Ahsoka doesn't really work
I just finished this show, having waited for it all to come out before getting into it -- other Disney+ Star Wars series taught me the lesson that they are much better binged than watched week to week and I was not wrong.
Spoilers below
The endless references to a children's animated show that I have less than zero interest in viewing really drags it down, which is why my main take away as per the title is that it doesn't really work. Most of the premise of the show is finding Thrawn and Ezra -- two characters you have no way of knowing about unless you watched that cartoon. Yet these two characters are constantly referenced and for some reason important, but you're never really sure why.
It kind of works with Thrawn because there's a mysterious villain type of thing going on. But Ezra? Why do we miss him? Who is he? What did he do? Almost none of my questions are ever answered, even after we find him! Aside from simply being told by other characters that he is important, I am never told how or why. Nothing they say or do makes me care about him. They don't show me anything that makes me want to get emotionally invested in him. And no, I am not watching hundreds of hours of cartoons to understand the context. That is simply too much.
This show is in a very strange place between obviously trying to cater to a large audience (it is a Disney property after all, so $$$), but it simultaneously can only be fully understood by extremely hardcore Star Wars fans. I consider myself a fan. I have watched all live action movies and shows, even the laughably bad stuff like the Boba Fett and Kenobi shows. That they intentionally mix together animated and live action storylines though -- especially with any context lacking -- is a major misstep.
I like the Star Wars universe a lot. And while a lot of it is entertaining, it feels very bad to feel left out. It would be different if it was a small cameo or name drop once in a while. But the main storyline gets impacted by this, and it just kind of leaves a sour taste after finishing it.
I was decently entertained and it had some very good moments, particularly the Baylan and Shin duo was intriguing -- which is ironic as I understand that they are among the only original characters in this show. Regurgitating old canon is not the way.
7/10. Entertaining but unsatisfying.
I couldn't even finish the first episode. If you need to constantly be telling how smart or awesome a character is, you're doing it wrong. Show, not tell.
I absolutely loved Andor though. It just breathed star wars.
Disney's star wars is overall really disappointing, with some exceptions. Hope they get their stuff together at some point.
Andor proved that there are stories in the world that can be told without referencing any of the movies.
Now we just need one that doesn't tie in with any of the main plot - even Andor is "just" a Rogue One prequel.
Honestly, this may not be a popular opinion, but from a storytelling standpoint, there really doesn't need to be any more Star Wars stories. It's honestly just not a very compelling world.
I know that the reason why more stories will get told have very little to do with that, and much more to do with the business case for them, but I kinda wish Star Wars wasn't the biggest franchise in the world right now.
I liked the original trilogy as a kid, and I still have a lot of fondness for it, but it's always been an extremely bare bones, paint by numbers sci fi universe contained into three well executed movies.
Like, what's actually unique or interesting about Star Wars? Light sabers have been done a billion times in a billion different variations by tons of Sci-Fi even before the original trilogy. "The Force" or some variation of it is a pretty convenient but unimaginative Deus Ex Machina, The Empire are ridiculously simple cardboard cutout bad guys whose motivations don't even make sense half the time, and their existence at all never makes sense.
The only really interesting thing about the world is the Jedi Order, its tenets, its dogma, and its relationship to the wider politics of the setting, but that ship has sailed a long time ago and the mythos is barely coherent at this point.
If you compare the franchise to something that was actually well thought out and executed "science fantasy", like, say, Dune, the difference is so stark and jarring.
One was a franchise which was well conceived, pondered about, justified, and had interesting ideas, and the other was a dead simple vehicle for special effects technology that's been stretched to its absolute breaking point by business decisions.
Star Wars isn't a good place to tell nuanced, deep, interesting stories, because that's not what it was made to be. It was made to be a place to tell a dead simple heroes journey with good special effects over three (or one) movies. The further Disney tries to push this franchise, the more we're going to run into these issues. When you start asking questions like "Why would a good person voluntarily enlist in an organization that literally everyone in the galaxy hates and is violently oppressed by?" or "Why would a melee weapon be effective in a place with technology thousands of years more advanced than ours" or "How is it that new Jedi no one has ever mentioned, but who are apparently legendary keep popping up?"
Like, is it possible to tell good stories in Star Wars? Yes, of course, but you're really fighting against the current. Its difficult to do, and I can't help but think that any good stories that you can tell in Star Wars would be better and more interesting had it been in some setting other than Star Wars.
I know I'm just screaming into the void, but there are so many other great science fiction stories that will never see the light of day while the boring, predictable, uninspired slog that is star wars gets billions pumped into it every year because of Disney. I'm convinced they're operating purely on nostalgia at this point and hoping their legacy keeps them going, because I can't imagine really being interested in it if you're someone who has no history or awareness of it at this point.
Star Wars has gone from being the first and truest definition of a 'blockbuster' that would wrap lines for movie theaters around the block for weeks decade after decade... to a tepid also-ran that can't convince enough people to pay for streaming services to justify the cost of producing it. This is the bottom, next step is canceling the entire franchise and putting it on a shelf. The only reason they haven't done that yet is because they haven't got anything to replace it. I do smile every time it loses money, though. The clock is ticking.
The only remaining films of any artistic value that can come out of 'star wars' at this point are Spaceballs II: The Search For More Money and Spaceballs III: The Search For Spaceballs II. I'd much rather watch Mel Brooks vivisect hollywood's inane politics using star wars and marvel as scalpels than watch actual star wars. At least with Mel I know I'll get some laughs out of it. Considering he's 97 years old and the original Spaceballs almost killed him, I'm not holding out much hope though. :P
Something that Andor did great is that while we know that it is a Rogue One prequel, it didn't feel like one. If you didn't know that Andor was a prequel you would have no idea that it was connected to other existing Star Wars stories until the Death Star reveal, which was really a quite minor thing and more of an easter egg.
The other Star Wars shows continuously shove the other shows and movies in your face with references, guest characters, etc.
This thread reminded me I should watch Ahsoka, so I watched the first episode. Good lord is it bad.
There's ZERO motivation for a single character up until we find out that the apprentice (forgot her name)'s uh...bf? husband? brother? haha who knows disappeared and she wants to find her. That's like, halfway through the episode!
I don't know why the antagonists want to do anything (I mean, find Thrawn, okay, but I only know why that's significant because I read the original Thrawn tirlogy & so Thrawn is exciting). I don't know why the general does anything. I don't know why Ahsoka herself does anything.
Literally you are forced to rely on "the Jedi/Republic want things that we should root for, and anyone with a red lightsaber kills people a bunch so we should root against them."
And then all of this to find......a spray-painted Rubik's Cube? Are you ***** kidding?
And like. I'm a huge Star Wars fan. I've read 50+ EU novels (although none of the new canon). I'm intimately familiar with the factions, their motivations, etc. But you have to actually DO SOME STORYTELLING for me to give a shit about your story.
Just, a dreadful first episode. Pretty sure I'm out after this.
Was/am a big fan of the original Thrawn trilogy. Haven't kept up with all the shows/etc. Personally this Thrawn is kind of a letdown. I somehow got less invested the more episodes of the show I watched.
Biggest thing is as far as I can tell he's apparently been banished to another galaxy by space whales. Only the Dathomir witch can use a map to use a special super hyperdrive to get to him. Asoka uses the Force to ask the space whales to swallow her and jump to the other galaxy. It's.... a lot. It feels like the lamest possible excuse for him being 'gone' for the last few decades instead of the original, "The empire was racist/specist, the Emperor recognized his talents anyway and sent him to bring a far corner of the galaxy into the empire."
It feels like the later seasons of GoT where travel time suddenly didn't matter. Which granted has been an annoyance for the last few years of Star Wars but "the galaxy doesn't feel big anymore because we eliminated travel times, lets jump to the next closest place" feels like a huge mistake. Especially when it's just another 12 square mile area on one planet that's just vaguely "hard to get back from".
There's a lot of the Book of Boba Fett problem where there's a lot of action that is meaningless. Some of the individual fights have cool shots or whatever, but everyone's motivation for getting there is nonexistent, dumb, or "they look like baddies". There's at least half an episode's runtime devoted to the plot point of "a general can't authorize a mission." Which is about the most idiotic point ever. That the general just bombs around in their own ship instead of doing their job is also weird, but at least Han Solo did the same thing for a bit.
My complaint is likewise "why are you telling boring stories". Like these are all vaguely Star Wars shaped, but they're mostly navel gazing nonsense. That Andor was able to be made is stunning but I doubt they'll be able to repeat it now that the bosses are paying attention.
Haha oh dear! This is pretty damning because if you didn't even like the first episode, I don't know what to tell you - because I thought it was much better in the beginning episodes than the last two or three of the season. Spend your time elsewhere I suppose!
Personally, I really want Disney to take a break from pumping out Star Wars and Marvel content and focus on making more quality content less frequently. I'd love to see them take some of those stories they planned or had thoughts on for these properties and turn them into other IP that isn't a series or franchise already. Give us something new and original.
Context: I have watched The Clone Wars and Rebels, but only an abridged watching order.
Ahsoka is basically a love letter to the fans of The Clone Wars and Rebels. I had a fantastic time watching it every week. The small nods here and there were great...but there were a few small moments where the script decided to tell and not show. Clearly, it's not very accessible to those who hadn't seen Clone Wars or Rebels, so why even try? I absolutely loved Ahsoka, but could never recommend it to anybody who hadn't seen Clone Wars and Rebels. I'm glad it got made, but I'm not sure it was the right choice for those who came into Star Wars from The Mandalorian.
Ahsoka is so very clearly an additional season for The Clone Wars and Rebels.
I can't imagine what it would feel like watching it without knowing anything about those two.
How can you care about some dude who got lost in another galaxy with another dude, neither of which you have heard about before?
Then someone who kinda looks like the exotic dancer from the movies goes in to rescue them, why?
I haven't watched Clone Wars or Rebels and I still really enjoyed Ahsoka!
To be fair, I'm not a terribly critical viewer of things, but I was already familiar with Thrawn from the books he was featured in starting back in 1991 and all I really needed to know about Ezra to understand Ahsoka is that he was their friend who exiled himself in order to rid the galaxy of Thrawn.
Sure, I could have been more emotionally invested if I knew more about the characters and their backgrounds, but I still enjoyed it for what it was, and I found Thrawn and Baylan very compelling.
In the end, season 1 of Ahsoka had a very simple plot: stop the bad guy & save your friend while you're at it. Nothing we haven't seen before, but I think it gave itself room to grow into something much more interesting depending on how the villains make their moves. It remains to be seen if the heroes will become more interesting themselves or if they're just on the classic hero's journey.
Yeah, I think people expect too much plot progression from these shows and forget to enjoy the ride.
The whole season's plot could be summarised to a few sentences on a high level, but that's not the point we're watching it :D
I think it’s worse than all that, honestly.
I’ve heard many people complain about needing to watch Rebels to be invested in Ashoka.
Here’s the issue though, I did watch Rebels, and I adore Rebels, and even I didn’t give a hoot about what was going on in Ashoka. The scenes and characters were just… nothing.
Same, this wasn't a continuation of any Rebels characters' development. This felt like, I dunno, a sandbox. The characters you know and love, static as they are, put into a new zany situation. The characters learn a little about their situation and about themselves, but seem fundamentally unchanged as people. The cameos and references were fun, but there was no meat to the story itself. It felt like a long clone wars/rebels arc, which I'm sure was the intention, but that sort of pacing and kinda lazy plot development works for a serialized television show with dozens of episodes, but not for a multimillion-dollar miniseries. To elaborate, this comfy sort of storytelling technique would be fine in the middle of a 4th season of a show where I'm familiar with all of the characters and their motivations, and I don't expect anything major to change before season 5. As a standalone show, without context (for most viewers) there's not really much to latch onto apart from the awesome sets and costumes.
Honestly same. The last season of Mandalorian just really turned Star Wars off for me to the point where I just did not give a damn of Ashoka. Which is a shame because I was looking forward to it as a conclusion to Rebels because we were going to see what happens to Erza and Thrawn. But then there were rumors it being a multiple season show (some how).
At this point of time, even if they do an Old Republic show or movie, with Revan as the main character, I won't be watching it because I don't have the faith that Disney can pull it off. Mostly because somehow they will shoehorn in Palpatine somehow into the show or movie as the main bad.
I watched it without having watched Clone Wars and Rebels, and wasn't too bothered by the lack of context.
What did bother me was how stupid the heroes were acting through the whole season. It's so infuriating that I finished it thinking that the Empire definitely deserved to win in that story. To be fair the show redeemed itself a bit at the very end when the Empire did actually win, at least it made a bit of sense, even if the heroes were stupid enough to not even seem to realize they lost.
Why does Wren take a major map of military importance to an outskirt of town without protection? Why do they not disclose all the info they have to convince their hierarchy to send a military mission (like the fact that a massive hyperdrive was stolen, that they were attacked by pretty serious enemies, that they tracked a large ship at the location...)? Why does Syndulla leave for a military rescue mission to an unknown threat with just her son in the ship instead of some soldiers (seriously what general takes her son to battle)? I'll pass on Wren's idiotic decision to give up to the enemy just when she could have won, because without this there's no story. When Wren finds Ezra, why doesn't she explain him what's going on and none of them realize they'll be attacked? Why aren't they in a hurry to do something instead of chilling, knowing that Thrawn will leave soon (so they'll lose their objective) and his ship is the only hope they have to go back home? Why do they keep chilling with the Noti even after Ahsoka arrives? In the end they are only woken up and actually do something only when their little ship (which was just uselessly hovering there) gets destroyed by some TIE fighters. It's like they forgot they are going to get stuck there forever and their enemy will escape.
I have watched Clone Wars and Rebels and I absolutely agree with everything you've said here. Sabine's character was fine in Rebels, but she was the absolute worst thing about Ashoka.
I also think the show generally did well at accommodating viewers who haven't watched the cartoons, except when it came to Ezra. I agree with the OP that we're given no real explanation of who Ezra is or why people want to find him, so there's very little payoff for people who don't want to watch a children's cartoon. It also would have been easy to add that explanation since there are only a handful of characters who actually know and care about Ezra.
They give so little context to Ezra, explain so little about him, that I thought he was a padawan like Wren. But after reading other discussions, I learn that he's apparently a fully fledged jedi. It really baffles me how much they left out
Ezra was definitely just a padawan, although he was able to make very strong connections to animals (hence why the whales transported Thrawn's ship). He was on that planet for 10 years so I'm sure he was able to strengthen his connection to the force in that time, but he hasn't officially 'graduated', at least not on screen.
I'm fairly sure the council was told about the attack at the factory but that one hostile senator dude didn't care. I might be remembering their first meeting wrong. But it still didn't make any sense to me. It made so little sense that I was sure that one guy was going to be a traitor too but I guess he was just an idiot? I'm not sure.
You make some really good points about the characters acting dumb (also known as bad writing). A lot of it bothered me as well but I suppose at this point I've simply gotten used to Star Wars requiring a lot of leeway in terms of tolerating stuff like that... however I will challenge one of the points you have because to me, it seemed like Baylan was trying to turn Wren to the empire/dark/his side. In the scene where she first hands him the map, he read her mind and told her exactly what she wanted to hear, even promising her that she would not be harmed etc. - which I suppose you're right, it's pretty idiotic of her lol. But I don't think he would do that if he thought she was genuinely an enemy. At least it's my theory that I think he thought she might turn - she was clearly very conflicted
I think Disney should apply the following test to all the Star Wars content they produce: does it work if it is not set in the Star Wars universe? I fear that there is someone commissioning films/series at Disney who thinks that subpar writing can be fixed by slapping a "star wars" label on top. I think Andor/Rogue One and the initial Mandalorian definitely pass this test, but Ashoka, The Book of Boba Fett, Kenobi, etc do not.
Props to the cast for trying to make something of Filoni's script. I really feel that Filoni should not produce live action shows (which he is not great at making) and instead stick to animated series (which he is quite good at).
Filoni is the problem.
I think Filoni is part of it. He makes stuff that appeals to people in the teen age category (as in Rebels and The Clone Wars) but this does not work well in live-action, where the production costs and thus the stakes are higher. Subpar animated episode? Not a problem. Subpar >US$10mn TV episode or even a whole string of them. Kind of problematic.
Ahsoka was the live action anime version of Rebels. And like 99% of live action anime, it should never have been made.
The Prequel redeemers have won and Star Wars really is dead to me. I used to love SW, but has become something different and it is not for me anymore.
I hate how much the prequel redeemers have influence over modern SW media. I love star wars, I'll watch all of it, but I'm only really sticking around for more Andor at this point.
I feel like, for me, the special editions were the beginning of the end for Star Wars, and the prequels were the nail in the coffin.
It hasn't been interesting for a long time for me, which is fine, they're basically mindless kids movies, but Disney seems to disagree to the point that I literally cannot go a day without hearing about Star Wars.
The most interesting plot line to me was whatever the hell Baylan was up to. But now… the actor died, and that leaves a serious ???? for the future there.
It honestly felt like they stretched out 4 episodes of content into 8 episodes of TV. Or that they could have used the … rather sparse pacing to actually build characters in this show.
I said like 30 times to my friends that this should've just been a movie.
Seriously, Disney+ has been extremely damaging for Disney's IPs. They've decided to make all of these shows simply to get people to subscribe to their streaming service and the stories they're telling (for the most part, with Andor being the gigantic exception) are just being stretched out to fill 6 episodes. Mando works with his new quest every week kind of format, but Obi-wan was originally pitched as a movie as was Boba Fett, and Ahsoka really only needed like 2 hours to tell a good, compelling story.
The episodes are usually ridiculously short. 35 minutes which includes the logo intros, a recap and 5+ minutes of credits.
They could save a lot of money on CGI (or shorten/modify scenes that use it). Give that money to some solid writers that make for a better show. This is what Andor did and that’s why it’s great. Many scenes in Andor are in regular sets, yet you never notice the lack of grandiose set pieces.
Strong agreement. I’d add the excellent use of real settings in Andor (think: the highlands of Aldahni, where the Brits did the thing to the Scots that the Empire was doing to the Dahni) significantly shaped and improved the show.
I swear every studio just up and forgot
I knew Ahsoka was going to be nothing but fan service for people who liked the cartoons and the show proved me right. I did like some of the villains though. Thrawn is pretty cool and so was Baylan (RIP Ray Stevenson). Ahsoka and her gang were pretty boring to me and so was the blonde girl hanging around with Baylan.
I hope we can get some more adult Star Wars shows like Andor that don't focus on the well known characters.
all my favorite SW media revolves around characters we hadn't met before: Rogue One, Mando S1 (minus baby yoda), and Andor. Once you start rewarming old characters (especially Skywalker et al), for some reason the lustre wears off for me.
Working off of old characters just makes the universe feel small and boring to me. They do the same thing with Star Trek. Every “new” show is just a rehash of old stuff we've already seen.
I want them to expand the universe, make NEW stuff. It can be related to the old movies and shows for sure (like Rogue One and Andor) but use new characters and new stories.
I feel like the entertainment industry as a whole has gotten too reliant on nostalgia and are too afraid to come up with new things.
Same, it takes the promise of a bigger universe full of change and intrigue and says "lol jk, it was just the same ol' universe you already know." I don't mind references to factions or characters I know, but seeing the same characters pop up again and again and have vital importance to the plot makes it feel like I'm watching different seasons of the same show vs different shows in the same universe.
Ray Stevenson was my favorite part of Rome and my favorite part of this show too (along with Shin, the blonde girl, so disagree with you there). A movie with him is apparently yet to come out, but him standing on the cliff towards the end in this show is a great sendoff for him as an actor I felt. He stole every scene he was in. He will truly be missed
I finally watched the first episode last night and have to agree: for non-Clone Wars watchers it's pretty boring. I know enough about Clone Wars to have heard the names Thrawn and Ezra, but nothing else about them. The whole episode, they keep name dropping people and establishing that characters have past relationships, but they never ever elaborate on what those relationships are or why Ezra is so important. Sabine and Ahsoka clearly have a strained relationship, what's their history? Who are they to each other?
Maybe instead of doing a gratuitous intro scene for Sabine with a police/speeder chase that looks straight out of the first Star Trek remake, give us a scene that explains who she is and why she's so angsty and makes bad decisions. They have a scene about the commemoration of some important holiday involving our heroes, but never stop to explain who was involved, what they did, or why I should care.
So after being left in the dark for the whole episode, I really don't care. Nobody took the time to string me along and give me a reason to care and I'm not going to watch hundreds of hours of other content as homework for a series that failed to grab my interest.
Well I guess I'll be the one to go against the grain. I thought it was great, if a tad slow. Of course, you should have had to see Star Wars Clone Wars and Rebels. The whole premise of the show depends on it.
And if you think Clone Wars is just a kid's show, then a large part of Star Wars just isn't your cup of tea. Both of those series have so much to offer adults and the final episode of season 5 of Clone Wars rivals the final episode of Avatar the Last Airbender (another "kids" show), in my opinion, of course. I'm a middle-aged adult, and these shows are fantastic.
It's okay if you all don't like it, you don't have to. But at least watch the content to get the full scope of what Dave Filoni was intending (and it was in part, fan service, but it also helped resolve what Rebels left hanging and set it up for more). If you watch only Ahsoka, without any background context, you will obviously be disappointed. It is, after all, a spinoff.
Edit>> The hate and circle-jerk in this thread is palpable. I'll see myself out.
So it's becoming clear, as someone whose very first movie memory is sitting in a theater looking up at this huge screen with enormous words scrolling up on it about a galaxy far, far away, that there's a segment of today's techies and nerds and geeks who really want to kill Star Wars. Like, want it dead. Buried. Atomized.
Everything that comes out people just pile on. And worse, the bits of what does release that is Star Wars, that does have the adventure and excitement and delight, they trash the hardest. They pick things like Rogue One and proclaim it amazing Star Wars. They point to Andor, which is a political intrigue story set in the Star Wars universe and say that's what Star Wars should be.
On Reddit, this post would already be downvoted. Which is why I don't post much on Reddit. The downvote is a "I disagree so fuck you" button, and it's a waste of time posting anything unless it hews to the groupthink opinion.
Star Wars was always about adventure and excitement, Yoda's protestation not withstanding. Fantastic people doing spectacular feats against impossible odds. Save the princess, stop the Evil, fight the good fight. Yet there's so many people, who sometimes will say they are Star Wars fans, who seem to think Star Wars is supposed to be something ... else. Something gritty and dark.
Worse, they want things spoon fed to them; every single screen moment has to be expositing some plot point or it's "boring" or "wasteful". Except when it's got that grimy and super adult tone (like Andor). Then, for some reason, they're okay with long moments in scenes where the focus is just on actors acting. On an actor reacting and showing us he's thinking, she's planning, they're gathering themselves. Those moments are okay in those shows, but not in something in Ahsoka.
Not every Star Wars property since Disney took over has been great. A number of people have been brought in who don't understand any of the fundamentals of Star Wars. Who have some other story they want to showcase, and are just gonna hang Star Wars trappings on it because the funding was coming from Lucasfilm. Some of the offerings have further been handicapped by bad techniques and craft, such as the direction and physical stage blocking of Obi Wan Kenobi which was very laughable at times.
Look at how Mandalorian is being treated by 'fans'. The first season had basically no plot, just a loosely connected series of tabletop adventures (episode-of-the-week sessions straight out of an RPG group, just with CGI instead of dice) and all these angry fans raved about how amazing it is. Every week was gunplay, not a Jedi in sight, and they loved it. They liked season two, but less, because suddenly there was a season-long plot. And then season three drops, which delves into the Mandalorian people, with what eventually becomes a grand political and warfare quest to reunite the scattered Mandalorians with their ancestral planet, and former fans are ready to stab, stab, stab The Mandalorian until it's dead.
Ahsoka didn't require anyone to have watched Clone Wars or Rebels. The only people who didn't watch those, who are angry about it, seem to be the people who want information spoon fed to them. I technically watched Clone Wars, but not really because they were background noise while I was doing other stuff so I just remember vague broad strokes. I don't know the full history of Sabine, Syndulla, or even Ahsoka herself.
Guess what? I don't need to know. Ahsoka provided enough for me to go with the story offered. Sabine used to apprentice to Ahsoka, okay they told me that in Ahsoka. She was raised as a Mandalorian but is Force Sensitive and was once an apprentice of Ahsoka's, got it they cover that. Syndulla is a hero of the Rebellion; told to us in Ahsoka. Sabine has a friend named Ezra she wants to find.
And Ahsoka is tangled up in it all because that's what happens to Jedi in Star Wars! The Force is with them, and Jedi are drawn into these kinds of situations to affect the outcome. That's what Jedi do. Both as storytelling constructs as well as in-universe as people; Jedi get mixed up in this stuff. Big things don't slide past Jedi unawares, for the Jedi to later moan about "if only I'd known." Even Fallen Jedi, or Grey Jedi, or whatever Ahsoka feels she is at this point, can't dodge The Force, because it exists to create great story so Force Users can be in the thick of things.
Jon Favreau gets Star Wars. And when The Mandalorian first released, all the 'fans' piling onto the Star Wars universe now with pitchforks and torches were some of the loudest voices saying it. They were eager to proclaim how Favreau was a better custodian of Star Wars than Kathleen Kennedy, who allowed the fiascos of Episode 8 and 9 to happen.
Favreau is working with Filoni, and you get the impression it's not due to dictate from on high. They seem to be creatively collaborating over a period of years at this point. Collaborating on Star Wars. Filoni has a long lineage in Star Wars. It's arguable he might be the single creator who has the deepest well of Star Wars storytelling experience short of Lucas himself. And Lucas had some fundamental flaws in his storytelling skills which have been well documented and discussed over the decades.
Filoni gets Star Wars. He understands the core of the property, how from the very beginning it's been about excitement and adventure. How The Force is always going to (or supposed to) ebb and flow through the stories, drawing in Jedi and Sith to do Force things. Does Filoni need some more training, experience, in a few areas (like cinematic pacing during the first act); yes he does. He just needs to lean more on his cinematographer and editors, which is an easy adjustment.
All I know is it's so frustrating, depressing really, to see the reactions to Ahsoka when I sat there watching the final three episodes thinking they were the most Star Wars thing we'd gotten in a long, long, long time. The show's so fun, it was so great to finally, finally, finally have Jedi back doing Jedi things after most of a decade of movies and shows that seemed to think Star Wars was about blasters and that's it.
I like Andor. I'm looking forward to the second season, even though it'll be probably two years before it drops. But as good as Andor was, it was only loosely related to Star Wars except for the background hooks of The Empire and what we know will become The Rebellion.
I wonder though. What happens, for example, if the second season dials in on the Rebellion aspect, as Luthen Rael draws Mon Mothma into active armed resistance against The Empire, rather than her quiet protestations in the Senate? Will all these same voices dumping on Star Wars, who loved the first season, suddenly be angry there's a plot moving forward on a grand scale instead of the quiet little arc of Cassian shooting and piloting and prison-breaking?
What happens if Cassian gets drawn into working with another of Rael's operations, this one not just a setup staging action against The Empire, but an active guerilla movement where the whole point is to destroy Imp personnel and outposts? What happens if they set up a situation where the Imp target they want to hit is "impossible" ... and a Jedi wanders out of the woodwork to say "no, it's not impossible; I'll help."
Because that's the kind of shit Star Wars always used to do. And Ahsoka brought a little taste of that back finally. The Force is a powerful ally. Most action movies just expect you to flat out ignore how gunshots don't kill the hero, how the car's suspension doesn't collapse after an insane jump, and so on. In Star Wars, there's an in-universe suspension of disbelief.
The Force is with the heroes. Or it used to be before a whole bunch of people who don't tell Star Wars stories started getting handed checks so they could tell "Star Wars" stories. Filoni and Favreau get Star Wars. Way more than Deborah Chow, Rian Johnson, and Gareth Edwards do.
The only real issue with Ahsoka is how people want it to be anything but Star Wars. I was happy that one of the Star Wars stories was finally Star Wars again. In my opinion, it would be a huge mistake for Kennedy or anyone else at Lucasfilm to drive Favreau or Filoni off. Because clearly The Force is with them, and they're listening. Hopefully the people at Lucasfilm listen too.
I can't speak for anyone else or the larger fandom, just my experiences.
I really liked Rogue One and Andor and Mando season 1, and commonly think of them as the best Star Wars content in a while, not because they didn't have any Jedi in it, but because they were fun, well acted, fit the Star Wars aesthetic, didn't make any fatal flaws, didn't mess up characterization for any returning characters, and did whatever it was they set out to do. Lots of Disney+ shows mess one of those things up.
Even though some people disliked Ahsoka, what basically everyone agrees on, including OP, is that Baylan, this former-Jedi-turned-mercenary, was AMAZING and stole the show. They love him so much, are sad the actor tragically passed away, and want to see him recast so we can get more of him. The things I hear people complain about are either that they personally didn't learn enough about Ezra and Thrawn to care about finding them, or other nitpicks about the plot, or concerns about characterizations of returning characters. I don't see anyone saying "Jedi and Sith? In MY Star Wars?! NEVER!"
Since certain shows like Ahsoka or Mando season 3 have more of a plot and more returning characters, there's inherently more to critique.
Mando season 1 and Andor didn't need to tie into any other media besides the live action movies or set up anything either, and they aren't progressing the greater Star Wars plot much either, so they just had to focus on being competently made as their own thing.
Ahsoka has to be a competently made show in its own right, and Rebels season 5, and an introduction to the Rebels cast for live-action-only people, and since it's progressing the plot of Star Wars, it has to progress it in a direction that people will like.
It's just a lot more steps for the writers to trip somewhere. A standalone show following Jedi and Sith unrelated to the Skywalkers that was free to be its own thing could be as critically acclaimed as something like Andor.
Like with many other things, the issue here is there is money to be made. How many great things have been ruined by profit vultures? The best course of action at this point is to shut the operation down and let it cool off for a decade or two. But what executive at Disney would allow that to happen?
ok, so I've only seen a few seasons of the Clone Wars series, but I couldn't get into it. I get the audience for it and that audience is definitely not me. I heard that it gets darker later on, so I might watch some of those.
Anyway, I liked this series enough, but its missing the soul. I've read all of the Thrawn books and was expecting something similar to what we had, but a little more... commanding and a little less pudgy.
If this is a foundation for something more, I'm in for it, but the one season was lacking. Here, go there, do this, everything works out perfectly, go there, we're done and all of our friends are safe!
The idea is that the stories from Mandalorian, Book of Boba and Ahsoka are going to interlock and lead to a movie which concludes the arc.
We'll see if they pull it off. So far I'm not overly impressed.
The Mandalorian: End Game... no thanks. It'll probably be alright.
These Star Wars properties are so cool, but no matter what happens, it feels like everything is on a small scale.
I wish they had just done the Legacy of the Force novels, cranked out a shitload of Lego, and called it a day.
What you don't like the same three planets in a galaxy of literal hundreds of planets? /s
I do understand how you feel about it feeling small scale in a galaxy of hundreds of planets that they could have explored or brought to live action. Or the feeling that the stakes are not that high enough to be on the edge of your seat, because you already know what will happen because the shows cannot change course away from the movies, without retconning them.
I just wanted the Old Republic stuff, I wanted Revan, I wanted to see the height of the Sith Empire. But no, what we got was just mediocre t.v. that is set in like three different planets.
Honestly, one of the most frustrating things about Ahsoka was they made a big, huge deal about going to this entirely new galaxy and for the first time in a while it seemed like the star wars universe was going to get bigger and then when they got there, everything looked and seemed exactly like the galaxy they just left. There were even Nightsisters who knew about the Jedi.
Reminds me of this Tom Scott video lol
Why sci-fi alien planets all look the same
That's a great video that explains something maybe obvious but that people don't really think about
I wouldn’t mind if a show decided to be on the same 3 planets. Just not Tatooine or
Tatooine 2Jaku. Give me a new Star Wars planet that isn’t a desert.But there’s a lot of desert close to LA, so…
Those 3 together is 5 seasons of TV and maybe half of it is actually halfway decent. I really won't hold my breath for a movie like that being any good, especially with Filoni directing. I'm not sure how he and Favreau are still helming these shows that keep falling short.
Like @lamelos, I also loved Andor and it's not a coincidence that it's the only Star Wars show these two had nothing to do with
How quickly the sentiment on this pair has changed. Back when Mandalorian Season 1 came out, the whole Internet was saying it was about time they were given a proper live action show to do after the amazing animated series and all the lore they added. Now, just a few years later, more and more people are saying how they always knew this pair were no good hacks, and what are they doing helming a live action show.
It's like that Batman quote about either dying the hero or living long enough to become the villain. This pair started out as the heroes of Star Wars TV, but now they are out there dressed as Darth Vader, force choking people who don't want to watch their dreadful Disney show fanfic.
I honestly think that most casual Star Wars fans just want the spectacle (which I think Filoni and Fareau have provided) but the hard core fans are impossible to please. And those are the ones that are the most vocal.
No matter who is leading this franchise, fans will complain. It'll either have too much Jedi, not enough Jedi, too much connection to the movies, not enough connection to the movies, etc. etc. etc.
FWIW, I have seen like 3 episodes of Clone Wars and zero Rebels but I did not find Ashoka confusing, plot-wise. Why the characters really cared about Ezra was not clear, but it didn't really matter in the long run. They wanted to save their friend, end of motivation. It doesn't really need to be more complex than that.
That said, the hardest part to really get an understanding of was the relationship between Ashoka and Sabine. I think the nuance of that relationship is lost on the "casual" (i.e. non-cartoon watching) audience. This was one area where they could've done some flashbacks or something. I think they tried to do it with the Ashoka/Anakin bits, but it didn't really work out that well, IMO.
Overall I would give Ashoka a 7/10 like OP. It was enjoyable and I hope they make more, but it wasn't a mind blowing experience or anything.
Agreed. I guess I'm not 100% sure why people are hung up on this specific talking point, since for a long time the argument was that we didn't need everything spelled out (which we don't -- let subtext have its day).
Overall, I thought the show was kind of dull. Once I recognized the pace of the arc they'd set for themselves in this season, I sort of lost interest. I've said elsewhere in this thread, almost all of the Disney+ shows have a padding problem. They're trying to stretch 120 minutes of story into 6 episodes on TV.
I hope I never implied that I found anything confusing about the show because I thought everything was very easy to understand. Like you said, it doesn't need to be complex. But the emotional investment just wasn't there - and I also don't really mind more/less jedi or more/less connection to the movies. I just care whether or not it's well written, and it wasn't. But I do hope they make more as well because there are almost always great moments!
Not really sure how you got all that from my comment? I'm not aware of any general consensus nor sentiments and I never held them in any particular esteem. I simply looked at their credits on IMDB and concluded that they are not doing very well with their Star Wars shows 🤷♀️
In my opinion, things were going downhill already in the second season of the Mandalorian. The third season was pretty bad, the Book of Boba Fett was worse, and about a third of Ahsoka was disappointing.
No, not from your comment, just I've seen the sentiment about them changing over the years.
That seems like a lot of homework and investment to a series that isn't exactly at its best. And it also assumes I'm already invested with a lot of established lore and older shows. Thinking back to peak MCU days, I only needed to consider about 2 movies a year from Iron Man to End Game and that was already plenty of story to fill conversations, podcasts and entire essays. Yes it was new and exciting, but it was digestible and everyone from hardcore fans to average viewers were easily on the same page. Hell, my parents were somewhat excited for endgame because they got just enough of the various stories over the years without being fully invested.
Right now all Disney+ feels like an infinite FOMO generator. Like I'll need to spend 8 hours one thing, so I can spend 5 hours on this other thing, then slog throug 6 hours of another thing and maybe get a 2 hour thing I'll actually enjoy because it references all those other things.
They went with the voice actor for Thrawn from the animated shows, who doesn't match the physique a 100%.
I think it was the correct choice, Thrawn's menace comes from his poise and voice, not bulging muscles.
And yet..
What definition of fat are you using? He doesn't look fat to me, like at all. Not skinny either, just a healthy looking guy.
I understand your point of view and your personal disappointment with the casting, but all of the negative points you make are only valid to someone that is invested in either the EU books or the Filoni cartoons, which I honestly feel is a small portion of the shows viewers.
I have not seen much of the cartoons and have not read any of the books, so my exposure to Thrawn is mostly from comments from friends and online.
I would not see anything negative in his appearance. If anything, you look at him and wonder "Why is this guy so feared?" You are given the idea that it's not due to his physical prowess or having powerful force abilities or anything. Really, his power derives from ruthlessness and cunning, and maybe more so organizational skills. Having him kind of look like a bureaucrat fits that mold and, IMO, leads the audience to the conclusion that this guy is evil in that banal kind of way. Very similar to how Andor gave us a different view of the systemic evil and brutality perpetuated by the Empire in their slave run factories.
I am not the person you responded to, but this one fascinates me, because the vast majority of the show's complaints in this thread seem to be the opposite of what you are saying - i.e. that the show is really only written to be appreciated and understood by people who already saw the previous cartoons. Unless I misunderstood your references, which is entirely a possibility.
When he first came on screen, I was like 'oh fuck, its James Spader... why?!' --- but that was quickly dismissed. I like that they're using the same actors from animation for live action.
You really only need to see Rebels for Ahsoka, fwiw. I enjoyed it WAY more than Clone Wars
I should track down a fanedit or something. Its stupid, but I just can't get in to that animation style at all. I feel like I'm watching Reboot with better coloring.
I used to have issues with the animation style and didn't watch clone wars originally. I think I was also a bit bitter about it being clone wars style star wars and not the original at the time. It did however grow on me and doesn't bother me, they also cleaned it up a bit over time as well. The early seasons of clone wars feel the roughest, where as the last season /bad batch do a lot of work to make it feel better IMHO.
First season of rebels is kind of meh, ezra is definitely aladdin in star wars and that pissed me off a bit. However, by season two it gets on a real nice path. They open with vader being the vader we have come to see. I'm not sure having gotten some of the vader stuff we have now it would be as awesome, but at the time it was really fresh to see vader at peak vader.
While rebels was airing the movies were busy sucking it up and myself and my wife were really looking forward to new rebels episodes because they just felt like star wars. The later seasons shift the tone to more serious and the characters start growing up and morphing in to more palatable characters along the way. There are a lot of great moments in the animations and character interactions. Obi wans confrontation with maul is probably one of my favorite things ever, but there are tons of just really great moments in there.
It was enough to get me to plow back through clone wars, and while I can find moments of greatness in that show, they were harder to pick out. However, I will say in that last added season, the end four episodes was basically like an amazing star wars I was super just into the whole thing it was great.
I wonder if in hindsight, a lot of the clone wars/rebels explored and visualized key star wars moments that were not brought into cinema, and now having the new disney shows doing that as well, they are losing some of the impact when originally aired. Vader showing, super scary, and unbeatable isn't new anymore, we have a bunch of scenes of him doing that. "More darth maul" after his 15 seconds in episode 1. More mandolorian armors, more bobba fett, more space battles, more lore on races etc. All of these elements first arrived in the animated shows, but they are now scattered through the new disney series, so having watched those it might make it harder to go back out of order and enjoy it.
I am a big fan of the animated shows, but ultimately i felt very neutral about Asohka. I thought the visual team knocked it out of the park, the environments, audio design, music design (loved the end credits) and just visual design elements were amazing. For a lot of the actors performances I didn't feel like I was seeing the same character, which rubbed me wrong.
Finally, just wanted to quickly note that I felt like the OP seems to be very against the medium of cartoons being able to carry adult themes, if that is the case I'd argue strongly against it. In my 30s I watched avatar the last airbender for the first time and it quickly became one of my favorite things I'd ever seen, every rewatch I'd find some new element of excellence, connecting points in plot, character growth or foreshadowing/references.
I really feel similar for anybody dismissing any medium. I know a lot of people that was their hands at video games and I think of the 40 years of unique stories and ways to tell a story in a game that I have experienced and can only think, wow, how sad to have missed out on all that art, music, and design. Same with anime, people push it off, but then they'll never experience something attack on titan, or spirited away, which is a crazy loss.
Anyway sorry this started as, "I didn't like the animation at first, but it grew on me" and went sideways!
I found these fanedits that probably aren't perfect, but they make one 'movie' out of each season. I'll give the first one a go to see if its worth it. You definitely convinced me to revisit this, at least :)
There's a lot of really great animation out there. Anyone who thinks animation is for kids is... well, wrong.
It’s definitely got a “playing with vinyl toys” vibe to it. Later seasons of Clone Wars look way better imo (and also have a way lower rate of bad episodes) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I had a similar issue with the Tarkovsky Clone Wars :D
I just don't like that kind of hyper-stylised hard-edged animation style.
yes! that's the worst, by a margin. I wish they'd go with either the Heavy Metal or Avatar: The Last Airbender style.
I agree on many points but at least Rosario Dawson brings a lot of fun to the character of Ahsoka!
You have no interest in any of the "children's" animated shows?
Hold the phone.
Now give the phone to me.
I have zero sympathy for you being unable to enjoy Ahsoka after reading that. Do you think you're too good for animation? Animation is painfully disrespected in our society and I'm sick of it. Animation is it's own art form with just as much validity as live film, with far more potential. It's a medium, not a genre. You think it's just for kids? Go watch Fritz the Cat(nsfw warning), Heavy Metal, or Mad God.
Just because a show is made to be accessible to children, that doesn't make it exclusively for them. You're robbing yourself of good, solid Star Wars storytelling by ignoring these shows just because they're made to be accessible to kids. The show was made by people who were in love with the franchise from the start, even when George Lucas was falling out of love with it. Stories where characters try, make mistakes, fail, succeed, win and lose. Characters are developed, characters die.
And if it being "for kids" is a problem, I got news for you; the original movies were always made for kids. I've been following Star Wars my whole life. I've "put the work in". My dad introduced me to the movies in the early 90s, so I've been hooked from before the prequels. And I've been through all the emotions with the Prequels. I loved them, then hated them, and I've learned to love them again. They have their flaws, but so does the original trilogy, and so does the sequel trilogy. And they all have their good parts, too.
I watched Clone Wars from before it was 3D animated. I watched Ahsoka Tano from her start as a bratty kid being given way more responsibility than she could handle. She made mistakes, ones that cost lives, and she had to learn from them. She grew up with each season and became a capable, interesting character on her own. She provided a much needed lense (the eyes of a "kid") to view Anakin Skywalker (whom we finally get to see as a heroic figure, like how Obi-Wan refers to him in ANH). She's earned her place. We get to see the clones themselves. They become more than just copy pasted soldiers. They give themselves names. They mourn the loss of their brothers. They're just as much a focus as the Jedi.
Rebels was a streamlining of existing good ideas from the Extended Universe into one work, all in the familiar setting of the classic trilogy. Kanan Jarrus is pretty much Kyle Katarn with a new name. We get to see how the Rebellion forms from single rebel cells into a cohesive force. And even when the show starts to lose steam, they make up for it with Thrawn. Ooh boy, Thrawn.
My father read me the Timothy Zahn Heir to the Empire trilogy when I was a child going to bed. Grand Admiral Thrawn debuted in these novels and thus predates Darth Maul for me in terms of epic Star Wars villains. I suffered through the heartbreak of the expanded universe getting retconned to "Legends", and my spirits soared when Thrawn returned for his animated debut in rebels. And to see him be brought into live action character has been a truly magical experience. I wish my dad lived long enough to see it. You don't know how good you could have it.
You get out of Star Wars what you put into Star Wars. If you take the bad with the good, then everything gets better. And when you limit yourself to just one scope of the story (i.e. just the live action stuff), you miss out tremendously. My son's first real Star Wars experience? Not watching any of the movies, or cartoons. It was flying the Millennium Falcon at Disney World. A space ship introduced in live action. And on a mission given to us by a character who first appeared in animation.
A New Hope picked up in the middle of a story. It got you up to speed with an opening crawl. Ahsoka's opening crawl just happens to be 8 seasons across 2 tv shows. You don't even have to watch all of it, one could skip the first 2 seasons. But there's value in every episode, even the "fillers."
Ahsoka works, you just gotta swallow your pride and be willing to watch some "children's" cartoons.
I am sorry. I didn't mean to offend. I haven't liked cartoons since I was 10 years old - it's just my opinion
That's sad. I'm sorry to hear that. I don't know how old you are so I don't know when you were 10, and I can't say for sure what you may or may not have missed out on.
To hear someone say "I don't like animation" is like hearing someone say "I don't like paintings." There's a whole world of quality, human made art that you're denying yourself.
I hope you're willing to one day give it a try. There's so many genres and subgenres of content, you're bound to find some animated program you'll enjoy.
I'm 30. And I have tried many times, friends have repeatedly tried getting me into different things too but I just found that even even stuff that is not specifically kid-friendly still has some pretty simplistic storytelling. Arcane, Into the Spider-verse, Across the Spider-verse being things I've watched recently as examples. All of these I liked and I think it looks pretty, but I never love it.
And with anime I can only put it down to a cultural barrier because some of that stuff is just weird in my opinion. A friend made me try a show with big robots (I forgot what it's called) a few years ago and I was just bored out of my mind. I watched Your Name with someone else though, and while I liked that one, I think in general my dislike of anime can also be put down to being a queer woman. Because dare I say that Japanese cartoons lack representation and they are not exactly feminist - do correct me if I'm wrong though.
Again, I like some of it just fine but I never get to the point that I love it enough to want to keep trying again and again because I remained unconvinced that any story done in that medium cannot be done a lot better in live-action. I feel like I've given it enough tries that it's fair enough for me to say that it's just not for me.
Simplistic storytelling isn't a bad thing. Steven Universe is an example I would cite - On the surface the show looks like a brightly colored, zany show with not much to offer beyond wacky adventures. And each episode generally has a simple enough plot that gets resolved within 11 minutes. But when you start to get deeper, more of the plot is revealed and ends up telling a story about interstellar dictators and learning how to cope with the sins committed by one's own family. The series is also noteworthy for featuring the first lesbian kiss in a "children's" animated program.
Can do. Sailor Moon is actually a prime example. A story where 95% of the cast is female, and heroically battles the forces of evil. The series was also originally written and illustrated by a woman, and even featured a lesbian couple who infamously got censored out of the North American dub in the 90s.
Woof. Clearly you haven't been paying attention to the majority of the recent live action remakes of Disney movies. Almost every one is inferior to it's original.