Ahsoka premiere: Prepare to dive headfirst into the deep end of Star Wars
Disney+'s new series doesn't just work better if you're a Star Wars expert—it requires it
TV Reviews Ahsoka
When Disney bought Lucasfilm and started developing its own Star Wars movies, it famously declared that everything but the movies and the Clone Wars animated series was no longer canonical—meaning decades of books, comics, and video games were now considered “Legends.” The thinking was that Disney didn’t want to go into the Star Wars universe with its hands tied by a mountain of Expanded Universe canon that the vast majority of people on Earth didn’t give a shit about, but the excesses of the old EU have gradually clawed themselves back into Disney’s Star Wars, with books that tie into theme parks, old characters being reintroduced to the new universe, and a bunch of Disney+ TV that (to varying degrees of success) fill in gaps that never necessarily needed filling.
And if any one thing is emblematic of the current state of Disney Star Wars, a franchise that I would argue is functionally identical to the needlessly complicated old Star Wars (just with different things filling in those gaps), it’s Ahsoka. This isn’t a show that benefits from knowing everything that led up to it the way that, say, Andor might have a little more punch if you’re familiar with where Cassian eventually ends up. This is a show that requires knowing everything that led up to it.
GRADE FOR SEASON 1, EPISODE 2, “PART TWO: TOIL AND TROUBLE”: B-
But, to me, that on its own is not a criticism. I think, for example, that one of the great strengths of Avengers: Endgame is that it rewards you with constant little payoffs if you’ve been following the whole MCU to that point; and if you haven’t, then that’s your problem. The movie isn’t there to hold your hand. The issue with Ahsoka is that there’s so much mythology stuff going on that is deeply involved in various threads of the elaborate web that is Star Wars canon that the new characters and concepts are indistinguishable from the old characters being reunited here.
Unless you’re immensely invested in the relationships between Ahsoka, Sabine, and Hera, or the search for Imperial Grand Admiral Thrawn and young Jedi Ezra Bridger, or a forgettable villain who was in one episode of The Mandalorian years ago, then there’s really nothing here to connect to. That could change, and I think that’s why Disney wisely decided to release two episodes at once, but as it stands the villains are boring and the heroes are all way too insistent on being stubbornly stoic about everything—which is also boring!
In terms of what actually happens, though, the first episode opens with a New Republic ship transporting Morgan Elsbeth, an ally of Grand Admiral Thrawn who was introduced in the episode of The Mandalorian that also introduced Rosario Dawson’s live-action Ahsoka. When a ship that appears to belong to Jedi shows up, the captain of the transport assumes they’re Imperials and tries to call their bluff by inviting them onboard.
Unfortunately for him, the “Jedi” are actually Ray Stevenson’s Baylan Skoll and Ivanna Sakhno’s Shin Hati, two characters who…are definitely not Jedi, but that’s all we know. Ahsoka’s droid buddy Huyang (who is voiced by David Tenant and is great) eventually identifies Baylan based on his apparently unique lightsaber, meaning he trained at the Jedi Temple, but that’s literally it. Two hours with these characters and all we know is that they’re bad, they’re helping Elsbeth track down Thrawn, and they’re not Jedi. Anyway, they kill a bunch of people on the transport and escape with Elsbeth.
Meanwhile, Ahsoka is at some kind of ancient temple where she has to solve an environmental puzzle, suggesting that creator/writer/director Dave Filoni played Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, which earns her a metal ball of some sort. There’s dramatic music that implies you’re supposed to know what this is, but it’s not until later in the episode that Ahsoka bothers to explain that it’s a map to where Thrawn and Ezra are—but one that she doesn’t know how to unlock—and it’s never really explained why a map to where Thrawn and Ezra are is hidden in an ancient temple. Ahsoka takes the ball to Hera, her old buddy from Star Wars Rebels (now a general in the New Republic, following some Easter eggs from stuff like Rogue One), who suggests that Sabine, their other old buddy from Rebels, will know how to open it.
The problem is that Ahsoka and Sabine apparently had a falling out over Ahsoka’s attempts to train Sabine as a Jedi, which—correct me if I’m wrong, someone—happened completely off-screen in between the end of Rebels and now. I can get on board with being invested in these characters, because I saw and mostly enjoyed Rebels, but now we’re supposed to be invested in a fight they had that neither of them want to talk about and that was never depicted onscreen, all so they can beat bad guys who we don’t know anything about.
Sabine has been hiding out on Lothal, the planet at the center of most of Rebels, and she has a Bad Attitude. She’s sad about Ezra being gone, though I think it’s been at least a decade since he disappeared at this point. (The timeline is kind of a mess for reasons that come up in episode two.) Ahsoka arrives and sort of asks for help figuring out the map, but she also has a bad attitude, so Sabine takes the map and goes off to figure it out on her own.
Meanwhile, Hera and Ahsoka have a heart-to-heart about the latter failing to teach Sabine in the ways of the Jedi, and there is one truly goddamn great moment here: While talking about how Sabine was a difficult student, Hera jokes that, “I bet your master found you difficult sometimes.” We don’t see Ahsoka’s reaction to this, as the camera stays on Hera, but it’s clear as Hera’s smile immediately drops that Ahsoka didn’t take the joke well—because, of course, her master was Anakin Skywalker. See, emotional stakes work better when you know what the emotions are and what the stakes are because we’ve seen them and not just heard about them!
The bad guys attack Sabine and steal the map, but before Ahsoka can arrive to help, Shin stabs her in the gut with a lightsaber.
The second episode starts right after that, with Sabine waking up in a hospital. She seems surprisingly okay, considering how bad lightsaber injuries tend to be, but maybe Lothal has good medical facilities. Either way, Ahsoka leaves to investigate Sabine’s hideout and finds one of the bad guys’ assassin droids—an HK model, which is a nod to Knights Of The Old Republic. She takes off its head and brings it to Sabine so she can hack its memory and find out where it came from, which turns out to be a New Republic shipyard on a planet called Corellia (a shipyard that also used to supply the Imperials, including one Morgan Elsbeth).
Speaking of, the bad guys have arrived at some planet with a weird circle of rocks. Baylan thinks the rocks will lead them to the “reflex point,” and Elsbeth—who is apparently descended from the Nightsisters Of Dathomir (a Clone Wars thing) which basically means she can use magic—later arrives to activate the map and use the rocks to guide them to a “distant galaxy.” They talk about something called “The Eye Of Sion” and someone called Marrok, and Baylan mentions an old Jedi legend about the “Pathway To Peridea.”
On Corellia, Ahsoka and Hera are asking around about any suspicious activities at the shipyard. The boss says that a lot of the employees are ex-Imperials, but it’s okay because people just care about getting paid and don’t let political ideologies impact their work (sure). Hera spots a crew working on the hyperdrive engine from a Super Star Destroyer—a.k.a. a very big spaceship—but the shipyard boss can’t tell her what it’s being used for. It’s “classified.” When she and Ahsoka ask about HK droids, they get attacked by nearby employees (who, it turns out, are still loyal to the Empire). A transport tries to get away with the hyperdrive engine, with Hera chasing it in the Phantom (as seen on Rebels) with her crappy droid friend Chopper (Rebels), while Ahsoka has to find a goon sent by the bad guys.
I have no idea who this goon is, but he has an Inquisitor lightsaber (as seen on Rebels but also Obi-Wan Kenobi) and can use the Force, but Ahsoka doesn’t seem as confused by any of that as I am. The Inquisitors should definitely all be dead by this point, since they previously have only ever appeared in pre-A New Hope stories as far as I know, but maybe that will be explained later. (Again, it’s hard for me to care about the bad guys when I don’t understand what they’re doing or who they are.)
Up in the air, Hera and Chopper manage to attach a tracking device to the transport, even though The Last Jedi said that tracking a ship through hyperspace is impossible without specific technology, and they eventually get a signal back telling them where the bad guys are—which is orbiting some distant planet, building a giant ring of some sort that is apparently the Eye Of Sion.
As that is going on, Sabine decides to recommit herself to her Jedi training, so she pulls her Mandalorian armor and helmet out of storage and cuts her hair short. She calls Ahsoka and says she’s ready, and then goes to a monument that Lothal had set up to honor her and the other Rebels while she waits for Ahsoka. This scene is almost a shot-for-shot recreation of the end of Rebels, though Ahsoka is dressed a little different and it screws up the timeline a bit—because it’s implied that the Rebels scene is pretty much right after Return Of The Jedi, and this is at least several years after that, even though the people of Lothal have just now gotten around to setting up a monument honoring a group of heroes who saved the planet before the Galactic Civil War really kicked off.
But whatever. The good guys are back on good terms, and they’re ready to properly kick off this adventure.
Stray observations
- Hello! I’m Sam Barsanti. I’ll be piloting you through this whole season of Ahsoka. To start things off, I should say that I haven’t always been a huge fan of Ahsoka as a character. I think her existence caused unnecessary problems at first, but the way Clone Wars eventually solved that worked for me. I really liked how she was reintroduced in Rebels, but let’s just say that I was not a big fan of where (or should I say when?) the show took her after that. I’m still annoyed by the fact that she apparently sat out the whole Civil War, even though she could’ve been a big help to Luke Skywalker, but whatever.
- Is it weird that Hera hasn’t changed her clothes since Rebels? Ahsoka and Sabine get a few outfit changes, and I know the makeup and prosthetics on Mary Elizabeth Winstead are complicated, but it’s been so many years! Also, does she remember that she has a son? Or are we fully discounting the Rebels epilogue?
- And I’m sorry, I have to complain about this again: If tracking a ship through hyperspace is this easy, why is it such a big plot point in The Last Jedi? Ahsoka is insisting that we know who all of these characters are, but we’re supposed to ignore that? Are we to believe this is some sort of magic xylophone?
- We’re only two episodes in, but so far Dave Filoni has managed to include some sort of ancient temple in each one—a hallmark of his Star Wars stories. I’m going to keep track and see if he can maintain this streak.
213 Comments
Lifelong Star Wars fan and none of this makes me feel anything. I just don’t care. I think the one-two punch of TLJ and TROS really killed any interest I have in Star Wars, unless it’s independently great, which only Andor was.
Andor really is that lone candle of light left in the growing gloom of Star Wars becoming an endless content treadmill that doesn’t have anything to say about anything, other than filling in empty spaces on obscure Wookieepedia pages.
Yup. It’s really the only thing the franchise has going on that’s worth a damn.All the F/F shows just feel so same-same at this point. They’re so deeply boring and uninspired.
I saw an Ahsoka review today from Darren Mooney, in which he points to Star Wars moving from once drawing inspiration from outward to now going inward, as the franchise seems (with very few exceptions, Andor being one of them) to only be capable of referencing itself these days.And goodness, it was so spot on. What could have always been a universe of nearly limitless storytelling has turned into the snake eating its own tail.
Yeah, so true. The Mandalorian, which was hardly all that “original” in the first place, given that it was basically just Boba Fett in all but name partnered up with an even cuter Yoda, at least tried to forge its own identity at first, before eventually just becoming consumed with references and connections to other parts of the lore.Ahsoka is already there from the jump, a totally insular, for-fans-only enterprise that basically requires you to already be a huge devotee of some of the most obscure corners of the franchise to get anything out of it.
You and I tussled over the quality of the Mandalorian in the original reviews, but man if I haven’t come over to your side, especially on the points you’ve just made. The first season worked so well as its own thing, but as SOON as they started tying it into the Filoni mythology (i.e. as soon as the Darksaber appeared at the last moment of the first season), it just started going downhill. The best episodes of Star Wars media after have had the least to do with the mythology, and with less meddling on the part of Filoni: all of Andor, parts of Visions, the Migs Mayfield redemption episode in season 2, and maybe the weird Coruscant episode in Season 3. Even the next best thing, Obi-Wan (which was merely adequate punctuated with good moments), was really beholden only to mythology from the prequels, not Clone Wars. And while the prequels of course sucked, they’re at least are a bigger part of the cultural consciousness. you just need to know that Obi-wan probably has regrets about the way the Jedi, Republic, and his friendship with Anakin Skywalker ended. And it explores that pretty well, and at least attempts to be artful about it. You don’t need to re-read Cad Bane’s wiki page before or after the show to have a passably fun time with that show.But the rest was increasing only valuable (if that) in the idea of the story, and similar pleasure could be extracted from, well, as I said, reading the wiki pages about the shows. I mean, “What if Boba Fett tried to be a good guy mob boss?” is at least an initially intriguing idea. But it seems they thought the elevator pitch, connecting dots of cameos and “fun” and corporately synergistic references, was all the show actually needed in execution. As if the outline of a story was in itself all it takes to create a good film or episode of television. Aggressively journeyman storytelling.I mean, it’s not that these shows “require” you to know the canon as the review says, per se. It’s that there’s really nothing else there but the canon references (and to be fair, some of the performances) to value, so you better be the type that values the heck out of them if you want to enjoy these shows any more. Captain Crunch: Oops, All Memberberries.
Ha. Great comment. Though I certainly bitched about it at the time, I didn’t realize how good we had it with that first season of “The Mandalorian” before all the F/F content just crawled so far up its own ass.I mean, look at Book of Boba Fett. Suddenly, there’s this huge wookiee guy in there. Why? Who cares? Oh, he’s a fan favorite (ish) from the comics? So fucking what? And, at the last friggin’ ten minutes of the series, here comes Cad Bane? Why not? Who is this guy? Why is he being shoehorned into the story at this point? Ugh.
Stop with the damn cameos and callbacks, FFS.
And now Ahsoka only exists to continue the story of Rebels. But if you’re not a Rebels fan, tough shit. We’re pulling up the drawbridge. No more casual fans allowed.
If you got paid to bitch about Star Wars, you’d be quite the wealthy man.Despite how much you clearly dislike modern Star Wars, you seemingly can’t help yourself from watching every piece of SW content released (and then dutifully log on to AV Club to tell us all how terrible it is). Seems as though you’re either a glutton for punishment or have zero self control.
“I saw an Ahsoka review today from Darren Mooney, in which he points to Star Wars moving from once drawing inspiration from outward to now going inward”I can’t imagine how people write reviews of Star Wars properties and don’t realize that this has been Star Wars since the OT ended. Dark Empire was about a reborn Emperor making another super weapon!
Because dark empire was f*g shit for pussy little bit f*ggots like the rest of the EU. People who like that shit are the worst fucking people on earth. KYS f*ggot bitch
Lifelong Star Wars fan and I loved the first 2 episodes, personally. Hell, I don’t like Rogue One at all but that doesn’t stop me from really digging Andor.
If we all thought the same the world would be a boring place!
100%. There are dozens of us!
Christ, you are insufferable. But at least I know now not to ready any of your bs recaps of this show. “Crappy droid friend Chopper?” Are you an idiot?
Yesss, let the hate flow through you!
My favorite part is his apparently thinking Corellia is a brand new planet we’ve never heard of before.
It’s probably a typo and is supposed to read “scrappy”.
C-? You’re outta your mind. Both episodes are at least strong B+. I would go A grade but I’m penalizing them because Chopper didn’t get to murder anyone despite his best efforts. This idea about needing to be a SW expert to follow along is nonsense based on preconceived notions. I thought the show did a surprisingly good job laying out all the relevant information needed if you never saw Rebels or Clone Wars. I had those preconceived notions as well, figuring you’d need to see it all to get it. But you don’t. Now it does help and give you added appreciation and understanding if you have seen Rebels/CW, especially for emotional understanding, but emphasis is on the word “added”. These first two episodes establish the relationship between Ahsoka & Sabine. We get enough context to know that Ezra was someone important to them and there’s a chance they could save him. Also get enough of a tease of Thrawn that his threat is enough for the heroes to stop. And all the lore is done in a way that if you don’t want to think about it, its fine but if you want to explore more, you can. They pulled this off well, balancing the line between those who know all the SW canon leading up to this show and those that haven’t. Will the rest of the show keep the balance up and live up to its potential? Maybe, maybe not. But these two episodes were a great way to kick off the series.
And quick aside, I really liked the music throughout the episodes and the end credits. The Star Wars version of a punk song for Sabine on her speeder rocked.
Nah, Clone Wars and Rebels is required viewing for this series, and more than that, the viewer is expected to remember every last character name and plot detail of kids-oriented shows. I watched the first few seasons of Clone Wars and like five episodes of Rebels, so I knew the gist of who everyone was, but I was lost. They did a horrible job of establishing the character relationships and backstory for viewers who aren’t that familiar with the animated series.This is Rebels Season 5 and it’s incomprehensible for fans who mostly know the movies and Disney+ series. Filoni’s take on Star Wars is interesting to me, and he’s had some good ideas for expanding the universe, but I don’t like the central role in canon it’s starting to take on. The only required viewing should be the movies and maybe Mandalorian.
Nah, Clone Wars and Rebels is required viewing for this series, and more than that, the viewer is expected to remember every last character name and plot detail of kids-oriented shows.
The entire franchise is kid oriented.
Then Clone Wars is toddler oriented.
Eh, I have almost no knowledge of Clone Wars or Rebels, and I followed the first two episodes just fine.
Agreed, as an adult with the intelligence of a child.
Clone Wars is some of the best Star Wars media ever made, and at its peak is better than most of the movies. And I don’t just mean the bad movies. Rebels is not far behind. And if you just don’t have the time to watch those, there are about a hundred explainer articles online to get you up to speed, including on this very website.
kids-oriented shows.
…which belong to a kids-oriented franchise.
I’ve tried to watch Clone Wars but I just can’t get into it. I wonder if it’s a matter of how old you were when you first saw it
Nah, I got into it as an adult. The first season or 2 are rougher, once Ahsoka gets aged up and they get more into the war it turns into a really awesome war cartoon.I mean, check this:
my main problem with the clone wars is i just fundamentally don’t care what happened in the clone wars. though i did enjoy the jar jar binks/c3p0 team-up episode for the audacity of basing an episode around the two most annoying characters (and make it work).rebels i liked. overall i don’t think filoni was ready for the bright lights, and he thrived when he was working off lowered expectations and way longer season orders.
Had never seen an episode of either show and watched both in preparation for this. Loved both. Ezra took some time to get into, but otherwise great shows (though I liked Clone Wars more).
*me reading the comment before yours “that’s a good take”* immediately followed by your immature FOMO take lol. Nice.
I always get a kick out of people trying to insult someone else’s fandom by saying it’s “for children”. That in itself is childish hahaha.
Agreed. Was a big Clone Wars watcher, but didn’t watch Rebels save for some pivotal eps, and felt no connection to anyone. Was rolling my eyes at all the character reveals from Rebels in these two eps as if they were ‘big moments.’ It’s way too much fan service and not in a fun way.
“Filoni’s take on Star Wars is interesting to me, and he’s had some good ideas for expanding the universe, but I don’t like the central role in canon it’s starting to take on.”Lucas picked him to do this and Disney kept him on. If you don’t like it you don’t have to watch Star Wars.
Because Lucas famously NEVER fucked up Star Wars.Filoni shouldn’t be allowed within 5 million parsecs of live action. He is not just incompetent at it; he’s actively bad. Every episode of this series that he directed sucked ass and looked like fucking shit.And just for good measure, fuck you. Rope.
Haven’t seen a single episode of Clone Wars or the movie and had no problem following this. It’s not high literature.
This idea about needing to be a SW expert to follow along is nonsense based on preconceived notions. I thought the show did a surprisingly good job laying out all the relevant information needed if you never saw Rebels or Clone Wars.Hell, I only got MORE confused when I tried to look stuff up! ‘Cuz the Wookiepedia entry pretty clearly stated that the Witches of Dathomir were a non-spaceflight society that’s only been around for 600 years, so how did they have ancient ruins on other planets?
Do you mean the ancient ruins Elsbeth said were made by the people from the other galaxy?
Pretty sure they said the temple was built by a species from that other galaxy.
One of them was built by the Witches, the other was built by the civilization from another galaxy.
The part I imagine would be really jarring to people who have never seen the animated shows is the casual reveal of Sabine being a Mandalorian near the end of the first episode, when absolutely nothing about the group as we know them from Mando or Boba’s shows was indicated about her before that point. And even then, she has her suit back on an episode later so it’s pretty easy to put those pieces together.
Agreed. I haven’t seen Clone Wars or Rebels and didn’t feel like I was totally lost. Also, if Barsanti has a problem with someone going through an ancient temple to retrieve a mysterious orb, the importance of which isn’t explained until much later, he must’ve hated the first Guardians of the Galaxy.
The criticism of needing to have watched CW/Rebels is an odd one – not necessarily incorrect, but Star Wars is also founded on the idea of jumping into a serial several chapters in and trying to figure out what’s what on the fly. Heck there’s a strangely off-brand crawl at the top of the first episode which in theory should be everything you need to know.
“This isn’t a show that benefits from knowing everything that led up to it”
Bull fucking shit. I’ve seen multiple reviews that essentially call it a sequel to Rebels.
I do not care about how it fits into the lore. I do not care if there’s “homework required” or if someone who’s never heard of Star Wars can follow what’s going on. All I care about is this:Is the show narratively coherent? Am I going to be slapping my forehead every five seconds (a la Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi, most of Mando S2) because the dialogue, scene structure, and plot make no sense?
considering that someone somehow survived having a lightsaber inside her (basically becoming just a flesh wound), the forehead will probably get slapped…
At least this show made it a point to show that it was off to the side on the lower abdomen, unlike every other ridiculous lightsaber impaling we’ve seen people survive.
yeah and it looked like she was in the hospital for a while. QuiGon got it right in the center and was already physically worn down by that point.
We’ve had decades of movies and TV shows where sometimes people are shot with a gun and survive, and sometimes they are shot with a gun and die immediately. It depends on where you are shot. Same with lightsaber impalings.I was hoping for someone to say “A few centimeters to the left and you wouldn’t have survived” to Sabine, but it wasn’t required.
I mean, barely.
“C-”? Is the title sequence AI generated as well?
Just wanted to say there IS precedent for USING A TRACKING DEVICE on a ship and then following it through hyperspace. This was done by Obi-Wan to Jango Fett’s ship (the one we do not name) in Episode II. So that type of hyperspace tracking has been a thing for at least 20 years.What was done in The Last Jedi appears to be hyperspace tracking that did not require the use of a specific tracking beacon attached to the ship. Not sure how important the distinction was, but in The Last Jedi it seems like a step up, in that ships can be followed through hyperspace by knowing the coordinates of their jump, and not by affixing a separate tracking device to their ship.
You are correct. Sam is just an insufferable idiot.
Also, just remembered, in LITERALLY THE FIRST MOVIE OF THE ENTIRE FRANCHISE, A New Hope, a tracking device is what allows the Death Star to track the Millennium Falcon through hyperspace to find the location of the base on Yavin IV.
I was gonna make a snarky remark, but there’s a whole generation of viewers who potentially saw Attack of the Clones before the original Star Wars. I have no idea how many people that’s actually the case for, but it wouldn’t surprise me if their minds went to the tracking device in Episode II before the one in ANH.
I dunno why I arrived at AOTC first, I think I just grabbed at the first example that popped into my head. I think it’s happened several times across the franchise, but definitely the precedent was set in the very first installment.
Don’t they track the Millenium Falcon once it exits hyperspace? Isn’t the point that you can’t track a ship with a tracking beacon when it is in hyperspace, but once it exits you can track it?
It’s this exactly. Tracking devices are used all the time, via device to device communication. What happened in Last Jedi was a computer was able to calculate the hyperspace route the ship took based on the direction and perhaps more complicated factors, so it can be done without a tracking device being attached to a ship.
I watched all the series and even the shorts and I am still wondering where all these force using inquisitors were during order 66 and the jedi purge.
They did touch on the location of one Inquisitor in the Obi-Wan series.
yep the one but there are more just like the seemingly infinite number of jedi that survived order 66.
If only 1% of the Jedi who were around in the prequels survived Order 66, we’re still not close to all of them being accounted for. This joke is extremely played out.
Between Obi Wan, Yoda, Cal Kestis, Kanan and Ashoka, even if there were NO other Jedi, that should have been more than enough to make a frontal assault on Palps/Vader.The Jedi are chumps.
They’ve really abused the “they somehow escaped Order 66 and were in hiding” way of introducing new force user characters by this point. No argument.
The other commenters seem to think there is lots of room for argument.
How many do you think they’ve introduced that way? Because there were like 10k Jedi, if 100 of them survived we still haven’t met them all.
That’s where Phantom Menace still feels like a waste. Instead of space NASCAR we could have delved deeper into the workings of the Jedi with Anakin’s training at the center. There are “trials” mentioned but what happens to the trainees who fail? What’s the washout rate and where do they go after? Seems to think that there could be hundreds if not thousands of half-trained Force sensitives with the grudge against the Jedi out in the galaxy that the Sith or other forces of evil could exploit.
I liked space NASCAR, but when you put it that way, fuck, that sounds way more interesting.
I think if the Padawan fails the Jedi Knight training they become Jedi scholars or other functionaries.
yeah my main problem with the prequels is that they seem to take place in-between more interesting things. they constantly talk about ‘a prophecy’ but we never even learn what it is.
I remember seeing one page from a comic about the Clone Wars that explained it for me.“Some Jedi were skilled (insectoid Jedi has killed his clone attackers), some were lucky (human Padawan running away through a mist that the clones couldn’t see him through), but most simply weren’t that involved in the war (reptilian Jedi just walking down a street on a far away world).”The vast majority of Jedi survived Order 66.
Seemingly infinite? 🙄
I still wonder where they are during the original trilogy.
If we’re going by the logic established by Obi Wan, they had 2 options: 1 they switch sides and become inquisitors seeking out their former fellow Jedi or option 2 they may low, try to blend in and PRETEND not to be Jedi…
The Inquisitors didn’t exist until after Order 66. Most were Padawans who had been captured and tortured until they broke and embraced the Dark Side. By the time A New Hope rolls around almost all but a small handful were still alive (most had been killed either by surviving Jedi or Vader, who we all know was a pretty big dick to his subordinates).
I’m not writing that you’re wrong when I ask this, but how do you know that Padawans became the Inquisitors? Is that sourced anywhere cuz I’d like to learn more about it. Sounds interesting.
Jedi: Fallen Order, multiple books and comics, and official character profiles of the Inquisitors themselves stated as much.
I’ll check it out. Thx.
Most of the Inquisitors are post-purge (many were former Jedi, after all.)And while I hear you on the “seemingly infinite” number of Jedi, even if there were 100 Jedi running around (which there aren’t, I don’t think?), that’s still a 99% kill rate.
They all received an email the morning of Order 66.Don’t come into work today.Warmest Regards,
Not Darth Sidious
Inquisitors were bad guys created by the Sith after the Purge to track down remaining Jedi.
They were Jedi, other Force users that Vader found after Order 66, etc…
Shin absolutely isn’t old enough to have been a Padawan during the Purge. She’s a young Force-sensitive that was likely found by Baylon and/or Elsbeth, just as I’m sure there are others scattered throughout the galaxy.
Sam, they can’t just track where ships go when they jump into Hyperspace. That doesn’t mean they can’t put a tracking device on a ship and find it later. It’s not that difficult to parse. This happens with the Razor Crest in The Mandalorian…
It also happened in the first Star Wars ever. The Death Star used a tracking device on the Millennium Falcon to find the rebel base on Yavin IV. It’s literally always been a thing.
It happened with the Millennium Falcon in the first dang movie.
It’s been awhile since I saw TLJ but wasn’t the point that they ships couldn’t be tracked while they were in hyperspace, but once they came out of hyperspace then they could be?Same here. Once the ship came out of hyperspace then it could be tracked from the tracking beacons hid on it.
I thought the ep was fine. But my main feeling was just the injustice that Ray Stevenson left us way too soon.
I have no problem with the fact that the show is supposed to be an ostensible sequel to Rebels (which I haven’t seen), but the show itself doesn’t seem confident that it can exist without bending over backwards to be overly reverent of it. I’ve only watched the first episode, but it was very flat and kind of unengaging, mostly because it spent so much time slow panning over the Rebels mural or the drawings in Aksoka’s ship or feeling like it was nudging me with its elbow. It’s like they don’t trust to the audience to engage with our catch-up to the little bit of plot it actually had going on. For example, the last paragraph of the opening crawl was all about how Ahsoka captured Morgan, who was being transferred somewhere. Totally unnecessary bit that is covered in the first 5 minutes of the episode with Baylan’s rescue and Morgan’s subsequent dialogue. I’m a big boy Dave, you don’t have to spoonfeed me.It’s not bad, and already obviously has way more going for it than Book of Boba Fett, but it also feels like that meme of Obama putting the medal on himself.
Barsanti missed a lot of basic things. Some of the audience does need to be spoonfed.
Barasanti often misses a lot of things. No Star Wars fan would commit so many obvious lapses of knowledge. He even mentions the implausibility of tracking a ship, insisting the very idea was only introduced in The Last Jedi, TWICE, seemingly completely forgetting that the identical method of ship tracking was introduced in LITERALLY THE FIRST Star Wars property of any kind in 1977.
Oh no, you guys. This Star Wars show expects the viewer to like Star Wars. Terrible.
Yeah, I’m definitely getting Agents of SHIELD review vibes from this.
Agents of Shield was outright bad for multiple seasons and limped along with very few viewers for the rest. It also didn’t require you to watch 89 hours of other not very good tv shows.
Im not talking about the series. I’m talking about the early AV Club reviews that were preloaded with disdain for the show.
Tell me you only watched the first 2/3 of the first season of Agents of SHIELD without telling me you only watched the first 2/3 of the first season of Agents of SHIELD.
I haven’t seen any of the animated Clone Wars shows this is supposedly based on, and based on the importance they have for this show, I’m skipping it.Granted, I’m skipping any Star Wars related media that isn’t named Andor these days.
lol, I’m thinking the pushback divides fans into the categories “watches cartoons” and “doesn’t watch cartoons”, and the people who didn’t want to watch them are now feeling alienated that Ahsoka is the big thing this week. Ultimately they just are also in the mood for a new Star War so it’s just FOMO.
As a 90s kid with a podracer t-shirt in grade 1, I kindly ask, older fans, PLEASE GET OVER THE FACT THAT I’M ALSO PART OF THE FANDOM….. freakin’ gatekeepers. I’m not going to treat young adult fans of Star Wars this way when I’m 50+ and they’re doing episode 15 or whatever with Jar-Jar’s kids. Get oveeerrrrr it. So what if Ahsoka ends up delivering? Go shake fists at clouds. Shit.
No, it expects you to have memorized hundreds of episodes of ancillary content ahead of time otherwise you’re SOL.
I guess if you’re not great at picking up what’s going on in a show, sure. The first two episodes basically give you all the info you need. My parents haven’t watched Clone Wars or Rebels but they’ve been watching the live action stuff and are looking forward to this. If a couple of 70 year olds can figure out what’s going on, I think you probably can.
My wife purposely refused to watch the cartoons that I was watching over the last few months (I had never watched them before, only heard good things, everyone said it would help with Asohka). I watched Ep. 1 and 2 of Asohka last night to avoid spoilers, but I will go back and watch them with my wife now because she does enjoy the live action shows. She will be an interesting test case as to whether she feels lost or not.
“Following it” and finding it entertaining are two very different things. Yes, I can follow the show just fine and I suspect even 70-year-old newcomers can. Because the show is filled with boring-ass exposition ladled out in the most unimaginative fashion posssible.Yes, I know the “facts” that the story lays its foundation on, but that doesn’t make it compelling or interesting as much as a show that didn’t require oodles of exposition and could just tell a fresh, original story could.
This is somewhere between hyperbole and utter nonsense. These stories really aren’t that complicated.
Watched all of Clone Wars, none of Rebels. Here’s my take:This show really cooks when there’s a speeder chase or the villains are on screen. Rosario Dawson is a good actor so this performance devoid of any personality is certainly A Choice and unfortunately makes Ahsoka the least interesting part of Ahsoka.For Rebels agnostics like myself, these episodes weren’t incomprehensible so much as inert at times. Many of the quieter moments revolve around people mourning a character (Ezra) that I have absolutely no attachment to.The cat was cool.
I’d listen to whatever band was playing when Sabine was on her bike. That song ricked.That said, a couple of my coworkers are “casual” Star Wars fans and both of them were utterly confused. My designer said she wasn’t going to do homework to be able to enjoy a TV show.I’m willing to let the show breathe – we don’t need to know everything about every character’s motivation RIGHT NOW. In fact I found Shin’s reactions to the goings on to be indicative of not being totally on board. But the random inquisitor was confusing, and Ahsoka’s relationship to the New Republic wasn’t even touched. I sort of feel like these were mystery box misses.
Counter-point: I’ve seen the movies (loved half of them) loved Andor, liked Obi-Wan, read the Thrawn trilogy, and never watched more than a handful of the first season of Clone Wars and none of Rebels. I literally had no problem understanding what was going on. It also sounds like you’re simultaneously dragging the show for requiring you to know stuff, while poking fun at it when it takes time to make explicit exposition, and grumbling when you weren’t sure about a relationship or personality. I thought it was well acted with decent characters, found a space that feels familiar while still a little new. There’s a Macguffin and coordinates driving a plot forward, classic SW mainstays. I also enjoyed the strong visual nods to The Phantom Menace (despite being in my 20s when that movie came out and absolutely hating that film).I don’t want to come off as a SW defender, because there’s plenty of SW material I don’t like (and some I detest), but this review just reads like coming up with a C- grade and then clinging onto a theme to justify that take. I don’t think grading on a curve is good all the time, but after The Book of Boba Fett, and the last The Mandalorian season, SW fans should be psyched this is shaking out as good as it is so far.
Is it weird that Hera hasn’t changed her clothes since Rebels?No one apparently had a problem when Han didn’t change his clothes between Return of the Jedi and Force Awakens.
Barsanti wasn’t there to ogle Han.
She has a dumb leather jacket now. Just as TFA Han acquired one he didn’t previously have.
Because he wasn’t wearing an impossibly-cut bomber jacket with fucking bright orange overalls.Try not to be so fucking r*tarded
My one and only complaint is how boring Ahsoka herself has become. I know she’s meant to be “older and wiser” than the bubbly kid “Snips” from Clone Wars. I’m fine with a little battle-weary kind of grumpiness – not unlike the sequels-era Han Solo. And I know she experienced some serious trauma and loss during Order 66, like all the Jedi. But come on! She used to at least be interesting, and was always ready with a quippy comeback like “You’ll find I have many qualities for you to dislike.” I hope this adventure can loosen her up a bit. Love Rosario Dawson, but this take on Ahsoka is just… lacking so far.Drinking game: if you take a shot every time she crosses her arms pensively you’ll be dead before the end of the first two episodes.
This. The charisma ranking so far goes: 1) Ray Stevenson 2) Nat Bordizzo 3) The Loth Cat 4)-6) Long windswept gap 7) Inosanto 8) Winstead trying mightily to get into this thing … 9) Okay now Rosario DawsonAt least I came away with feeling assured that Bordizzo has the Star Wars Hero “it.” She’s good and thank The Maker for small blessings. Hopefully, the series is building to an emotional break where Sabine can vent and Ahsoka can lighten up.
Ahoska in live action might as well be an entirely different character. They feel totally different (to the live action version’s detriment.)
I think she saw a lot of shit in the World Between Worlds.
It amazes me how little the first and second episodes even attempted to make the case for Ahsoka being the main character. The main emotional throughline is Ezra’s disappearance, and Ahsoka doesn’t have much of a personal connection with Ezra, Sabine does. And Sabine was given far more personality and more of an arc in these two episodes than Ahsoka. Why isn’t the show called “Sabine,” or “Rebels 2?” The only reason so far seems to be that Ahsoka is the more well-known and marketable character. And yes, as much as I like Rosario Dawson, she’s giving prequel-level, Tamuera Morrison-in-Book-of-Boba-Fett level acting, and considering how hard she campaigned for this role, it’s amazing how little she’s emoting. I mostly blame the writing for giving her nothing to play, but she’s also doing nothing to elevate it. I remember so many people arguing that Ashley Eckstein didn’t have the chops to reprise the role in live action, and I bought that then, but now? She couldn’t possibly be worse, and there’s been no actual acting ability required of the character so far.
If I recall correctly, she was fully headed in this direction throughout Rebels. Nonetheless, it’d be nice if she wasn’t so stoic and showed some of the more fun traits she had in earlier iterations of the character.
I really appreciate these reviews and enjoy reading them but-C- is an awfully tough grade for this. I thought the two shows were well done with some decent action and good character development. I am also content with not knowing everything about the stakes in the first eighty minutes of the series, and allowing it to build a little.I also don’t think preparing to watch this is the massive lift it is being made out to be. I am biased because I loved Star Wars Rebels (and liked most of Clone Wars) and am thrilled the story is going to continue, but I thought Ahsoka did a really good job of explaining the basics of what was going on between the characters. My wife and my Mom did not watch Rebels (I binge watched it with my kids during COVID!), and they followed Ahsoka fine. But even if you believe you MUST watch Rebels to know every detail of what is happening: It is four seasons of 10-15 episodes that are 20 minutes each. I am not telling anyone how to spend their valuable time. I am saying that if folks feel this is a homework assignment that is a barrier to entry (which, again, I don’t think it is), it is not a very long assignment.I agree that Sabine and Ahsoka suddenly being Master and Padawan was strange. That came out of nowhere for the character of Sabine, and I wish they had chosen another driver for the conflict between the two of them. But a C-? Not for me. I think the series is off to a good start.
If a “C” grade means “average,” a C- means slightly below average. If the interpersonal drama is as inert as Barsanti says, that hardly sounds like a harsh grade to me.
I pretty clearly disagreed with Barsanti about the state of the interpersonal drama, at one point in my post specifically stating that I thought the character development was good in the episode. Opinions differ of course, but I don’t agree with the review so I don’t take your point. He wrote a review, he is entitled to his opinion, I think his review was harsh on what I thought were two good episodes.
a) what makes you think people need to be reminded of how letter grades work?
b) why even comment if you haven’t watched what is being discussed?
Agreed. The first two episodes deserve better than a C+ for the production value alone. Ashoka still appears to be a step below Andor but is way above something like Obi-Wan in that regard. It make me immensely satisfied when, after Sabine is stabbed, the bad lady (Shin Hati apparently) immediately moves in for the kill but is temporarily rebuffed by Sabine’s wild lightsaber swinging for a moment which buys her just enough time to get rescued. It’s refreshing to see one of these D+ Star Wars shows (other than Andor) have some urgency to it. And bonus points for the fight scenes looking so good too.
As someone who is a Star Wars expert, honestly, I’m just bewildered by some of the choices made in this series. Rules established previously in other movies or shows just don’t seem to matter anymore under Disney.
If you care about “the rules” of the SW universe you’re a fucking idiot.Seriously. You’ve gotta be severely r*tarded
Have they ever given Barsanti a show to watch where they didn’t have to clarify “btw I don’t like the core foundation of this whole project”
Just watched it, LOVED IT. Grew up on the prequels (and separately, Rosario Dawson), I’ve seen all of Clone Wars.
I’m so satisfied.
I think with the clothes they need to present the characters as similar to how they dressed on the show the first or second time they appear before they start changing the outfits, to help ease fans into the jump from animated to live-action.
As someone who has seen everything required to enjoy this show, I love this, I understand that it’s alienating to other fans of the larger franchise, but I don’t care.
Aside from Barsanti not being caught up on Clone Wars, did this review really deserve such a low grade…? What about the viewers who see this as a feature not a bug. C’mon Sam, higher standards or it’s AI Barsanti.
And I’m sorry, I have to complain about this again: If tracking a ship through hyperspace is this easy, why is it such a big plot point in The Last Jedi?They meant active tracking without some kind of tracker. Even in the early movies, Han references some sort of tracker and they pick up the signal after the ship exits hyperspace.
Was just going to say, this is a major plot point in A New Hope. It’s how Vader tracks the the Falcon to Yavin IV.
I was beginning to think I’d imagined that major plot point from the original movie..!
Are you saying you expect Barsanti to have watched A New Hope? That’s like forcing him to do homework!
Yeah, came here to say this. It’s not super complicated. It’s kind of like the difference between giving a car a 10 minute head start in a large city and then trying to work out where it’s gone, or giving the same car a 10 minute head start and then trying to work out where it’s gone, but you’ve thrown your iPhone in the back seat and can call the “Find my phone” map up.I think the idea probably developed through the early X Wing PC games, but I think the people making the content realised “Hyperspace normally = getting away” really is sort important for most of Star Wars to make any kind of sense. The Rebels were always a numerically inferior force, so if they could just have been traced back to a point of origin every time they raided a convoy or something, the Empire presumably would have squashed them pretty fast (how could they have even had hidden bases?) In this way the fact that The Last Jedi has this new tech that allows them to do it (without a tracking device on the ship) actually makes a lot of traditional Star Wars scenarios sort of impossible after that point in the timeline.
And also ships have been tracked like this throughout Star Wars. It has happened A LOT.
I watched cartoons when I was a kid on Saturday mornings. This was in the 1970’s. The Laffolympics were the culmination of all the Hanna Barbera cartoons. In the ensuing decades, I have yet to hear an outcry to make any of these cartoons “live action.” There’s a reason for that. Spoiler Alert: It’s because they were cartoons.
I’d kill for a live-action Hanna Barbara shared universe that culminates in an Avengers-style Laffalympics.
Sir, there are two live-action Flintstone and Scooby Doo movies, a Yogi Bear movie, and others that I’m sure I’m forgetting about.
You know what’s pathetic is thinking one is “too good” or “too adult” to watch a cartoon.
Aside from my love of the prequels, I admit that as a preteen, the scene in Rent where Rosario Dawson is crawling on the floor singing about candle wax was something of a sexual awakening for me, and that continued into my later teens with roles like the one she played in Clerks II. So this show is really hitting niche for me and I assume this experience of mine isn’t unique.
Rosario Dawson = older sister’s hot friend vibes.
I’m just glad the show is continuing the commitment to showing the New Republic as a total shitshow that can’t get a single thing effectively done, and it’s a miracle they weren’t wiped out long before Force Awakens.
So, the baddies have three Force users, and the goodies have two, one of which definitely isn’t a full Jedi. Dare I ask if they even discuss reaching out to that other Jedi wandering around? The one that dominated an episode of the Boba Fett series for some reason? Let alone his sister, who is also maybe doing her Jedi training at this point?(Or, are we just supposed to assume that they assume he’s too busy babysitting Grogu, not knowing that he already sent Grogu off into the middle of a gang war? Or, does this take place in the time when he actually was babysitting Grogu?)
I assume it will come up later since it’s only the second episode and we’ve already established that CGI Luke is an abomination.
I wouldn’t mind a recast if necessary; I’m just asking for some consistency in his role in this time period. Either Ahsoka’s in regular contact with him, or she isn’t. Since we’ve seen that she is, why wouldn’t she at least give him a call before going off on a matter of potential grave importance? And if she did give him a call, couldn’t she at least have mentioned that? (Not to mention CGI Luke would look just fine in a static-y blue hologram, if they wanted to show the call.)
I think this show is doing some timeline fudgery. It’s possible that it is taking place directly after the Mando S2 episode about Ahsoka and Morgan and Ahsoka has not yet connected with Luke. Based on what I know about how jacked the Clone Wars chronology it would not surprise me.
I couldn’t get into the animation style of the cartoons so have never seen them. Obviously know a bit about who Ahsoka is. Wasn’t hard to get the gist of this premiere, as they did a lot of table setting for people like me. Possibly at the expense of more interesting things happening in the first 2 episodes.
But now that’s over with, hopefully the plot of the series can kick off from here.
The fact that this review mentions Corellia and didn’t immediately discuss Han Solo or the Millennium Falcon surprised me.
So Corellia is where Han is from, and was featured heavily at the start of that movie they made about Han, including that it was a shipyard for the Empire. We’ve known Han was Corellian since 1977.The hyperspace tracking thing is that they can’t track a ship while it’s in hyperspace, but a beacon attached to a ship can send a ping out about that ship after it comes back out of hyperspace, which wasn’t useful in The Last Jedi because the First Order couldn’t get close enough to attach one to any of the rebel ships. Did you assume that going through hyperspace just breaks all communication equipment? We see lots of people use radios and tracking devices and stuff after they come out of hyperspace. How did you think those tracking things on Mandalorian worked?
Baylan said something like “Marrok is helping us get the last pieces ready for the Eye of Sion” and then we cut to a guy whose name we don’t know but is working with Baylan and Shin, and he is helping to get a piece of the Eye of Sion. Do you need to raid a secret temple for a map here? That’s Marrok. That guy with the inquisitor saber is Marrok. Like, how much of your grade is based on your glaring inability to remember shit from one second to the next?
Oh and if it helps they’re almost certainly covering Marrok’s face and not letting him talk because they want us to guess that’s he’s mind-wiped Ezra Bridger.
Dude! If you called it, I’m gonna say “This dude called it.”
Perhaps, but wasn’t Ezra banished with Thrawn?If Marrok is indeed Ezra, that implies that Ezra was able to get back from banishment. And if Ezra came back, why couldn’t Thrawn come back? Why all of this map stuff, then? I don’t think Morgan is lying about feeling Thrawn’s presence in a whole other Galaxy. Unless that stuff Morgan was saying about time and space means she felt him there in another time (past, present or future).
I guess we’ll see…
I thought the ending was sort of ambiguous, the space whales just trapped them both in a bubble and went to hyperspace, right?
Anyway I have no idea if that’s Ezra in there, that’s not even a theory of mine really. I just think they want us to speculate that it might be, and that’s why they went with faceless no-talking lightsaber man.
Yeah, didn’t the Empire do that exact same thing to the Millennium Falcon in the original Star Wars…?
“a beacon attached to a ship can send a ping out about that ship after it comes back out of hyperspace, which wasn’t useful in The Last Jedi because the First Order couldn’t get close enough to attach one to any of the rebel ships.”Except for that whole squadron of fighter led by Kylo Ren that absolutely could have tossed several trackers onto the Resistance ships while strafing them up close, during which Leia was blown out into space. But we’re talking TLJ, a movie that’s spectacularly incoherent from start to finish, so sure, we can pretend to go with what you said if you like. 🙂
That all happened after they had already actively tracked them. There was no need.
Oh, you’re one of the incels who hated Last Jedi. Quickest way to get everything you have to say ignored.
Yeah TLJ had the First Order using ballistic weapons in space and Holdo’s whole plan involved the First Order just sort of not actually watching the Resistance ships they were chasing, it’s not a particularly ‘good’ film.
KYS
Last Jedi order of events:1. Opening battle where Poe gets all the Resistance bombers blown up. The remaining Resistance ships jump to hyperspace. No First Order ship gets close to the Resistance starships.
2. They emerge from the jump. The First Order follows, having tracked them through hyperspace without any beacon. Ren then launches and strafes the Resistance flagship, which you refer to.The tracking occurred before the event you identify as enabling them to attach a beacon. That might make nonsense of the attempt to disable the hyperspace tracker on the Supremacy, because that doesn’t guarantee the First Order couldn’t still find them afterward, but your complaint relies on a misremembering of the order of events.Speaking of misremembering, I’m amused Barsanti wonders about the hyperspace tracking here in reference to Last Jedi but seems to have completely forgotten how the Empire tracks the Falcon in the original movie.
Oops, okay, point taken, then. (Though why the First Order didn’t deploy any fighters during said opening battle to both fight and launch tracking beacons is another matter.)
“Speaking of misremembering, I’m amused Barsanti wonders about the hyperspace tracking here in reference to Last Jedi but seems to have completely forgotten how the Empire tracks the Falcon in the original movie.”
I was waiting for someone to mention this. It’s not like it’s the entire reason the third act of one of the biggest movies in history occurs or something.
And Obi-Wan tracking Jango Fett in AOTC…
The whole “you can’t track through hyperspace” was invented later and really doesn’t add up. There is, mercifully, a moment in Clone Wars where someone jumps into hyperspace and the pursuing ships say, “don’t worry, I tracked their trajectory” or something and they were able to follow. Which makes sense.
Jesus Christ! Can we get someone to review this that has a chance to enjoy something?
Counterpoint: I think C- is too generous. Everything about this project, from the color palette to the dialogue delivery, is utterly lifeless. I can only assume Filoni wanted to pay homage to the prequels by making the writing, acting, staging and pacing as stitled and awkward as possible. Or maybe he saw Andor and thought leaving every pause for 5x longer than necessary makes it more dramatic. As someone who’d give Mando S1 and 2 a B and 3 a C, Obi Wan and Boba a B-/C+ and Andor an A-, this is in firm D territory for me. Glad others enjoyed it, though.
Andor made the fatal mistake of boring me. This was at least interesting enough to keep watching.
Your taste is terrible. Rethink your life.
OK, Dedra Meero.
My only problem with your comment is that it’s way to generous to Boba Fett. That show was a D at best.
I’ve only seen the first episode so far, but everything about this screams low-rent to me.Stilted expository dialogue delivered at a snail’s pace. Set pieces that just don’t look like any thought was put into them (look, we’re racing down a giant, pristine mega-highway that goes nowhere of interest and apparently nobody else uses!). Bottom-shelf, uncanny CG (seriously, those droids at the beginning would have look okay on my PS3. How does the CG actually get worse over time???).I want to love this stuff. I really do. I want to feel like a teenager again. But the shows need to meet me half-way on this. Mandalorian S1 managed to do it, before it got all roped up in its own lore the way so many of the shows that followed it did.
I really liked it, overall. Production-wise it has a level of craft and quality that makes Obi-Wan and BOBF retroactively look like a high school play. Was weird (in a good way) to see Lothal in live-action, and the throwback to the blue-collared Rebel/New Republic uniforms was a fun nod. When the action gets going (and more specifically with the Hera/Chopper stuff in episode 2) it starts to feel like good Star Wars fun.The map felt like Filoni took the worst McGuffin lessons away from JJ Abrams. So the Nightsister/governor knew a map existed and couldn’t get it, yet simultaneously knew it led to Thrawn? How? we’re supposed to be invested in a fight they had that neither of them want to talk about and that was never depicted onscreenI’m going to assume at some point it was decided there would be a master/apprentice Dark Jedi pair, so Ahsoka needed an apprentice to thematically match, which resulted in this weird falling out/reconnecting with Sabine.
Can we get an episode where Hera sings?
Woah. Big Dan the Automator fan and have never heard of this project until today.
The whole album is solid
Thanks for the mention of said album. I downloaded both the album and the instrumentals for the album last week and dug what I’ve heard so far.
Grade is spot on. This was worse than I was expecting and my expectations were LOW. Just so bad on so many levels…..
Just what I expected from someone whose every comment during The Mandalorian season one was “This show is stupid, you’re all stupid for loving this, and you’ll eventually agree with me!”
Sigh. Are you Dave Filoni? If not, why are you stressing? I never once insulted ANYONE for liking a show. I did, however, insult the actual show.Why do you care? Why do you take everything so personally? Examine your life. You’re clearly way, way, way too attached to this nonsense to get so bent out of shape because some rando on the internet deigns to have a differing opinion from yours. Let. It. Go.
You didn’t need to be a Star Wars expert. The Mandalorian in it’s last episodes of last season helped set up Ahsoka.Lots of things could have happened.Sabine could have grabbed her light saber sooner, chopped off the droid who stole the maps arm and stopped him from stealing it.Sabine could have gone low during her fight with the Sith lady and riposted her sooner and ended the fight at that point. Sabine could’ve used the force to grab the map back from them thus negating the fact that they even stole it.None of these things however happened. For whatever reason our deuteragonist was given the hero ball and idiot plotting rules the day… Despite it should be noted being warned by our protagonist not to take the map from ship… She did it anyway AFTER promising not to.
RIP Terry Funk he should have been in Star Wars.
I started coming to the AV Club back when they were doing reviews of Rebels while it aired. The in depth look at each episode matched to the shared joy of watching made for the perfect review website, and I have stayed ever since even though those good reviewers have long since fled for greener pastures and now we have reviewers who are bad at their jobs, and left to do them on purpose because arguing with idiots drives more clicks and ad revenue.This is going to be a painful two months as all the commenters once again have to point out everything the reviewer missed, misunderstood, or decided to be petty about with no reason.
I miss the old AV Club.
Yeah, I consider myself a Star Wars fan (though not hardcore, like I am w/Trek or Marvel), but even I was struggling to give a crap during the first two episodes, any time Ahsoka wasn’t on the screen. Winstead and Brown are good actors, but were given little to do, and literally everyone else was just kind of… blah. Especially when it came to some of the LEAST threatening Sith I’ve ever seen. The villains are, as the kids would say, Mid.
“Lothal has good medical facilities”.Medical droid: What’s the problem here?Ahsoka: A lightsaber wound through the chest. Can you help her?Medical droid: Of course. I was worried it was something fatal, like being sad.
Since when is the lower abdomen “the chest”?
Well, finally a useful review.As someone who used to be a fan and checked out a bit ago, this answers the question I needed to know – should I dedicate time to watching it.This review gives the answer in big glaring subheader warnings – no. No I should not.This earns Barsanti one theriouthly methed up thpelling mithtake in the future.One.
So it’s a “useful review” because it goes along with your preconceived notions of a show you haven’t even watched?
Given Barsanti’s track record on this website, his review here should tell everyone that they should watch this show.
Marrok IS the Inquisitor goon. Baylan says “Marrok will complete his task” and it .. cuts to him.
Like… use your EYES… to watch the SHOW.
I really just hate Ahsoka’s head-tentacle things. I don’t know if her species had been in the franchise before Clone Wars, and I didn’t watch every single CW episode so maybe I just missed one explaining they’re tentacles, but I interpreted them as just being a wild hairstyle that just liked kinda solid because that was the art style of the animation so everyone’s hair kinda looked solid that way, but now in live-action they’re so smooth and it bothers me every time I see them. They just look… off. And it’s weird because Hera has the same kinda tentacles on her head and those don’t bother me a bit.
There was a Jedi of Ahsoka’s species who was one of the non-speaking Jedi in the background of the prequel trilogy. (although she did apparently have a speaking scene – where she’s killed by Grievous – that wound up on the cutting room floor.)
Welp, there’s the egg on my face that I figured was coming. Hoisted by my own petard…
That would be Shaak Ti.
While we’re talking about tracking, the tracking fobs the bounty hunters used in Mandalorian also seemed to be way too powerful
Didn’t Mandalorian force Grogu to choose between being a mandalorian and a Jedi. Yet Sabine can be both?
Sabine’s answering to Ahsoka, not Luke (who, it would appear thus far, considers himself more of a Jedi, at least in terms of dogma, than Ahsoka does— even though she’s probably more qualified lol)
Did you notice that Sabine had all of her Mandalorian armor disassembled and hidden in bags and boxes in her home? She obviously had given up being a Mandalorian years ago – likely when she started her Jedi training.
Did we see the same episodes? I found it very entertaining. I was only a casual Clone Wars/Rebels viewer and have probably seen less than a third of them ( I hadn’t seen the final seasons of either) and I had no problem following the story. To me, it seems the most classically Star-Warsy(?) of the TV shows especially after the more grounded Andor. It looks great, has lots of Force action (even though nobody wants to be called a Jedi), nice pacing, great performances and a space kitty. What more do you want?
Ok Episode 4 A New Hope establishes that ships can be tracked after a hyperspace jump if a tracking device is attached when the Death Star tracks the Falcon to Yavin 4, its then repeated in Episode 2 Attack of the Clones when Obi-Wan attaches a tracker to Jango Fett’s ship.
And in The Last Jedi the First Order were tracking the New Republic ship, thats why they couldn’t just hyperspace away.
More than anything I found it incredibly boring. Are we really supposed to feel excitement when Jedi are fighting nameless robots that we know are going to lose? And once again, someone has a lightsaber pushed through them but they are all healed up by the next episode…I tried, but its over for Star Wars and me. Disney has taken all of the joy out of it and made it just another endless series of shows that go no where.
There are decades of movies and shows where people are shot with guns and some survive and some don’t, depending on where you are shot. Why should lightsaber impalings be any different?
Because now EVERYONE survives. The tiniest little blast with a gun kills all the bad guys but a large laser being plunged inside you at point blank range apparently is no big deal.
This show is deeply bad on so many levels and while first and foremost, it’s a failure of writing and overall concept, I’m going to complain about the characters.And I’m going to complain about the performances, which I rarely do, since it seems mean to gang on up actors and because they don’t always have final say in how their performances are modulated.But what the hell is with this version of Ahsoka? I was utterly unimpressed with her on Mando/BOBF, but now that she’s headlining a show, there’s just no excuse for it. I know she’s supposed to be older and wiser than the character we knew in Clone Wars, but she’s practically a zombie.Ahsoka was spunky and full of life and energy. Dawson’s performance has none of that. She seems determined to play her consistently in one mode, bored detachment. She floats through the show, barely reacting to anything, barely seeming to care about anything that’s happening or anyone she interacts with.And then there’s Hera. Hera is my favorite character in SW animation. And I was very worried about the casting, because I’ve always felt MEW was a limited actress (fight me.) And, boy, were my fears justified.She hasn’t established anything approaching a take or personality here. She’s just….there. She also barely reacts and seems to have no function in the narrative whatsoever other than “friend” and mediator between Sabine and Ahsoka. She’s utterly superfluous so far, without a point of view or purpose.And her look is positively atrocious. Her costumes seem like bargain basement Walmart duds, the make-up is terrible, her head tails are lifeless. She wears a general’s badge droopily from her leather jacket, but it fails to evoke the image of a badass pilot and just looks sloppy and thrown together. Her pants look like crappy orange cargo pants, not the half a pilot jumpsuit they originally were.
Sabine is, thus far, marginally better, but only barely. But so much of the show is just poorly thought out. It’s supposed to be a big, cool badass moment when Sabine dons her mando armor again. And then, moments later, she announces she’s ready to become a Jedi padawan again. But wouldn’t putting Mandalorian armor on signal that you absolutely don’t want to become a Jedi? Wouldn’t that be the exact opposite thing you’d do?Oy…..
Keep being consistent! Hate a new Star Wars show immediately and tell everyone that if they like they’re wrong. Like you Mandalorian S01 comments I hope you continue to tell everyone how wrong they are that like this and that they’ll eventually realize that you were right all along.
i rarely agree with Barsanti, but i agree 100% this time. it’s not BAD, it’s just…there. i liked Rebels just fine, i watched it once years ago, i only sort of remember the fine details. so all the callbacks and running plot threads are just flat for me. but there are other things that bother me.
Hera doesn’t work in live action. I’m not optimistic about Disney letting a live-action Chopper murder a bunch of people (and, not for nothing, i don’t necessarily want to see an ostensibly heroic character murdering a bunch of people). the pacing is atrocious; each episode was too long by half for no reason other than Filoni letting what should be a 30 second scene stretch to 3 minutes.and this may just be me, but the score just took me right out of it. it wants so badly to be John Williams. but in reality it feels half like an AI tried to do John Williams, and half like a sitcom—the “here is the music so you know this is a funny moment, please chuckle” beats are painfully on the nose.
in sum, this is what we get for letting Dave Filoni believe he’s the one true heir to the Lucas legacy, the Luke to George’s Anakin. it’s self-indulgent, overwrought and while it’s screaming from the top of its lungs that THIS IS THE SHOW YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR STAR WARS NERDS THIS ONE HERE IT IS BUY THE TOYS SUB TO D+, screaming does not make it so.
it’s fine. it’s not bad, it’s certainly not great (so far), it’s..fine.
“I can get on board with being invested in these characters, because I saw and mostly enjoyed Rebels,
but now we’re supposed to be invested in a fight they had that neither
of them want to talk about and that was never depicted onscreen, all so
they can beat bad guys who we don’t know anything about.”Man you just get so confused when everything isn’t spelled out for you, right?“If tracking a ship through hyperspace is this easy, why is it such a big plot point in The Last Jedi?”Tracking a ship through hyperspace is that easy, TLJ is a bad movie. Johnson has no idea how Star Wars tech, the First Order uses ballistic weapons in space. Don’t base anything in Star Wars off of TLJ…in fact, forget the sequel trilogy exists.
Meh, WW2 style dogfights in space don’t work either but here we are still doing it.
IRL they don’t work but on screen they look just fine. If you want realistic space battles, The Expanse has you covered.
That was exactly my thought about the arcing ‘lasers’ in TLJ. Largely because I got over seeing bending lasers in G.I. Joe and the Transformers movies when I was a kid.
There’s dramatic music that implies you’re supposed to know what this is, but it’s not until later in the episode that Ahsoka bothers to explain that it’s a map to where Thrawn and Ezra areLiterally explains that in the opening crawl. Did you watch the show?
I’m confused., are these reviews or recaps? I skimmed the article, but because I haven’t seen the episodes yet, I can read it fully. Is the idea I come back after watching it, so unclear whether AVClub recommends it or not.
I’ve barely seen any Clone Wars and none of Rebels so it actually made everyone seem 20% more interesting to me, I didn’t know what was a reference or what was new. Reminded me of being a kid and watching A New Hope and getting the sense of this whole backstory I haven’t seen.
Typical AV Club fucknuttery, I see.
If you don’t like the character Ahsoka, why the fuck are you reviewing the show about it?! JFC
Up in the air, Hera and Chopper manage to attach a tracking device to the transport, even though The Last Jedi said that tracking a ship through hyperspace is impossible without specific technology
A specific technology, like a tracking device. This was a vital plot point in A New Hope, it’s how the Empire found the rebel base.
“Hello! I’m Sam Barsanti. I’ll be piloting you through this whole season of Ahsoka.”Well, this is the last time I’m coming here for an Ahsoka recap.
“even though The Last Jedi said that tracking a ship through hyperspace is impossible without specific technology”It seemed clear to me that they tracked the ship once it exited hyperspace and arrived at its destination. Didn’t TLJ say that tracking a ship *while* it was in hyperspace was impossible?