Episode 3 spoilers:
I don’t get why they riffed on the Original Trilogy here, other than it being a homage of sorts? The training section and rear gunner battle; couldn’t they have done some thing new or fresh instead? The dialogue of “I can’t see” and “I got one!” just fell flat and was cheap fan service to me. I was pleased to Mon Mothma, but a little disappointed with the little they gave Genevieve O’Reilly to work with. I agree with RogueLeader, it appears we are simply going to get years of the New Republic being incompetent with very little nuance. 2 people with Jedi powers and lightsabers just scuttled a Rebel transport, killing many of the crew, freed an important prisoner, but Senators claim Hera just wants to use Rebel resources to find Ezra? The whole reasoning and writing of this makes little sense or logic.
The Ahsoka somersault flightsuit fight was cool and silly in equal measures, although lucky the spaceships didn’t aim for the other wing, or the underside, where there isn’t a Jedi with lightsabers that can deflect these bolts away from the disabled ship. Sabine and Huyang were the more interesting characters in this again, along with Baylon and Shin. I enjoyed this more than the opening episodes, a little short, and still nothing unexpected from Filoni yet. The visual design does look for this series.
I was surprised to see it is only getting around the same viewership as Andor, as this had a lot more promotion, and Andor’s viewership increased as the series went on. I hope this does too, and improves along the way.
Episode 4 spoilers:
That is some weird de ageing of Christensen, or is that how people are going to look like in the live action World Between Worlds? I do wonder what anyone who hasn’t seen Rebels, and doesn’t know of the WBW, thinks is going on right now. The Vader music added on at the end seemed off and redundant.
It was an okay episode overall but it does struggle with pacing or direction like the the episodes. Some otherwise great scenes, but entwined with “action scene, then stop, look into distance and ponder, then a line or two line of dialogue delivered slowly, or learn something or try to say something profound; then more action scene, stop, look and ponder, a line or two of dialogue delivered slowly, learn something or try to say something profound” running through it. It feels “cluncky”, especially the slowly delivered dialogue.
Ahsoka’s “can I trust you?” to Sabine, out of nowhere early on, was a little clumsily done so that some raised red flags. I did very much like the fight with Sabine and Shin, the force power move, Sabine acknowledging her Mandalorian side! Baylon too was engaging again as he has been throughout the 4 episodes. Poor Marrok, just another disposable 2D henchman. Poor Hera too, and that hyperdrive scene was visually cool.
I think I’m watching this each week out of curiosity, rather than enjoyment, or it being a good series. There are parts which are of quality: the villains, action sequences in the main, visual and sound design. But they entwined with some middling and poor background characters, and their decision making, staid acting choices and odd dialogue from the main characters (Baylon apart), the political aspects of the New Republic and their 2D incompetence (see RogueLeader’s post), and the direction.
It is as if the show needed another polish, some further retuning before they started filming, but ran of time. So here we are. A pity, as there is a good series hiding away in here somewhere. Maybe the last half of this series will deliver?