I mean… the actual story for Episode 5 was decent enough, probably the best so far. But… oh my god, this budget.

I mean watching this episode really reminded me of an episode of Star Trek: TNG from the 90s. Maybe even Star Trek: TOS from the 1960s. Most if it takes place in a boring cave set. The background extras are all humans. The Empire makes plans to lay siege to a small rebel base, so naturally I’m expecting you know, some AT-ATs and a big spectacle. But no, they just send like a small SWAT team that infiltrates a cave set left over from an episode of 90s Star Trek. There’s not even any establishing shots of the planet surface or anything. It seriously feels like TV from the 90s. What is going on here? Is Ewan McGregor’s paycheck really THAT exorbitant?

I found myself mentally adjusting my expectations for what I knew would be possible to show on screen - you know, like we used to do back in 90s/early 2000s when watching TV. And this is a show made by a company that, just recently, actually blew away my expectations regarding what is possible to see on screen when they showed me a pretty convincing CGI Luke Skywalker. And now somehow we’re back to a 1990s-level production with bland, shitty-looking caves and badly lit phaser fights.

Anyway, in order to enjoy this you really need to lower your expectations regarding the budget. Maybe pretend you’re watching it on VHS or something.