Ahsoka (live action series) - general discussion thread — Page 14

benroberts79 said:

I’m enjoying the show so far and personally enjoying the connection to Rebels, but I keep finding myself asking the question of where do these people go between now and the sequel trilogy?

I think it was mentioned earlier by someone else, but where’s Ashoka and Ezra in those movies. The takeaway from those was that Luke is the only one left and there is no other Jedi’s left and he’s the only hope.

Where as the Ashoka show implies that there is at least 3 other Jedi if you count Sabine. What becomes of them not to show up in the sequel trilogies.

Connecting all of this is what I’m most intrigued by and maybe we come to learn that through either this, The Mandolorian or the BoBF.

What’s very funny is that all of these problems also apply to these same characters being present during the original trilogy.

She was spreading her stoicism across the galaxy

Before the final episode airs on Tuesday I kind of want to solidify my thoughts on the show thus far. I don’t have any glaring issues or problems with the show as a whole in terms of writing quality. The plot and characterization have their issues but there’s nothing I feel that crosses the line into making the series bad. However despite overall liking it there’s something unsatisfying about the whole show, and the issue is that these little minor issues I have with the world-building and the characterization add up even in episodes that I mostly enjoy. Like episode 6 was good, but I still in hindsight feel like there was something missing that’s stopping me from loving it. The show has 2 main issues and the first one is the pacing, in that the episodes are way too long and that leads to the episodes being kind of dull. Episodes 1 and 5 are the episodes most guilty of this issue. Episode 1 is mostly set up, but the pacing is really slow, like there are either scenes that don’t feel necessary, or they’re necessary but they’re shot in a way that makes them drag just short of forever. Episode 5 is the most emblematic of this issue that I think the show has. The first half is really well-paced, but the second half is really dull and boring. It’s pretty clear that they spent a lot of time on the last half of the episode trying to make the Purgil look really good, but the issue is that nothing really happens when they’re on screen.

Either that or the pacing is fine, but it feels like not enough stuff actually happened in the episode episodes 3 and 7 are guilty of this. Episode 3 is mostly well-paced, but it has 1 sequence that just drags the rest of the episode down because we don’t really need it because we already had a dogfight and we’re about to get a second one. And with episode 7 it was never boring or dull, but not much really happened in the episode. The main thing that happens is that Balon Skull separates from Shin Hati, and Sabine and Ezra reunite with Ahsoka, so even though the episode is packed with action, nothing really happens. The only episode I had almost no problems with is episode 4 which is not only really well-paced, but it feels like enough happens in the episode to move the plot forward that I don’t feel dissatisfied. I think the issue is really the format of the show. Unlike Obi-Wan, I don’t think this is just a 2-hour movie that’s been stretched out to 6 hours, but I feel like 8 episodes were way too much for the series. I think if this show was only 5-6 episodes long it would be a lot better paced.

That runtime has dashed all hopes that it can resolve all of the plotlines it’s introduced. Like I didn’t expect them to defeat Thrawn, but I thought there might be some battle between them. It’s definitely setting up for another season or Filoni’s movie. I hope I’m wrong and it does manage to have a satisfactory resolution while setting up for more stuff, but 49 minutes doesn’t seem like enough time.

Emre16O1 said:

What is with all the spam accounts and posts on here?

Same here.

Every episode dragged a lot. If the last one get right into the point, it could certainly resolve the plot points so far. Unfortunately, this episode should be a smash to elevate considerably the level of the series, but I personally don’t see it happening. Overall, Ahsoka disappointed hard a bunch of fans. Of course a lot of people liked/loved it, but I feel that the show is becoming more and more divisive over time as TLJ and Andor.

I’m a little worried about how little I expect will be resolved this season. For 8 whole episodes, I think it’s going to amount to all setup. That’d be fine (it’s pretty interesting setup) if we could go straight on to the payoff, but with the strikes and all, I’m not expecting to see anything more for this story until very late 2024 at the absolute soonest. That’s not good.

They’ll freak out about this show because…Anakin!..Clone wars!..Lightsabers!..C3PO!

Yep.

Emre16O1 said:

I got this “video review” series recently recommended to me for Ahsoka. It is quite fun, with some nice commentary on the series, and Star Wars in general.

“Not Obi-Wan Kenobi” YouTube channel, by Charlie Hopkinson.

They are deepfake videos sketches for “Where Obi Wan has come to retire and chill” (in a flat-share somewhere in Britain, in 2023), along with Qui-Gon, Anakin, and occasionally a few other characters too.
 

He’s done a number of Star Wars video content, but these are the 7 videos for Ahsoka so far:

Chapter 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0MWO3CUoJQ
Chapter 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTrOnBkxiIo
Chapter 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5a0vwqvz1P4
Chapter 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_WXPv0NY6g
Chapter 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiKFsWJ6j2E
Chapters 6 & 7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJzPK3fn_ws

I watch fake ObiWan almost every week. Fake Gandalf was pretty great too (same guy).

Seriously, his commentary is often more entertaining than the shows themselves.

I’m also super impressed with both his voice impressions and his deep fake work.

Oh man I LOVE his QuiGon reacting to Sabine surviving her lightsaber stab!

“Are you Sssssss…SERIOUS?!” 😆

Since it’s only been 2 hours since the episode premiered I’m going to start with spoiler-free thoughts and give a more spoiler-filled reaction tomorrow. I honestly don’t really know what to think about it. There were elements that I absolutely adored, but it also felt somewhat anticlimactic. First for the positives, until the final 10 minutes, I thought the episode was fantastic, we got some resolution to Sabine and Ashoka’s relationship, and the fight to get to Thrawn was really well done. We get some cool callbacks to The Clone Wars and the final fight between Ahsoka and Morgan Elsbeth was fantastic and had the best fight choreography of the season. My problems come with the ending. While it works decently well as an ending for Ahsoka, Sabine, and Ezra, everything else feels almost completely unresolved. I don’t have any issue with how Thrawn’s stuff is resolved, but the other villains don’t have any resolution. Some of this stuff I fear will remain forever unresolved as well even if we get more. My biggest complaint is that it honestly was more interested in being set up for a future show or movie, than in being a complete story. I think with 1 simple change it’d be much better, but with how it ended now, certain plot elements will be completely unresolved even if they get a season 2. So right now I remain conflicted, on how I feel about the show as a whole.

This finale sucked honestly. Here’s some random notes.

How does Huyang know who Kanan was? Kanan changed his name from Caleb Dume after he went into hiding. I don’t really remember any moment from Rebels of Kanan telling everyone his old name, other than maybe Ezra or Hera? I guess someone could have given him this information off screen, just seems like a plothole to me.

I hate that Sabine has this “hidden potential” now. She couldn’t move a cup a few episodes ago, but can now throw Ezra across the air? What has happened in these last few episodes that justifies that boost in ability?

Why did the TIE Fighters fly straight into Ahsoka’s ships wings? There was more then enough time for them to get out of the way, but I guess they are just terrible pilots. If we needed to take Ahsoka’s ship out of the equation, there is a hundred better ways they could have accomplished this than that scene lol.

The scene of Ahsoka, Ezra, and Sabine deflecting blasts from the Stormtrooper’s just looked completely comical to me. I don’t know why, but I think it has to do with how horrible Rosario Dawson is with lightsabers. She always looks incredibly awkward and sluggish when she’s using them. But this has been a problem with the entire show honestly. The fight with Elsbeth in this episode was much better, but you could tell it had to be greatly sped up.

Why is Ezra not able to get a single zombie Stormtrooper off his back? Needs Sabine to help him while he pretends to struggle from a single arm around him lol. Scenes like that make it hard for me to take him seriously. But I guess you need to dumb down Ezra to make Sabine look good, right?

We got no conclusion with Baylan, and since he will have to be recast, it will make it hard to connect with his story going forward with a whole new person playing him. Unfortunate with Ray’s passing, since he was the best character in the show.

Other than those things, this episode once again felt like something that could have been 20 minutes of content. The whole show feels like something that could have been half the length. Just completely dragged out for no reason.

I was holding out hope that this show could bring me back in since I love both Clone Wars and Rebels, but once again this feels like a complete dud for me. So many misses in a row for the live action shows… Boba, Obi-Wan, and then Mando S3… Andor was great, but not enough to carry Star Wars.

Sabine had no hidden potential. Potential is overrated, and means very little. Training, will, belief and balance are everything. Always have been.

Overall, this season has been very underwhelming for me. It looked mostly alright and had some nice ideas, but the casting was very hit and miss and the writing has been absolutely atrocious, especially for characters and their motivations. That blue guy they had there just doesn’t pass as Thrawn, I’m sorry. Filoni should really stick with animation.

For my more in-depth thoughts, I do think the ending works decently well as an ending for some of the characters. Ahsoka and Sabine succeeding in getting Ezra home but getting trapped in the Galaxy while Thrawn escapes into the main galaxy to, assumably, be the main antagonist in a continuation, all that stuff works. The Storm Troopers turning into Zombies and Asoka’s fight with Elsbeth is also fantastic. Unfortunately, two of our main villain’s character arcs remain almost completely unsolved. We’ll never know what Balon was after, unless they recast, and Shin’s arc is also left up in the air, although at least that gets somewhat of a resolution. You could argue that she gains power by being the new leader of the Raiders, but it still feels really unsatisfying, like why didn’t she return with the other Storm Troopers to Thrawn?

In fact, it could have been easily solved if they hadn’t decided to save Shin and Balon’s character arcs ending for another season. I think what they should’ve done in hindsight, given Ray Stevenson’s death (RIP), would’ve been for the final fight to be Ahsoka vs Balon, and Sabine vs Shin to resolve that rivalry, and Ezra vs Morgan Elsbeth. Then you could have the same ending and the villain arcs would feel complete. Or they could’ve just had Sabine and Ahsoka make it back as well and then I wouldn’t mind as much that Balon and Shin’s arcs don’t end at least it would feel more complete. Honestly despite liking the episode this really just downgrades my thoughts on the show as a whole. If they had focused on telling a complete story rather than just setting stuff up for more content the show would’ve been a lot better and I would’ve been way more lenient on some of its flaws like the awful Hera subplot and the glacial pacing, but right now for the show as a whole, I’m leaning more towards like 6/10.

Could’ve been 4 episodes without losing anything.