Mini Series Bazil the Tynnan

You asked for it.

 

I'll take Bazil over Jar Jar any day

 

Someone explain why Bazil did that with Sol's ship.

 

Yeah, that's basically the only possible explanation. Fine. But in the process, he almost killed everyone anyway.

 

Mae: I'm getting the **** out of here
Sol: I'm gonna shoot down this person that I absolutely need to stay alive
Bazil: I'm going to kill everyone

 

Sounds fun.

 

I think if we all sit back and look at the whole situation objectively, it is clear that Bazil's every action is easily explained by him being Plagueis' Sith Master.

 

Darth Bazil the wiser.

 

Everyone turned on Sol in the end. Even this little poop stain. Still love him though. I want to feed him nuts down at the park.

 

I think Bazil was a tracker who was a little confused by 2 different people bring identical and the seemingly "bad" actions of the Jedi. I think Bazil was just trying to stop things from escalating.

Does Bazil damage the ship after Brendok so Mae and Sol can't get away quickly, stalling for Vernestra's arrival? Bazil confronts Mae afterwards to stop her from fixing things, if I recall.

Bazil then stops Sol from shooting her down, making a judgement call in light of the fact that Yord, the Jedi translator, was dead.

If I've put this together right, in hindsight, the need for speed in the story over-rode the matter of character and their portrayal.

Which is symptomatic of this series...

 

Bazil was a furry epistemological gap -- sublime and puzzling.

He's like a mime in an expressionist movie or play intended to create a Brechtian, alienation effect.

The audience thinks they know what's going on, then the little furry jester shows up and implodes all sense.

Love it, even if it was a mistake -- but I sense the ambiguity was probably intentional.

 

I wouldn’t doubt this. Headland infuses a lot of what she does with that kind of sly humor.

 

Bazil is the key to all this.

 

So Bazil's actions were no accident, according to Headland:

So it should be clear to us what Headland's intentions were with Bazil now. He's not some Jedi simp who just blindly follows whatever a random Jedi decides to do. He has his own complex form of judgement, despite being a crazy beaver creature, and whether or not he 100% trusted Mae, he didn't approve of the way Sol was treating her and was willing to stand up to a Jedi to protect her. As Headland says, he's playing the hero here.

This type of moral complexity in SW, especially with an alien that doesn't speak English and isn't translated for the audience, creates exactly the kind of ambiguity I think is really interesting and important for SW fans.

Many SW fans long for simplistic binary perceptions of the world so that it seems clear and understandable, but this sort of view is just a social construct. Headland subverts this sort of simple sight by allowing her characters to have complex motivations, and this complexity means that they can ally themselves with a Jedi one moment and then Mae the next.

I think it's pretty courageous for Headland to allow a scene like this in her show. The vast majority of the audience were scratching their heads about Bazil's actions in E8, including me. But ultimately it forces us to try to be more active viewers and analyze what's going on what Bazil, which as I said above, is a form of Brecht's alienation effect, or what other writers call estrangement.

It's bold because Bazil's complexity actually does interrupt a really interesting scene of space action, forcing the viewers to not merely sit back and enjoy the ride, but to question the moral alliances of the characters -- which is the entire point of Headland's approach to the show.

 

This is too funny. Headland freely admits that they didn't include a previous scene that would have explained Bazil's later actions (him witnessing the handcuffing of Mae by Sol) for reasons of storytelling efficiency. And so she she has to explain, in an interview, that maybe Bazil saw Sol handcuff Mae, and so he later turns on Sol to stop him from shooting down or capturing Mae because he believes Sol has lost his marbles. It's a fine interpretation. It's just not in the show.

 

The problem of the Acolyte. Frustrating!

 

I'm not someone who has been following the interviews with the director and a show shouldn't need running notes to allow it to make sense. As a result, this was such a stupid character who, like so many in this show, had motivations that made no sense.

If there is someone interfering, which it seems clear there is, in run times, Disney needs to get that person out of the way yesterday, it is ruining almost every show / movie they are putting out. They are getting some great directors in, why stifle them by interfering with time constraints? And why are there time constraints? Which focus group is telling them there needs to be? That focus group also needs to be sacked because it is out of touch with reality.

 

I have not needed to read any interviews the showrunner to understand character motivations in this show.

I figured out why Bazil did what he did.

 

I don’t think it’s a matter of figuring anything out. It’s just a matter of guessing. I too thought he might’ve done it because he thought Sol had lost his mind and was gonna murder Mae. But that’s just a guess. The problem is the execution. We don’t see Bazil witness Sol tying down Mae, and we don’t witness his discomfort with it. In fact, last we saw Bazil, he was attempting a fierce karate chop on Mae. And how he’s risking his life to save her.

We could assume that maybe Bazil saw what Dol was doing and didn’t approve, but we don’t know. We also don’t see Bazil witness Mae stabbing Sol with Pip’s head. So we could also assume that Bazil saw Mae stab Sol, which would make his decision to protect Mae even more confusing.

As Headland said, they omitted a scene of Bazil reacting fearfully to Sol interrogating a tied up Mae. A scene that was there for a good reason. But she sacrificed it for the sake of a cleaner and uninterrupted interaction between Sol and Mae.

In other words, we’re all guessing why Bazil did what he did, not figuring it out.

 

Bazil just stepped on her foot.

We get two reactions shots of Bazil after Sol has stunned Mae and shuts off the comm. He looks confused.