Ahsoka recap: How can constant lightsaber fights feel this dull?
In an episode with a great ending, the ceaseless battles are much less interesting than the scenes of people talking
TV Reviews Lightsaber
Things are happening on Ahsoka now, or at least they just started happening and then the episode ended—but that at least makes for a more engaging viewing experience than some of the previous episodes of this show. Exciting things happened to our two main characters (sorry, Hera and Huyang), which means I’m excited to see what happens next week, but, unfortunately, next week is next week. Let’s start with this week.
The episode kicked off right where the previous episode ended, with Ahsoka, Sabine, and Huyang desperately trying to repair their ship before Morgan Elsbeth and the Bad Guys find where they are. Or, rather, Sabine and Huyang are trying to repair the ship while Ahsoka looks off into the distance and thinks about things (Jedi, am I right?). Ahsoka figures that stopping Thrawn is more important than anything, even rescuing Ezra, so if it comes down to it, they should try and destroy the map before the Bad Guys can use it. Sabine pointedly does not comment one way or the other.
But there’s no time for that because the Elsbeth’s henchmen have found them, and while Elsbeth is like “cool, kill them and let’s get going,” Baylan is a little more worried about the resilience of two Jedi (or one Jedi and a woman who just has a lightsaber), so he sends Shin to make sure the job gets done. The henchmen start by trying to take out Huyang, setting up a delightful Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots battle. I don’t know if it makes sense that the assassin droids wouldn’t just shoot Huyang or whatever, but it’s a fun moment.
The hubbub draws out Ahsoka and Sabine (in her Mandalorian armor), and the two pretty effortlessly wipe out the enemy droids using awesome, well-choreographed teamwork moves. This fight scene, while quick, was a blast. Sabine is shooting guys, using the grappling hook on her armor to swing them around and move around quicker, while Ahsoka uses the Force to toss guys into the blaster fire of other guys.
It’s a good fight that works so well that I couldn’t help but wonder why Ahsoka insists on teaching Sabine to be a Jedi anyway. She doesn’t like it, she’s not good at it, Ahsoka doesn’t like teaching her, and it’s not as interesting to watch. So, naturally, Sabine almost immediately whipped out her lightsaber in the next fight scene, when her and Ahsoka are confronted by Shin and the mysterious Marrok.
Sabine calls dibs on Shin while Ahsoka starts fighting Marrok, and other than Marrok doing the wacky spin move that Inquisitor lightsabers can do (it looks cool here in live-action than it ever did on Rebels), this fight scene was a dud. Just batting lightsabers around in a dark forest, something we’ve seen a million times in Star Wars. Luckily, one very noteworthy thing happens: Ahsoka slices Marrok in the chest, and they…burst open in a cloud of gas? It’s so weird and unexpected that everybody stops and just reacts for a moment.
If that’s a thing from Star Wars, I’ve never seen it before, but it did remind me of when Roger on American Dad! blew up that guy’s head with an elbow drop and just sits there for a second afterward because of how horrifically violent it ends up being. I hope they explain it at some point (maybe Marrok is some kind of gas-filled puppet man and there will be another Marrok down the line?), but if not, at least they got this reveal(?) out of the way so people will stop speculating about Marrok being someone important under the mask.
Ahsoka goes on ahead to find the map and runs into Baylan, kicking off a scene that is very cool right up until the moment the lightsabers come out. Baylan knows Ahsoka and knows who her Jedi master was, saying that Anakin “spoke highly” of her and that everybody knew Anakin…though very few Jedi lived to see what happened to him. This kind of thing is great. I think one of the most interesting things about Ahsoka as a character—and this is something Rebels clocked—is that her beloved friend and mentor became one of the most evil people in the entire galaxy right after she left the Jedi Order. She’s too stoic too often in this show, but bringing that up draws out the other shades of personality in a way that Star Wars should be doing more often.
Ahsoka being a good Jedi isn’t very interesting to me, especially when Disney keeps bringing out more and more Jedi who survived Order 66. But her being someone who maybe could’ve stopped Anakin from becoming Darth Vader, or someone who was so close to him that perhaps she’s no better than the monster he became, is great!
But yeah, they have a lightsaber fight. It’s a straightforward showdown with them staring at each other and posing before swinging and parrying over and over and over again, but Ahsoka finally shifts to a higher gear when Baylan brings up Anakin again and she gives him a mighty kick, knocking him back so she can grab the map. Her arm gets burned when she touches it, which gives Baylan the upper hand just as Shin returns.
She had run away from her fight with Sabine, but Ahsoka doesn’t know that and thinks Sabine is dead, so she smashes Shin against a wall and knocks her out. Then Sabine shows up and grabs the map, threatening to destroy it if Baylan won’t let Ahsoka go. He pushes her off a cliff, seemingly to her death, but Sabine still can’t destroy the map. She knows it’s her one shot to find Ezra, and Baylan knows that as well (presumably by using the Force to look into her mind), and after Baylan promises that nothing bad will happen to her, Sabine gives up the map.
With all of the data they need, the Bad Guys—plus a handcuffed Sabine—launch the ring into hyperspace just as Hera arrives in the Ghost (her ship from Rebels) with some X-Wings. They’re too late to do anything and a couple of the X-Wings crash, prompting Hera’s son Jacen to flatly say “I’ve got a bad feeling” with the energy of someone who needs to go to the bathroom. (Maybe that’s rude, he’s just a kid, but also I’d probably be more forgiving if he had said the actual line and not this weird shorter version. If you’re going to do heavy-handed Star Wars references in your Star Wars show, then do it right.)
But it’s all good, because Ahsoka wakes up in a mysterious black void with glowing pathways scattered everywhere. She hears a voice and looks around, only to see none other than Anakin Skywalker—Hayden Christensen himself—standing behind her. He’s happy to see her, she’s happy to see him, but the music ends on an ominous note. What does this mean? I don’t know but I want to know!
Stray observations
- The place where Ahsoka wakes up could be a thing called the World Between Worlds, a concept that I completely hated when it was introduced in Rebels…but I’ll get into that later, if that’s what this is. Just everyone please cross your fingers for me that there’s no time travel happening anywhere.
- Another possibility is that it’s some kind of Jedi afterlife, and this is really the real Anakin Skywalker (or his ghost) after having been redeemed by Luke in Return Of The Jedi (reminder that this takes place after that). I don’t think Star Wars has ever shown where Force Ghosts go when they’re not catching up on their old buddies, so maybe it’s this? It would be a cool reversal of expectations if Ahsoka is reunited with Anakin and he’s a kind and calming presence again instead of being an asshole controlled by his anger.
- One of the X-Wing pilots that accompanied Hera was Carson Teva from The Mandalorian. It’s always nice to see him. I’ve seen some complaints that this screws up the timeline, since he’s not part of the regular New Republic fleet in that show and it wouldn’t make sense for him to see this big ring and not mention it to anyone during The Mandalorian, but there’s no reason to think that this doesn’t take place immediately after those things happened on the other show. Plus, while I do tend to be a stickler about this kind of thing, it’s Star Wars. None of it has to make logical sense as long as it doesn’t directly contradict things that have been explicitly established onscreen.
245 Comments
I am ALWAYS happy to see Carson Teva, because Paul Sun-Hyung Lee needs to be in more things (and he’s a massive geek). My husband is the huge Star Wars fan in our house, but as he explained it to me, the dusting of Marrok meant he was a Nightbrother, a being controlled by Nightsister magic (aka Elspeth’s magic). And yeah, kind of a puppet. Could be more later.
My story is that he became the wraith Xerxes in our galaxy in What we Do in the Shadows. It did not end well for him either!
Does Shin have any character traits to speak of other than poor posture and a propensity for the Kubrick Stare?I want to like this show, I really do… but the writing is just so lazy. Sabine just repeats the exact same mistake that she makes in the first episode, Ahsoka has learned nothing about her as well. They’re told multiple times not to split up, but do it twice, both times without a clear plan or reason. The lightsaber fights are just bland fan-service instead of serving any particular story purpose. Case-in-point; Marrok exists only to separate Ahsoka and Sabine. Ahsoka learns nothing and her character gains nothing from it, Marrok has no traits to speak of other than eating too much spicy food, and the resolution of the fight produces an outcome that would be the exact same if he didn’t exist at all.Just lazy lazy lazy.
I think the best compliment I can give Shin is she’s the second best actor in the show so far. Ray Stevenson is actually acting. The actress playing Shin is trying but her character is so poorly defined that she cannot do much. Otherwise yeah I fucking hate Sabine. She’s like the precocious kid you would’ve see in an anime. Ahsoka is always brooding, but I’m sure her brain is empty and she’s just trying to look cool because her planning is terrible.
I’m supposed to believe a Jedi can die by being pushed off a cliff? It’s not like Ahsoka was unconscious or gravely injured.
And everyone can survive being impaled by a lightsaber now (sorry Qui-Gon).
It’s an inconsistent universe.
“Sure, people say the Empire was bad and all, but they at least figured out how to treat light-saber impaling…which was odd because didn’t they kill all the Jedi. Anyway, the shuttles ran on time!”
I choose to believe Qui-Gon took it straight in the middle of the abdomen, right through essential organs. Sabine looks like she took a side shot through some muscle and that’s it.
With this logic, every time someone is shot with a gun they should die. But medical science tell us that it depends on where you are shot, and that not all gunshots are fatal.
Medical science has nothing to do with Star Wars. It’s about storytelling and suspension of disbelief.
So we’re evidently meant to believe that either these warriors don’t know how to kill someone by impaling them, or they don’t intend to kill their opponent. At best this raises questions. At worst it’s just bad storytelling.
FWIW, I don’t think we need to believe (that Sabine thinks) that Ahsoka’s dead, it’s just that Sabine goes from being in a situation where she’s helping in a more or less fair fight to one where she’s trapped. Felt a bit weird to have Sabine surrendering the map presented as such a free choice when the realistic alternative was that Ezra never comes home and she gets killed.
Having two young children, when just before Jacen said he has a bad feeling, based on his expression, I was certain he was gonna say he shit himself. Aside from that, I loved that Huyang can throw down, solid form, my guy. I didn’t think the lightsaber duels were dull, but I did think that Ahsoka should be better than that. She took on Darth Vader by herself! Cmon dude, give Baylin some of that razzle dazzle. (I understand it’s been like twenty years since then, maybe she’s just showing down)
Mid-season check-in: Does this show achieve basic narrative competence, or will I be facepalming at the end of every scene?
Facepalm
You’re asking the readers of AV Club whether they have anything positive to say about a thing everyone else likes.You couldn’t set yourself up for failure harder than this even if you tried.
*forcepalm
It’s a fantastic show with a fanbase angry that the half of the population who only exists for them to jerk off at have actual things to do in this one. Worth watching, not worth reading the incels screaming how terrible it is.
You sound angry.
“Incels” and “Nazis” = people who have different opinions?Must be a scary world out there for you…
The show has lots of obvious narrative issues that are really starting to plague every Disney+ Star Wars show except for Andor. The video game-inspired goal-based storytelling, characters having entire conversations that are only about the stakes of the plot, on-the-nose dialogue that lacks any nuance or ambiguity, predictable twists and narrative padding, the general feeling that everything on the Volume has been clone-stamped from the movies.These shows all have a vibe, even the one about manly man Boba Fett, and it’s become a tiresome vibe. The problem isn’t that this show is about three women. They’re barely identifiable as human(oid) characters, much less women! They don’t sit around discussing the patriarchy or the gender politics of the Star Wars universe, which might actually be interesting, they sit around talking about maps and ancient temples and hyperspace routes in a flat monotone. What would be different in the story if the three leads were men? Ahsoka is just a dour grump who’s always folding her arms. One needn’t be an incel to see these issues.
The show has lots of obvious narrative issues that are really starting to plague every Disney+ Star Wars show except for Andor. I am sorry to disagree with you friend, but that is baked in from the beginning starting with Empire Strikes Back – ESPECIALLY if you were an early Star Wars nerd who had read Splinter of the Mind’s Eye and expected it to have anything to do with the movies. Lucas never had a Star Wars Bible to guide writers – he was apparently moved by the force to write whatever he felt and then tried to constantly retconn everything. Parsecs? Anakin=Vader? Luke and Leia siblings? Narrative issues in Star Wars are a feature, not a bug, and were there long before Disney. IMHO, most SW fans have just learned to roll with it.
oh my god because characters sitting around discussing gender politics would be fascinating. Just what I’ve been looking for, Lena Dunham’s Girls IN SPACE.
“with a fanbase angry” SW fandom in a nutshell
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It’s pretty amazing to me that there’s an entire subset of Star Wars fans who watch the show because incels don’t like it, among many, many other more sensible people who also don’t like it.
It’s really amazing how far down the cast list you have to go to find a male, and the first one there is playing a robot. (This is not a complaint, just an observation.)
Not exactly sure you were even close to a point with this word salad.
Accusing everyone who has criticized the show of being woman-hating incels is ridiculous. No one here is complaining that the show doesn’t have enough strong male characters or that it focuses too much on women. That’s the best thing about the show. Unfortunately, there are not many other positives. The female characters here are less well written and less interesting than they were in animation. The same is true of the dialogue. I have a pre-existing attachment to Ahsoka, Hera, and Sabine, and I do not like this show or the way it writes them, and I’ve seen plenty of others who share that same opinion. I’m sure the incel crowd is mad about this in the same way they were mad about Bo Katan kicking ass on The Mandalorian, but that doesn’t excuse the very real problems this show has.
It’s not cringe-y or meme-able enough to be worthy of facepalm.
My head has nodded-off toward my lap at times. Is facelap a thing?
“Is facelap a thing?”It is, but only in some clubs, and you have to pay extra for it.
It may be illegal in Texas…
It’s solid. Most of the negative is people just people looking for something to be mad about. Obviously its hard to compare to Andor because its such a different kind of SW (its not at the level of greatness either), but to compare it to more of its counterparts, its in line with some of the better episodes of Mando, Bad Batch, Rebels, Clone Wars,etc. It hasn’t quite hit the highs of some of those shows (yet), but this isn’t a bad show. Certainly better than stuff like Boba Fett or Resistance. I’d put it in the B- to B range. Enjoyable and entertaining, but not mind blowing or must see right away.
As a fan of Ahsoka in Clone Wars and Rebels I can assure you the last thing I wanted was to look for something to be mad about in Ahsoka. Most comments (negative and positive) directed toward the show here seem pretty reasonable to me. Don’t know why some feel the need to attack the audience.
i always think it’s weird when people invent reasons for people to not like something (coincidentally in a way that makes them look more enlightened for liking it) instead of accepting the very straightforward fact that maybe they just don’t like it.
Fans can get very, very petty when you deign to criticize things that are important to them.
I’m sure we’ll get a ten-ep Carson Teva miniseries explaining exactly how he came to join the New Republic fleet. Must secure the canon!
This is just such a weird thing to get hung up on, reminiscent of this site’s reviews of Fargo which insisted on making a big thing of whether Mr. Wrench in Season 3 was the same character as Mr. Wrench in Season 1, when there was literally not one single reason that anyone could possibly question that.
“I’ve seen some complaints that this screws up the timeline, since he’s not part of the regular New Republic fleet in that show and it wouldn’t make sense for him to see this big ring and not mention it to anyone during The Mandalorian, but there’s no reason to think that this doesn’t take place immediately after those things happened on the other show.”Was there EVER any reason to think this show was happening before The Mandalorian? That seems like a really bizarre complaint.For everyone inclined to complain about the non-reveal of Marrok: He has literally the exact same amount of characterization as Boba Fett in the OT, and y’all adored that, so why are you complaining now? I had the same reaction after Last Jedi with Palpatine and Snoke.For all the whinging about this show being impossible to comprehend without having seen Rebels, that final scene is the first time I’ve ever felt like anyone who hasn’t seen the show would be at a serious disadvantage, and I’m sure the next episode will provide the basics for them.
that final scene is the first time I’ve ever felt like anyone who hasn’t seen the show would be at a serious disadvantage, and I’m sure the next episode will provide the basics for them.That literally used to be how tv shows worked. We didn’t know what stuff was until the show told us about it.
It’s a miniseries, but if you don’t know all the answers by the end of the first episode, the whole show sucks.Do people remember or even know how episodic TV shows work?
This has been the mantra of AV Club for awhile now.
Not true because shows would do a better job explaining the personal stakes for the audience to care. Unless you’ve seen Rebels, no one will understand why Ezra is so important that sabine literally sided with the villains.
The show is literally going to tell you next week.
Exactly. I’ve seen all the other shows but I’ve been trying to put my headspace into that of those who haven’t seen it to see if the show would be hard to follow. It shouldn’t be to anyone that has any basic listening skills. The show gives you all the necessary information. In fact, you could make the case that its moving too slow as it carries people around on a leash getting you to take note of things. And like you said, the reveal at the end of this episode is really the only big “wtf” that could throw some people off. But this is a TV show. You’re not gonna know everything at once. It’ll be explained (hopefully).And I lol’d at the Marrok discourse. I could see that coming a mile away from the first time Marrok was on screen. All these people spinning themselves into knots about “who it could be?” when the show never dropped one hint it was ever anything but a dude in a mask. It’s like Memphisto in the MCU all over again but without even less evidence. People build up stuff in their head that’s not really there and then get mad at the show for not meeting it.
It’s not that it’s hard to follow, it’s that all of the emotional weight of the show happens outside of/before it. The search for Ezra in Ahsoka is basically the same as the search for Luke at the beginning of TLJ, but even if you’ve never seen anything before TFA, you’ve got a pretty basic idea of who Luke is and why he matters.This is just dropping us in at the moment when the lost hero can now be found—which, hooray? But then why is the show even called Ahsoka?
You still have all you need though at this point. Do you have the same amount of weight as somebody that’s seen everything else? No, but there’s enough there and you also have to give the series time to expand on it further for those that haven’t. Star Wars literally started by dropping into the middle of conflicts. It gave you what you needed to start with and you gained more as the story went along. Right now, the story is still going.
You still have all you need though at this point.
Not really, no. We have a vague enough idea of why Morgan/Baylin/etc. want Thrawn back and why Ahsoka is trying to prevent that. But we’re given no explanation for why the moment Ahsoka recovers the map, she decides that saving Ezra is at least as important, and I’m at a loss to think of anything we’ve learned about Ahsoka in the show bearing her name that isn’t specifically bound up in events covered in Rebels.And say what you will about Star Wars, but it’s mostly concerned with immediate problems—Leia’s capture, the stormtroopers on Tattoine, the Death Star of it all. Any worldbuilding’s largely incidental to the plot.
Jedi and lightsabers suck now.Nothing makes sense unless this is a live action cartoon with no stakes.
It’s a sequel to a crap kids TV show
It was just okay.
Still not sure why Ray and Ivanna are the only two that are acting, and why everyone else is stuck in thrown together cosplaying let’s do a quick scene in the park mode. Mary continues to be the weakest link in the cast. Unsure what is going on there, if it is the direction or the writing, or the actor just not feeling it with the costuming and the sets, or a combination, because it is the most lifeless uninterested in being there acting i have seen in some time. We did not get any new sets this week, so again they continue to look plastic; environments with no feeling of being lived in, or existing in an environment for more than a week. The only set with any feel in them is the ring ship bridge, and Ahsoka’s ship interiors. The action starts out with a massive, oh great here we go again, with someone with years of saber fight training vs someone with little to none. The fight went on way too long for what it should have been, but i get they want to make some big dramatic show. Sabine losing was the correct outcome, only it should have happened within 30 seconds, or some indication that Shin was toying with her.
A single line of dialogue highlights the writing issue with this show “funny, he never mentioned you” because that has not been said in everything, just lazy, unimaginative, and utterly disappointing and embarrassed that they went there. Two highlights, for how they were shot, were; the Huyang fight, and when Sabine and Baylen were talking, but only the Sabine shots. Ray was acting, while Natasha was there doing something, but how they shot, lit, and framed her was just wonderful, *chefs kiss Have standards fallen so low, that an episode like this are getting as much praise as it is? I get it the star wars shows have been largely a disappointment in quality, so in that sense i can see how it might elevate this episode. It was at best a B episode, though i think more accurate it is a mid to higher level B-. It had all the flash for the nerd heart, but none of the depth in them to make those moments take the next step.
I will admit that the acting has been subpar, and will agree that Winstead does particularly seem out of place as Hera. My biggest disappointment is the aloofness with which Dawson plays Ahsoka.Bordizzo however continues to be a bright spot, so I will disagree there. I do wish Stevenson and Sakhno got more screen time, they are just carrying this show. I fully petition for characters to never be introduced into a scene by just staring off into the distance. Like the fuck? Nobody just does that until somebody interrupts them. Can’t they be looking at a map or something?
I was borderline (so much of Star Wars has sucked) excited about this show. The Clone Wars cartoon didn’t put much effort into introducing new characters (preferring to please the fanboys by resurrecting clearly dead characters, thereby ruining the Solo movie, and introducing stupidly-named family members, who sullied my nearly complete devotion to the work of Clancy Brown, but I digress), EXCEPT for Ahsoka. She’s the sort of scrappy, capable female character I love, and she experiences definite growth. And to be played by Rosario Dawson. Who doesn’t love her?But the first few episodes just feel ho-hum. I hope it gets better.
Dave Filoni is the most ho hum Star Wars can be
I thought he handled the animation products really well. But his ‘promotion’ to live action isn’t working out as I’d hoped.
I think Dawson is a big problem. Her portrayal is so … tedious. I’ve always thought of Asohka as bright, fun, engaging and lively. Dawson’s portrayal is so dour. And she really struggles moving well in the little bit of fighting she does. But even her double moves slowly and clunkily in battles. It’s like watching them rehearse.
I don’t know that she is. It’s everything. I cringed at the motorcycle escape from the ceremony. The actor playing the green twilek is flat. I think David Tennant is literally phoning it in. The whole plot is so rough (maybe I need to watch Rebels thoroughly).
So far Rebels was Empire Strikes Back compared to this snooze-a-loo.
Wait, David Tennant is in this?
TBH, a lot of us get dour with age…
I know that’s true of me. But not Ahsoka!!
i mean, a lot of that is on the scriptwriter and diretor
The season is HALF OVER and this is what they did with it. It’s literally impossible to be good at this point.
They lost my wife, but I’m going to plow forward.
Sorry for your loss.
You just live to whine, don’t you?
This is a discussion page and I’m discussing it. Either you can join in the discussion or lob useless attacks from the sidelines.Up to you.
Whoa whoa whoa, at least it’s not like the other SW and MCU content on Disney+ that only gets interesting in the penultimate episode, only to rush majorly to something resembling a conclusion. I’ll take a halfway cliffhanger any day.
Well, I actually think it is doing what you accuse the other shows of doing. Meandering it’s way to nowhere before what will no doubt be a very rushed and stuffed conclusion.
I don’t know who Rosario Dawson is playing, but she’s not behaving like Ahsoka to me. As you said, she experiences definite growth through Clone Wars and Rebels, but she’s still noticeably the same character. Filoni has written Rosario’s Ahsoka to be this one aspect of her mature persona all. the. time.
There was little to like about Ahsoka when she was originally introduced and there’s little to like about her now. I would hope Filoni didn’t intend to bring the character full circle like this.
Totally agree. Both Ahsoka (and hera, for that matter) feel like completely different characters.
Because it’s a TV show and not a movie, like Star Wars should be? Movies involve lots of prep time and practice and choreography and that is (usually) not the case with TV shows.
Maybe, but TV shows are traditionally free, with ads. The whole appeal of prestige streaming TV is you get better production quality in exchange for direct payment to the producer of your choice (instead of your cable subscription going to a large assortment of channels you mostly don’t even want).
Then work within your budget, don’t try to do something you don’t have the resources to do, since you’ll just end up with crap.
These shows have budgets going over 100 mil at least. Where is the money going? It definitely isn’t in the muddy grey backgrounds in every fucking scene. It isn’t in the VFX which have been just about competent. It isn’t in the choreography which is amateurish. It isn’t in the directing which is sloppy. The cast is small and except for Dawson I doubt the rest were costed much.
To be slightly fair, even mediocre VFX can be costly, and they probably shoot a lot of this on the same volume stages that The Mandalorian uses, which are also exceedingly expensive. But there’s still no excuse for not planning a couple extra days of rehearsal for the stunt sequences or for pushing to make them more exciting.
especially considering this is, what, the 8th season of star wars television they’ve produced?
Having played Battlefront, I was thinking “it’s just like an autoturret. Use your second light saber in a boomerang throw to take it out!”
There is absolutely no reason that Disney couldn’t have planned enough time into the production schedule to choreograph and rehearse better fights than this. I’ve seen network TV, which has a much more rigorous schedule and far smaller budgets, come up with more engaging stunt work than this.
It’s fight scenes and the boring bits in-between.
This show is just bad, in every way: acting, directing, writing, plotting, everything. That’s embarrassing. But of course the worst thing is that in comparison to the MCU and SW shows of the last few years, it’s really not the worse.
The Lightsaber is a cool weapon, but they are played out. They should be looking to old samurai movies for inspiration like Lucas did with the originals. The duels are short and sweet. Not every duel needs to be “Epic”.
I did appreciate the Ahsoka/Marrok fuel for this reason. It was short and effective. Similar to Kenobi/Maul in rebels – it said a lot with very little
The best duel in the entire saga is Obi Wan and Maul in Rebels, followed by Vader toying with Luke in ESB. And for the horrors of Rise of Skywalker (God, we should have known from the title), the Rey vs Kylo duel was wonderfully cinematic.
Although Japanese cinema is a clear inspiration, the Jedi are fantasy/mythical based. So instead we get a lot of flashy and magic based scuffles. The Jedi and the Force would be pretty ineffectual if duels were over as quickly as a samurai confrontation. Perhaps if they only fought droids and non-force users, but jedi vs. jedi = wizard vs. wizard.
I mean, given the huge amounts of samurai films produced by Japan, that’s kind of subjective. Yeah, Kurosawa-style prestige samurai films that were going for historical accuracy had shorter duels.
However, when studios started adapting more pulp stories from literature and manga like Lady Snowblood, Lone Wolf and Cub, and Zatoichi, the duels were really a primary focus of the films and became more and more over the top as the film progressed. There’s stuff in the Lone Wolf and Cub films that make tokusatsu shows like Kamen Rider and Super Sentai seem subtle.
If only Lucas had followed his own lead in the prequels…
It’s kinda funny you mention this because Ashoka’s duel with Marrok is about as classic “samurai duel” as it gets.
My favorite light saber battle is in TPM – the first one between Qui Gonn and Darth Maul. Maul gives no speech or anything – he jumps off of his speeder and gets to work, no conversation. More of them should be like that.
There was tons of samurai influence in this episode. I found it quite refreshing that they went that way and cut out most of the over-the-top flips and tricks.
IMO the problem with lightsabers, is that they seem to cut straight through everything but people lol.
I liked The Mandalorian but thought The Book of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi were pretty lifeless. Now we have Ahsoka. I hate to say it, but maybe George Lucas was right all those years ago when he said there was no story to tell after Return of the Jedi.
The prequels have tons of issues, but they ran two hours a piece and when they missed the mark it was at least funny.
“when he said there was no story to tell after Return of the Jedi.”He said that after he tentatively planned a 12-movie saga, and before he started writing treatments for episode 7-9. You can pick any era and quote him contradicting what he said earlier or later.
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Man, a simple airstrike would have taken care of those pesky Jedi.
The Clone Wars proved over and over that was not the case.
so sabine holds the map thing in the palm of her hand and threatens to shoot it. while holding it. in the palm of her hand. apparently she didnt see the episode of killing it when craigory shoots a nail from a nail gun through a snakes head and into the palm of his hand.i’m really upset with this show. they have a great chance to make a great, powerful, woman-centric show, but it is so…flat. aside from all the easter eggs (when does something stop being an easter eggs and just becomes knowledge you need to have from prior storylines?), the delivery of dialogue and pacing is painful. it’s almost likethey can only speakin nine or fewer syllableswithout pausingto catch their breathor make it seemlike what they are sayinghas gravity
when craigory shoots a nail from a nail gun through a snakes head and into the palm of his hand.
Not having seen this either, I’m guessing the snake wasn’t as docile as a spherical alien map (otherwise why the nail gun)? The reason you probably wouldn’t want to do that with a ballistic gun is deflection, but I half thought Sabine was going to shoot Baylin through the map.Still not entirely sure why a) Ahsoka needed to grab the map with her hand; b) wasn’t prepared for it to be searingly hot. Feels like a very preventable injury under the circumstances.
Well, Craig was pretty new to snake huntin’. So he didn’t know what he was doing and failed to put 2 and 2 2-gether. “Killing It” on Peacock is a fantastic show. I’m always glad to talk about it and hope to get some viewers so we get s S3 someday.
Unlike some people here, I enjoy this show. But doesn’t mean its not above criticism.Like, why not destroy the transmission machine? Doing so would slow down the bad guy’s progress and buy some time. But PIS wins again.
“Unlike some people here, I enjoy this show. But doesn’t mean its not above criticism.” LOL
They can’t destroy the transmission machine for the same reason they can’t destroy the map—the episode needs to end with Sabine on the other side of the jump and Ahsoka only able to follow via extraordinary means. Just feels like they could’ve gotten to that point without having Ahsoka need to step on so many rakes.
“destroy the transmission machine”How do they know which is the transmission machine, or that there even is a transmission machine? It doesn’t do any good to blow up the toaster oven with the hot pockets.
Then just hold on to the sphere and book it back to the ship? Like, if Ahsoka’s already off the cliff… why not? Why assume that Baylan is the only one who can lead her there if she was close to figuring it out herself?
Sabine would then have to fight both Baylan and Shin by herself, after barely fending off just Shin. That would mean that Baylan gets the sphere back anyway.
if theyre stupid, theyll do some sorta raiders of the lost arc with the scorch marks on her hand
I’m hoping she comes out of the WBW with Anakin’s glove, myself.
Big ups for the “Killing It” reference. Mrs. F. referenced the same scene as we’re big fans of the show.
I need to go…*walks to door, puts hand on doorframe; long pause, turns around*…to the bathroom.
*Cut to Sabine in the ship’s bathroom, staring off into near space with occasional small squints of her eyes, and then looking down pensively at a roll of toilet paper*Sabine: (sighs) I’m not very good at this.Huyang: No. You are not. But…*Sabine looks up skeptically*Huyang: …everybody poops.
How can articles from Sam Barsanti be so generic and dull?
The light saber battles in this show seem like filmed rehearsals. Slow and plodding movements on both sides. I think it’s especially notable when Dawson is moving but even her stunt double seems like she’s moving at 1/2 speed.
While this was the best of the episodes thus far, that is really not saying much. Completely agree with the article about how friggin’ dull lightsaber duels have become. Just so utterly rote now, though the dialogue was far more interesting.Except for Ray Stevenson, why are all the actors in a silent race to deliver the most flat, boring, energy-free performance possible? Everyone here is just so damn…..dull.
And this is probably MEW’s worst performance, which is saying a lot, because she’s a deeply mediocre actress.
Dawson’s portrayal of Asohka is so boring for a character with such ‘spunk’. Although maybe by end of Rebels this is how she was – with that spunk beaten out of her.
Yeah, they’re clearly going for “old, wise Ahsoka”, but she’s a total and utter snooze.And I don’t blame Dawson. She’s obviously being directed and the character has been conceived of in that way.But, dear god, why??
I was thinking if they’d written Qui-Gon Jinn and gotten Rosario to play him, she’d be acting more like Ahsoka than she is now. Filoni could have written this Ahsoka as mature, wise and at peace with her place in the universe/Force, and still have her be witty and wise-cracking while showing vulnerability like she used to because it’s what made her accessible and relatable to a human audience.
And to a point I’m disappointed in Rosario for not showing this, restricted though she may be.
Mary is married to Ewan. So I imagine they were having lunch one day with Dave or Jon and they were like hey Mary, do you want to be a Star Wars show too?
wow, the casting for that season of Fargo makes more sense now
They met on Fargo — as did Jesse Plemons and Kirsten Dunst! Horniest indie TV series ever!
man, is there anything Fargo can’t do??**actually i checked after posting and realized their marrage was post-Fargo and put 2 and 2 together… but thanks for confirmation. and had no idea about Jessie and Kirsten! whoa
The choreography isn’t what made lightsabre duels interesting in the movies; story stakes were.Here they’re missing.
For people keeping score, the season is now HALFWAY over! Jesus, the pacing here is dreadful.The first damn episode should have ended with the mega-ship hypering away.What a colossal waste.
Sounds like I made the correct choice in not watching this.
You did indeed.
The first damn episode should have ended with the mega-ship hypering away.
But then they wouldn’t have enough material for the other shows and the movie. They want to drag it out, not make it concise and well paced.
Heh. Maybe you’re right. I just assumed they would meet and defeat Thrawn in this series. But you’re probably right, they’re holding him back so Filoni can achieve his “dream” of a stealth remake of the Heir to the Empire trilogy for some ungodly reason.
Are you all ready for Ahsoka to be able to follow Morgan using the burned imprint of the map on her hand ala the Nazi from Raiders of the Lost Ark?!?!?!?!?!
What a clever thing, a callback to a DIFFERENT Lucas property! Hooray!
I like this show but jeez….
If you think all one had to do was look at the baseball sized sphere that contains said map to know where the map leads to, I don’t think you’ve been watching very closely. I’m assuming Ahsoka and friends either don’t make the trip to this other galaxy or they hitch a ride with the Purrgil aka space whales somehow.
So this comment aged terribly.
Along with the show. I’ll survive.
Man, I wonder if we are even watching the same show.
It’s really frustrating to watch a SW show that’s mostly good be bogged down by constant fan service moments. I feel like I’m punished every episode for not watching Rebels etc. I still don’t know what drives Ahsoka or who she is. It’d be nice to see more emotion and less stoic stares. The banter between her and Sabine just doesn’t have weight which makes the pacing in their non fight scene’s nauseating. Then there’s nitpicks on this ep in particular.The ship landed “12 clicks” from the map thingie. How did everyone get between locations so fast. Bad editing, it threw me off.Why did Hera bring a kid to a space battle!?What was the point of Ahsoka freezing after killing the robot so long when Sabine is in trouble 20 ft away?
“How can constant lightsaber fights feel this dull?”Doesn’t that question answer itself? Constant anything becomes boring (or just about anything, to address the objection that doubtless just sprang to your mind).I don’t get how the makers of Star Wars don’t understand this, when it was definitively answered by the prequel trilogy at least: constant action winds up becoming numbing. Then the Matrix sequels made the same mistake, and the MCU is currently running itself into the ground with forty-minute set pieces that bloat movies about cgi raccoons to two and a half bleeding hours.Great action can break up a good film, but endless action destroys it.
It’s not even the constancy, it’s just the problem with Jedis/lightsabers in and of themselves—all-powerful in enough circumstances that when you need to present a situation like ‘Ahsoka can’t get to in time’, the least contrived way to do it is stick another person with a lightsaber in front of her. And at that point, you might as well be watching Knight Boat.
Try as I might I just don’t care about these people, but then again, I didn’t watch Star Wars Rebels
“thing called the World Between Worlds, a concept that I completely hated when it was introduced in Rebels”….is there anything you don’t hate Sam?
So what I get from these reviews is if you haven’t seen Rebels, you may have a basic understanding of the narrative, but you’ll have very little investment in two major characters you haven’t yet seen, and haven’t heard many specifics about at all.
Exactly right. People defend the show by saying, “It give you all the information you need!” And that’s kind of true. It just gives you information, in the most bland, schematic way possible, not even attempting to make you CARE about anything.So much of the show hangs over Ezra and Sabine’s friendship with him, but the show does literally zero to make that land emotionally. Hell, I watched most of Rebels and I still don’t care one tiny bit about what happened to Ezra.
Well, okay. Have a star.
I’ve seen Rebels and Ahsoka makes me feel like I have very little investment in two major characters I’ve seen a lot of and liked before.
The show may look like a million bucks but is just poor entertainment.
It doesn’t help that none of these characters remotely evoke their animated counterparts. It’s actually a big jump, going from animation to live action and the creators just assumed viewers would bring their “Rebels” and “Clone Wars” affections with them, intact.But it doesn’t work that way. You still need to do the groundwork of actually making THESE versions of the characters feel vital and compelling. And the show absolutely fails on that front.
I’ll put it like this, you care about Joel’s decision in The Last of Us because they spent 9-10 episodes building them both for that one decision Ahsoka gives you no reason as a new viewer/non animated viewer to care about Ezra or Thrawn. It is a lot of tell with no show. Sabine’s choice in this episode falls flat for me because I don’t know why Ezra is so important to her. They’ve had nearly two and a half hours and I still don’t feel like I Know these characters.
This was actually my big concern when watching the promotional material, especially after the Bad Batch experience, and was the reason I decided to give it an initial pass and follow up on later if the reviews were good. Seems I saved myself some eye rolls.But related to that, and this I remember always amazed me during the Bad Batch discussion, it was amazing how much push back I got on the criticism that the show relied too much on people having watched Clone Wars and knowing all the background from there. Not in the sense that they disputed it, but that they considered that it was my problem for not having watched Clone Wars.
I mean… It’s a clone wars spinoff that was never really meant to stand alone?
I don’t understand why Filoni didn’t open this show with a brief (5-10 minutes) prologue re-creating the final battle from Rebels in live-action.It would have immediately introduced the whole crew of the Ghost (including Ezra) as a team, established Thrawn’s threat, and shown what happened to Ezra and Thrawn, which is the driving force of this show’s narrative. And then he could’ve just stuck up a “10 years later” card and away we go with the whole audience on the same page and (hopefully, at least a little) emotionally invested.
There really is no way of keeping you dipshits happy, is there?
To answer the titular question: pacing.
This answer also explains why the dialogue is dull.
It is over rehearsed. Every movement seems unnatural like you can see the actors counting the number of steps they have to walk to start talking.
If you’re bored you should stop watching and let someone else take over the reviews. Please.
lol “only people who like a thing should review it” is certainly a take.
When did AV Club start hiring shitty clickbait writers?
At least Calculon got a cameo
“How can constant lightsaber fights feel this dull”The answer is in the question, bud.
Nicely done, comment section! Lots of very accurate, very insightful criticism of this show and pointing out the agonizing… pacing… of… every… line. I only counted a couple of “Unnnhhh… if you don’t like it, go watch something else” type of comments. I kept on expecting more blind adoration, but was very impressed the tough, but fair criticism continued throughout. This is the kind of comment section that Lucasfilm people need to be reading. In spite of the overall glowing reaction to this episode, they aren’t blind, and have to also be aware of the glacial pace this show moves in and how ponderous the writing is, and it’s very well articulated here. There’s really no defense that can be made of this presentation if you aren’t just an uncritical superfan that squeals anytime something they recognize pops up on screen.
So I guess they just decided not to bother explaining how and why there’s an ancient map that pinpoints Admiral Thrawn’s location in a far off galaxy…Oh well, never mind. On to the next part of the story.The main problem is, even if you fixed the dialog and characterizations, it’s all so predictable, except for the continuity and timing of the scenes, which is all over the place.I really want to like the show, but it’s just not very interesting.
Sabine explained it with “Somehow, there’s an ancient map that pinpoints Admiral Thrawn’s location in a far off galaxy.”
It’s the will of the Force man. It moves in mysterious ways. It doesn’t always have to make sense or be able to be understood. Deus ex Force. It’s all just Deus ex Force.
Right. That’s what I was griping about. They just handwaved it.
Somehow Thrawn returned.
They didn’t do a good job of explaining it, but it was a map of the space whale migration route to another galaxy. Feels weird typing that, but in-universe it makes some sense. There was a single line about purrgils. They could have done a better job, but I guess they figure most people won’t care.Of course that explanation also relies on viewers having watched Rebels to know the connection between the purrgils and where Thrawn ended up.
Yeah, I’m aware of that off-script explanation, and it makes sense, but it would have been far better to have made it part of the discovery process they went through as they investigated. I can’t tell if they had it in there and cut it or are just bad storytellers.
I mean there were actual lines in the episode about it. But too few.
So I guess they just decided not to bother explaining how and why there’s an ancient map that pinpoints Admiral Thrawn’s location in a far off galaxy…
They mentioned it in a half-sentence the episode earlier: the map originally shows the migration routes of the space whales.
That it shows where Thrawn is now is more of a byproduct of said whales being part of transporting him to the other galaxy.
Did they? They mentioned the whales and the link to Ezra, but I don’t recall them linking it to the map in any obvious way. Either way, it was a major missed storytelling opportunity which left a lot of people scratching their heads.
They explained that it’s a map of the space whale migration route, created by the people from the other galaxy who followed it to this one.Admittedly, you may have had to watch Rebels to know exactly why the space whales are involved.
“but it did remind me of when Roger on American Dad! blew up that guy’s head with an elbow drop and just sits there for a second afterward because of how horrifically violent it ends up being.”And honestly, this episode could have benefitted from someone saying “that was unexpected” afterwards too.
I’m sure that this is in the comments but Sabine ineffectually tries some Jedi stuff and is told “you have no power” and then immediately does Mandolorian stuff, which works.It’s pretty much the only character development we’re getting and this review is all like “just give up the Jedi shit already”. She’s in the process of giving it up! That’s what we’re watching.And watching Star Wars and complaining there’s too many lightsabers is pretty funny.
For the folk who are enjoying the show –
https://gizmodo.com/star-wars-ahsoka-episode-4-recap-fallen-jedi-anakin-sky-1850808120
I’ve seen some complaints that this screws up the timelineStar Wars hasn’t given a damn about continuity since at least the early 2000s. Why would they start now?
I haven’t seen it yet but all over my social media I’m seeing fans praise the latest episode. I used to enjoy the comments here but maaaaan you guys and Barsanti are doing backflips to hate on Ahsoka. Yikes.
Gaaaatekeepers. All together now!
The only thing that’s dull is Star Wars complaints “critical” discourse, since 2000.
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So much for my “Marrok is Barriss Offee” idea.
This trope of the best friend/mentor turning to the dark side – I wonder where that originates.
I really want to like this show. I do. I watched the entirety of both The Clone Wars and Rebels, so I’m invested in the characters. Based on those shows (as well as The Mandalorian), I’ve given Dave Filoni a great deal of personal latitude in the stuff he creates.But I find myself watching Ahsoka and… I dunno… just waiting for it to start getting good. And it keeps bringing me back to the other Filoni shows. Only Mandalorian started off really strongly, and it took the other shows a while to really start cranking out the quality episodes. So based on that – and the fact that his other shows have a shared 70% good/20% mediocre/10% bad ratio when it comes to episode quality – I’m willing to wait a little longer.I just need the plot to overcome my feeling that I’m watching the dullest version of Ahsoka Tano (which is a disservice to Rosario Dawson); a paint-by-numbers version of Sabine Wren (which I can’t figure out if it’s the fault of the plot or Natasha Liu Bordizzo’s characterization); Mary Elizabeth Winstead, one of my favorite actors, basically just cosplaying Hera Syndulla; and a cruise-ship performance of Morgan Elsbeth by Diana Lee Inosanto. So far, the best parts of the show – Ray Stevenson and David Tennant – have been used sparingly, and in Lord Baylan’s case, we sadly know that our tenure with him will be all too brief.I’m just hoping that Filoni will do what he did with Clone Wars and Rebels – drop an episode or two that just blows me away and makes the preceding stuff that I thought was dull or wheel-spinning look different in retrospect.
i cannot get over how bland this series is. Four episodes in, and I’m supposed to care that they’re searching for two characters who (a) i know literally nothing about, and (b) haven’t even been, like, shown on screen in a flashback or something so at least i know what they’re looking for.It’s like The Search For Spock, if Spock was a character nobody had ever heard of and nobody knew what he looked like.
Yes, but also part of what feels so flattening is that I don’t feel like the show even gives us much insight into the characters who are on screen. It feels like Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s getting a lot of shit for playing a character whose onscreen presence amounts to telling us repeatedly that she’s a general and having a spunky kid with the same name as one of Leia’s kids from the books, but I’m genuinely not sure there’s anything in the script as written that tells us who Hera is.There’s no real context for why anybody (on the New Republic’s side) is doing what they’re doing, so it all just feels written backward—Ahsoka has Sabine unlock the map to a location she can’t access because she’ll eventually be able to get there via WBW, I guess? And hey, now Sabine will already be there!
I actually think the lightsaber fights in this show are really well done. And the whole show just looks so good (that shot of the ring coming out of the clouds!). What gets me are the logical inconsistencies like how the bad guys know where Ahsoka’s ship landed in the forest but instead of just bombing it, they send in some easily dispatched droids first to (apparently) let Ahsoka and crew know that they’ve been found. Then the two bad guys are just standing in the forest and Ahsoka and Sabine just happen to run into them? And after Ahsoka kills Marrok, instead of helping Sabine really quick, she just runs off to do the next thing. Helping Sabine would have taken seconds in a two vs one fight but the plot required them to split up.
Because, despite having all the right ingredients, this show is a vanilla cake with zero icing.
The only thing I want out of this episode is it to be longer than 36 minutes.
A blaster shot to the back of anyone using a lightsaber works, but no one would do that, right? Are X-Wing Starfighters only equipped with blasters? Even my teenage son complains about this show.
I think I’m fine pretending the only “extra” Star Wars is Rogue One and Andor.
“Marrok”
“they”
The implied bad faith argument that you can’t even take an educated guess on his gender (based on the auditory cue of his deep, masculine sounding voice) is laughable and pathetic. Especially considering that Gizmodo, your sister company (sorry, SIBLING company) was perfectly fine with calling it as they see (or, rather, hear) it:
Man straight up gets dusted, let alone falls over. Plus, he was an Inquisitor, so at the very least a former Jedi. And yet that didn’t stop him going out like a chump. Sorry Marrok, at least your action figure will be cool. Try harder to push this silly narrative that voices aren’t an indicator of gender, AV Club. You’ll see, one day we’ll totally buy it. Don’t give up! You are directly preventing violence against transgender and genderfluid people! Totally!
Ahsoka is as bad as Obi-Wan. It’s all so inane and tedious. Fan service results in some of the weakest fare we’ve been offered. All my money is on Season 2 of Andor – please be as good as season 1!!
Why did Sabine not just fucking run once she had the sphere and Ahsoka was over the cliff?
Because Ray Stevenson could have instantly stopped her with the force?