Chamberlain style politician in the ST era arguing for appeasement, so screw that guy.

-Ray Stevenson was in this for 5 seconds and I loved them all.

 

I liked the space fights and flights but the plot made nearly no forward progression. It seems like a filler episode. It might be just my disappointment at not seeing Baylan vs Ahsoka. I hope the trend doesn’t continue and I have to convince myself that ‘next week is the week big things are really going to happen’ all the way until the season finale.

 

Well...Ahsoka had to get to that planet with the magic space map hologram at some point. And they learned about the hyperspace ring and space whales that might be able to travel to another galaxy.

So progress was made. It just wasn't EPIC stuff on screen for 45 minutes kind of progress.

 

8/10. Loved the outer space fights and the training scene. The episode was just far too short though, it didn't progress that much and now I need to wait another week.

 

What I find frustrating is that people voice their valid complaints, but the Filoni stans or whoever act like they just committed genocide against their beloved characters. Like don't get me wrong, I am a pretty positive fan, but some people's toxic positivity of the franchise is just as irritating as those who blindly hate it.

 

I don't think this was a filler episode at all. Much much too much focus on character for that, and we also learned more about the hyperspace ring. For some reason, some folks don't see character focus as plot related, but the external movement of plot is empty without character.

I also don't have a problem with the way the senators are portrayed. Our own politicians are more shallow, cliché, and stupid than NR politicians.

For example, half of one of America's main political parties doesn't think NATO is important. This is exactly the kind of isolationism we see in the NR.

 

I re-watched it and enjoyed it more the second time. I think I'd place it alongside the first two now, which are some of the best live action Star Wars TV we've gotten.

I love how this show uses the its medium to its advantage. Things like Sabine's training sessions and the space dogfights are longer than they would be in a movie, but they feel well developed instead of needlessly stretched out. The scene at the end with the spaceships feels like a scene out of a Star Wars book. It makes me wonder if Timothy Zahn is consulting on more than just Thrawn's dialogue.

 

I gave this week a 9/10. I always take a point off whenever I have to endure any more "New Republic bad" content, which is a little bit harsh here because it wasn't that egregious and in a vacuum I could roll with it, but we don't live in a vacuum and these are nothing more than my own personally ratings so if I have been generous previously when they give me topics I like then I can also be petty when they give me stuff that I don't.

 

I was mainly speaking of tone and aesthetics. But ... even for politicians they seemed too stupid by half. They're not calculating or cunning. They just seemed nonsensically stupid (because the NR needs to be destroyed in a few years) for their roles.

 

Your rhyme is a crime.

 

How can I like this post a thousand times?

This is one of the things that has repelled me ever since the prequels - the way the Old Jedi Order used genetics as virtually the sole determiner of who was "worthy" to be a Jedi, and how a huge chunk of fandom by and large has just accepted that.

My feeling is that people who think using the Force is solely down to genetics should go watch Harry Potter or the X-Men. Frankly, we have far too many stories in modern pop culture that focus on superhuman beings who are elevated above the rest of us by virtue of their superior genetics. It's gotten disturbingly common, especially so at a time when that sort of thinking is resurgent in current-day politics, with all the ugly consequences that entails.

In contrast, one of the great things about the original Star Wars movies (particularly SW 1977 and ESB) was that the Force was spiritual. If you were open to it and worked to learn about it, you could become capable of feats that others would think magical - precisely because of your open-mindedness and dedication. ROTJ had Luke say "the Force is strong in my family", but he was the only surviving Jedi by then, and nobody else we knew of was even bothering to train. But the precedent set there would arguably overshadow the spiritual side of the Force in later SW films.

The prequels doubled down on the genetic aspects of the Force with midichlorians, but as @The Chalk Jedi noted above, that might have been just as much of a critique of the old Jedi order: the Jedi chose newfound infants at birth based on their Force sensitivity, taking them away from their families, severing the very sort of connection that helped Luke redeem Vader. (I very much doubt Lucas was unaware of how in Celtic folklore, the elves known as the Sidhe were famous for snatching babies - or that an archaic spelling of "Sidhe" was "Sith"...) But a large segment of fandom has basically avoided interrogating that, and refuses to see anything wrong with the genetics-based, only-recruiting-unthinking-infants approach of the prequel Jedi. The result is that to a huge part of the audience, the Jedi have basically become just another flavor of superheroes.

I'm glad Ahsoka is finally taking some steps to correct this issue, but I fear that a lot of minds are already made up on that score and it'll be too little, too late.

 

What I have come to realize on that aspect so long as they can make it jive with the fact that at least on some level the force is genetic I’ll let it work.

look canon has explicitly made it on some level genetic.

see also Inquistor Iskat, Ben Solo, Luke, Leia, Dooku: Jedi lost, almost certainly Jacen Syndulla.

Sure everyone can use the force but some people are born with the talent more than others. Hence why a baby in TCW can do something Sabine struggles to do.

the door for one person is more open then it is for others.

Some people are born with the door close to closed and others are born with it wide open.

 

I recall George Lucas in an interview during TPM that the Jedi are not superheroes but rather counselors and peacekeepers. Not his exact words I’m paraphrasing. One could say that the prequel era focusing on the genetics aspect of the force over the more spiritual aspect while the OT emphasized the force as being more spiritual and less physical being a lesson learned by Yoda and Obi Wan who prevalently embraced the genetic side of who is a Jedi and during the downfall of their order and the republic it shifted their perspective to embrace a more spiritual perspective of the force. This also makes sense for Ahsokha in the show to feel this way since the Jedi left her disillusioned with the order. It reminds me of someone being raised in a strict Christian or catholic environment and becoming disillusioned with religion and leaving the faith but still holding onto the belief of God and a greater power but in a non dogmatic view.

 

I understood your critique. It just doesn't apply to reality very well. America has the stupidest politicians in the world. They are not calculating. They are nonsensically stupid.

So to critique Star Wars when it's reflecting our own reality perfectly seems ... misplaced? Maybe you're nostalgic for an American that once existed, but we could debate even that.

Or perhaps you're thinking of some other country with intelligent politicians? Sure, we have some, but we've never had more stupid lunks than we currently do.