A/V AHSOKA Lit Thread - All Spoilers Under TAGs!

I think it's a combination of the Siege of Mandalore, her experience as Ashla in TOTJ and Malachor that made her into who she is now. However there's the weird disconnect that she was with Luke in BoBF so odds are they talked about Anakin, which should've helped her realize that his fall wasn't her fault and that he was himself again at the end. Though I wouldn't have known that at first, since I watched season 7 of Clone Wars, TOTJ and that episode of BoBF after I saw the first 2 episodes of Ahsoka. At the time it seemed like Rebels season 5, now not so much.

I agree that we'd probably have more story by now if this was animation. Probably could've had 8 30 minute animated episodes by now. The first 4 episode arc establishing what is going on now and introducing the new characters and the start of the story. Then another 4 episodes of figuring out the map and how it works, etc and getting to this new galaxy. Then once they get to the new galaxy maybe another 4 episodes of trying to figure out where they're supposed to be. I'm not really describing this all that well, but I think a big problem is that they're not going on a true journey where sometimes yeah, you wind up in the wrong spot and have to keep going.

My issue is that this doesn't ring true. Everything she had to confront physically and emotionally when she returned to Mandalore in Rebels was more painful and deeply personal than this. Yet she confronted it head on. There are moments when I don't recognize her as a character, since she either seems closer to how she was at the start of Rebels or she seems off in general. I totally understand that after finding someone you're close to you might just want to pretend the big bad guy isn't around for a moment or two. I just don't buy Sabine Wren doing it. Yeah, maybe the Sabine from season 1 of Rebels, but she grew as a person during that show. Unless of course she has somehow reverted, but they haven't really given us any indication of how or why. Maybe whatever happened between her and Ahsoka, but we don't know enough about what exactly happened to really know.

I also had a very hard time physically seeing what was going on in the entire episode, since it was very dark and monochromatic without much contrast. Normally I'd rewatch the episode several times, but this one just caused too much eye strain. Very much a "me" problem and the eye pain alone is probably a part of why my general feelings about this episode are more negative.

 

Her family died and her master didn't trust her
And still dididnt the last time they met!

 

Real people waffle back and forth in their character over time. Rarely is the human journey straight progress from point to point. Often we backslide, two steps forward one step back.

This is part of the problem people had with Luke in TLJ. He wasn't allowed to be a human being. He had to be this larger than life figure that somehow was beyond human foibles and the vicissitudes of time. If he did A(stop himself just short of killing Darth Vader) then he should be incapable of B(instinctually igniting his lightsaber on the throws of a Force vision of Kylo Ren destroying everyone he loves). Luke, like us, believed he was beyond that and it broke him.

Here Sabine is, a decade later, and she's once again made a selfish choice that has potentially dire consequences for her friends and family. For the galaxy. She's been doubting herself this whole series due to her failures as a potential padawan, now she's triumphed in finding lost friend... but at a huge cost. Under similar choices as to those that doomed her people. She's not going to lead with "yeah, I found you but I had to give Thrawn the key to getting back home to do it."

 

I’m going to laugh if those three cruisers blast the battle-damaged and patched-up Chimaera to scrap and Thrawn has to flee aboard a shuttle. In all fairness, it’s a miracle that ship is still flying. After ten years away from a shipyard, fueling station and repair dock, that vessel shouldn’t even be mobile anymore.

 

This really was a wonderful era of interconnectivity and I wish it would return. Stories probably didn't work together this well since the CWMMP, I'd wager. These days the publishing/TV initiatives are both meandering in their own ways and don't weave together very strongly if they bother to at all.

 

I suspect that on one hand, Filoni is wanting to tell his own stories and on the other is tasked with putting out a trail of breadcrumbs that connect to the sequel trilogy. Considering the time periods in which he's worked exclusively.

I mean, right now we've got plenty of little things in both The Mandalorian and The Bad Batch that seem like they are pointing the way towards Palpatine's personal cloning program. It's yet to be seen if anything of that nature will crop up in Ahsoka, but Nightsister necromancy sure lends itself to that trajectory. I dont think it will ever be front and center, but I do think we are seeing the groundwork laid for the state of the galaxy as of TFA and the reveal of the resurrection of the Emperor in TROS.

Yet the objective is also to tell this story of Thrawn and the Imperial Remnant posing a threat to the Filoniverse characters.

 

My guess is that Thrawn is going to use the Trojan horse strategy

Spoiler

, somehow deceptively transporting containers from Chimaera to NR cruisers, after that zombies from containers will break free and massacre crews of the ships.

 

Speaking of interconectivity, some of the writing on Peridea includes a Fallen Order reference - a pretty obscure one with some fun implications:

 

Because I spoiled myself I didn't lose my bananas with Thrawn.
I also felt like a lot of episode 6 was boring though my husband didn't think so.

Spoiler

The planet definitely has a Zeffo feel.

Calling Sabine “it” is rude.
Oh hey just realized Shin has a padawan braid. That’s cool.

LOVE this Thrawn and Night Trooper music. I don’t like how Thrawn looks. I want more cheekbones, but since he’s older….I can see cheekbones. Still, I was hoping for Tarkin-esque cheekbones. Mikkelsen has sharper cheekbones without makeup than he does with makeup. I also feel like he would walk with his back more straight, more military and upright. But since it’s Mikkelsen, the voice is perfect. Inotations are spot-on. Mm angle with Thrawn and Sabine makes him more Thrawn looking. The eyes are perfect.
He’s just not as…menacing isn’t the right word, but sharp. He didn’t seem to exude the logic I am accustomed to witnessing from him.
But overall, I am content with his portrayal.

My dog is enamored with Sabine’s howler. Her yelling at it is dumb. I like howlers now though. They’re cute.
It’s a sentient turtle. Or a Noti. same thing.
I care so little about Ezra that I am bored. Also, bearded Ezra is so gross. I like the voice though.
I really hope there is no romance between Sabine and Ezra. I know he crushed on her in Rebels and she apparently couldn't get over his disappearance, but having them stay just friends would be nice.

 

Thoughts I've had:

I wonder if in casting live action characters, the focus is more on how the character looks over the dynamic of the characters.

Each of the live action versions of rebels characters look great and are doing an excellent job. But I don't always feel the connection among them as a group. I'm thinking mostly of Sabine and Ahsoka here. Even if there is a tension among the characters, I don't feel a connection between them.

I do feel a strong connection between Baylan and Shin.

Even the relatively brief time between Anakin and Ahsoka worked well. I felt that connection. And not just because they had a previous connection. The other characters had a prior connection as well.

But I am not always feeling a connection between the main rebels live action characters.

Anyone follow what I'm trying to say here?

There are times things just feel off in the show, and I have been trying to better pinpoint why that is.

 

The show is really starting to come together, especially in the Thrawn and villain stuff.

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I don't really think the complaints in this thread about Thrawn and not getting enough exposition about him are really accurate. Remember that true casuals don't pay as close attention to dialog; it's more about what you establish through visuals and plot. They also don't focus as much on "why" as just the "what" of things.

The ST went to a nutty extreme in removing all exposition whatsoever, but Ahsoka really does not have this problem and so far has done a really quite good job establishing new things and reestablishing things from past shows. Filoni is not that great at dialog, but he is really very good at telling stories through visuals and design. The failing of Abrams in the ST was that he simply doesn't establish (visually or in dialog or in any way) most of what we need to follow the plot, and that his visual and design work were truly, unbelievably awful (he is very good at quickly establishing likeable characters and casting tho). Also that even where there was exposition via dialog the design and visuals actually contradicted that background.

TFA's plot and characters really aren't that similar to ANH; but they look like ANH. Rey is a pretty different character from Luke; but she looks like Luke. The scrap-world isn't much like Tatooine, but it looks like Tatooine. Starkiller base is supposed to be a desperate mysterious tactic by a weaker power; but it looks like a larger, more sophisticated Death Star. The FO is clearly established in dialog as a remote, mysterious underdog threat going up against a Galactic New Republic. The First Order, though, consistently looks and acts like "the Galactic Empire, but bigger and shinier." We never get a single scene or a single visual establishing the New Republic as a Galactic government (apart from one shot of a generic planet and a few ships getting blown up). Snoke is supposed to be a new, mysterious threat, but he looks like a larger alien Palpatine in a black robe.

Hence casuals watching TFA don't come out of it with any idea of what's really going on; my brothers that I watched it with didn't understand anything other than that apparently there was a new Galactic Empire and a new Rebellion and a new Death Star, because that's what the film actually establishes through its visuals and plot. TLJ is the only film in the series to do a good job with design; RoS goes back to Abrams design, and therefore has what is established in dialog as an evil mysterious Sith fleet in hiding for decades that looks like a bunch of shiny new Imperial Star Destroyers with freshly-minted young Imperial officers wearing shiny, perfectly-maintained red armor. (Contrast this with KOTOR2, which has evil mysterious hidden Sith stuff that actually looks the part).

In Ahsoka, though, the visuals and design work do a really excellent job of establishing everything the casual audience needs to know. The space whales are weird and mysterious because they look weird and mysterious. The giant weird hyperspace ship that travels to another Galaxy looks like giant and weird and has a bunch of engines! The weird mysterious ancient map looks like a weird mysterious ancient map. The other Galaxy is weird and mysterious because it is a fantasy heath with cute turtle-people and giant creepy ruins. The Nightsisters are scary ladies who look like witches and have red robes and echoey voices and demonstrate magic powers that aren't visually like Jedi/Sith powers; therefore they are bad and dangerous dark-siders and a threat to our heroes.

This is even more so with Thrawn himself. Thrawn is a threat because people constantly talk about him as a threat and call him "Grand Admiral" and we've spent six episodes getting to him in another galaxy. When we finally see him, he gets a very effective and powerful entrance with a ship looming out of the mist overshadowing all our villains and an army chanting his name. He has a cool, visually distinctive appearance (white uniform and blue skin and red eyes together establishing that he's an Imperial officer, but somehow different, stranger, scarier), with cool, visually distinctive followers and a cool, visually distinctive villain ship, all of which work together to create a clear impression of exotic and strange and scary. He also has very distinctive voice and mannerisms, and by his interactions with the other villains of the show clearly shows that he's in charge by giving them orders and correcting them. This is actually way more than a typical audience needs to know about a typical TV-show villain. Most TV-show villains are just generic types: the officer or fascist or terrorist or pirate or...

While I would never cite Marvel as a positive example of how to do filmmaking, Thanos was built up almost entirely over multiple movies as a guy that people talked about, and who we occasionally saw as a large purple man saying generic villain things and who didn't really have a clear motivation or plan until the big crossover. Thrawn so far comes off as way more threatening and distinctive than that imo.

Of course, that's not to say that Filoni doesn't need to now show Thrawn as dangerous and bad by actually letting him do things and win victories and defeat the good guys. That is certainly important too. But so far casuals have really gotten everything they need and more.

It's really the hard-core fans who are more likely to want more and to be underwhelmed, precisely because they know Thrawn and have built him up in their heads so much and are constantly comparing what they see to what they think they should see. And who also comb through the dialog with a fine-toothed comb and want more reasons for everything and in particular enjoy explaining things and always want their own knowledge referenced onscreen.

Now, all that being said, while the show has gotten better, it still has some real problems.

Spoiler

At this point, the villains are 1000x times more interesting than the heroes, which is really a problem. All the villains are distinct from each other and have cool designs and origins and goals and just in general are threatening and cool. Baylan continues to get more interesting with each passing episode, with actual character development and internal conflict; and now he also has his own independent goals looking for a new exotic threat and hence driving the plot forward again.

Meanwhile, our heroes continue to be bland and boring and have no real intensity or interest at all. The Ezra scene was pathetic. That was really the most underwhelming thing in that episode. Ezra has been built up as this long-lost friend/love interest for many episodes suffering and possibly dead in another Galaxy and then we see him he seems just kind of a chill normal dude and he and Sabine don't really have much chemistry. He really could have benefited from being way more intense or having suffered way more in exile or having gained some kind of special Force stuff in this other Galaxy or really having some dramatic content whatsoever. Thrawn's troops have degenerated into Eldritch horrors; meanwhile, Ezra comes off like your college friend who quit his job and has been having fun hanging out and working as a roadie. The contrast between Thrawn's entrance and Ezra just sort of being there in this cute fantasy village wearing a Disney Aladdin costume saying "what's up?" is pretty shattering.

And Ahsoka continues to be boring; and the New Republic continues to look plastic and uninteresting. And worst of all, in basic plot terms, Filoni has set up a plot where it's the villains who are actually driving the plot, who are leading us towards further adventure and danger and new hidden knowledge. As viewers, we want Thrawn to be found, we want this new Galaxy to be explored, we want Thrawn to make it back to the main Galaxy, we want Skroll to find whatever this magical hidden power is in Peridea. Our heroes, in contrast, are merely foot-dragging to keep these things from happening. This means that increasingly, even subliminally, the audience wants the heroes to fail and increasingly doesn't even want to spend time with the heroes, since that means taking away time from the much more interesting villains.

Our heroes desperately need a plot and goals of their own that are actually interesting, and not just "stopping the bad-guys." Otherwise, they're either gonna succeed and it's going to be annoying or they're going to fail and it's going to be pathetic. And either way we won't really care.

 

That was an excellent analysis. Especially on the "work" the design does to tell a story and convey information. Filoni is very good with that. I agree the ST failed in that regard. Things didn't quite match up.

 

I don't agree with the sentiment that the heroes are uninteresting. I look forward to spending time with all the characters. Seeing as we got an intensely Ahsoka focused episode the previous week, I expected to get more on the villain side this week. It didn't leave a lot of room for Sabine's reunion with Ezra, which I expect to see next week.

Spoiler

We've got a countdown now to the Chimaera docking with the Eye of Sion. I don't see that happening Tuesday, of course I was wrong about the arrival in the other galaxy in the most recent episode. I thought that would be ep 7.

Rumors have it that Ezra's going to have some Force powered kung fu, perhaps we see that vs Baylan/Shin. I expect to see him and Sabine more, it being revealed the choice Sabine made etc. Ahsoka's arrival. Maybe Thrawn launches home at the end.

I genuinely don't really know what I expect the finale to be, other than that I can't see this storyline wrapped up in a neat little bow. It's teeing up a feature film, so Thrawn must make it home and head to gather the Remnant under his command.

 

Yes! I feel that way too! @CaptainPeabody 's post links to that as well. It really explains why I feel like this show is boring.

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The only reason why I disagree is that my husband is a casual and was more underwhelmed by Thrawn than I was. Granted, he has had to hear me gush about Thrawn since he was canonized and had to talk me down from a Thrawn-centric tattoo (it really was a bad idea). So he was expecting someone menacing and not a dangerous intellect.

 

Spoiler

It would have been interesting if they had Thrawn do something markedly clever in the last episode. Something to show how dangerous his mind operates. They had the time. I feel like they landed that fairly successfully when they introduced him in Rebels, when he took the Kalikori heirloom. It was a very personal blow for Hera.

 

The episode was only 46 minutes long, so there was definitely time to expand on things!

 

I am a little worried that Filoni may not have it in him to carry a film where the villain is dangerous because of his military mind. That requires pretty sophisticated writing. I hope I’m wrong though.

 

So, this series main villain is an Imperial warlord in white uniform, who has warriors in unique armor, deals with witches and is not... quite physically fit.

Spoiler: Sounds familiar

 

Doesn't really follow for Ezra to be that angry after about 11 years and now being responsible for protecting a group of alien crab small folk who basically are his new family at this point.

 

Spoiler

Is Lars really that unfit for someone of his age? People are acting like he's Homer Simpson.

 

No, he really isn't. And considering Thrawn is like 70 in-universe those comments about the characters'/actors' weight really come off as petty.

 

It's truly one of the worst criticisms of any Star Wars content i've yet seen. Not just of this show.

I'm also getting really exhausted with people wanting to do an entire live action series re-doing The Clone Wars just because of those scenes. That wouldn't legitimize the series, it just de-legitimizes it. Because we are saying that only live action storytelling is legitimate, worthwhile Star Wars.

 

I can throw a lot of criticisms at Disney and LFL's handling of SW since 2014 but embracing the multimedia aspect of it isn't among them. That has been pretty damn good, for instance without AND I wouldn't have cared about Rebels. And that was way back in a pre-streaming world.

As for Tubby Thrawn, until it came up in this thread and elsewhere, I hadn't noticed it at all, went right by me.

 

Yeah, I wasn't paying attention to it at all. He's older man, a little jowly and a bit of a paunch. Still found his presence quite menacing, and his slow, deliberate speech suggests an analytical, diabolical mind.