Post by Roquefort Raider on Oct 13, 2023 8:51:19 GMT -5
Oct 13, 2023 7:38:15 GMT -5 @supercat2099 said:
Finally made it to the episode 8 season finale of Ahsoka.Same here! I also added a good chunk of Rogue One yesterday for good measure.
To me the show has so many elements that could be so cool, but a real mixed bag overall.
Agreed. Started poorly, got interesting, got very interesting, stalled, and ambled toward a dynamic but kind of nonsensical ending.
In this last episode...13 minutes of mostly dialogue at the beginning (and nothing really substantial at that). This "slow burn" stuff has got to end, it's not Star Wars. Now about 20 minutes in, they remember how to do it right, some great action. The Nightsisters are great in particular, love their role in this series. I SO wish they could have figured out how to write Asajj Ventress back into this somehow.
I liked them, but I think that whoever manages the Star Wars franchise should stick to what made the original trilogy so good and explore it further rather than bring in concepts from other fantasy stories or give us watered-down versions of things we enjoy. The Nightsisters are suitably creepy, but I'm wary of this "sorcery" of theirs (I guess it's some application of the Force). I must admit they remind me a little too much of the Honored Matres from the Dune series, in that they seem to be brightly-clad evil versions of the Jedi. Things like the darksaber or the black and green "witch" sword I can also do without; they sound as if someone had a brainstorm session on the theme of "we need something like a lightsabre but that's not a lightsabre".
I'll say again, Rosario is great as Ahsoka, that's a big plus for me. Thrawn is flat out wrong though. Not only is he not cast right, but nothing that made him special in the EU is present. He should be doing his crazy studing art, making astounding tactical and strategic decisions with a real command crew around him (why aren't they using Pellaeon when they already teased his appearance before?). Here he's just doing that "measured calm voice" leader thing, which is "ok", but not the classic Thrawn that made him one of the most capable adversaries in all of Star Wars history.
Agreed about this version, but to me the original Thrawn had exactly the same problem. I view him like I view Boba Fett: a character who grew immensely popular because he was cool, but who never did much to warrant such popularity. In the Thrawn trilogy, his most distinctive feature (to me) was that he would not chastise people for honest mistakes, unlike Vader; apart from that, at no time did I ever go "wow, what a strategically brilliant character". As in the last episode of Ahsoka, each time someone would come and tell Thrawn "the rebels have done this or that! We have to panic!" he'd just go "do not worry, everything is going according to plan" - a plan which in the end wasn't better than that of admiral Holdo. Thrawn had class, no doubt about it, but he was no Keyser Söze.
In this final episode,
{Spoiler: Click to show}
instead of nuking Ahsoka's ship, he sends TWO fighters lightly pepper it with laser fire. He then expects a land attack, and instead of simply raising his ship a kilometer up in the atmosphere, he leaves it anchored and accessible. He allows the Jedi to reach the anchoring tower (the door of which could easily have been welded shut, as it wasn't needed anymore) and when they get in, he orders a delaying tactic involving zombies instead of, once again, raising the ship and nuking the tower. It's as if he was playing a game in which you must present to your opponent an obstacle that they just MIGHT overcome, but without going so far as to insure their defeat. It's a sportsman-like attitude, sure, but not what I expect from a military leader. The only real strategic move I saw him make in that whole scene is getting rid of Elsbeth, as he probably decided she was getting too powerful and might prove difficult to manage.
instead of nuking Ahsoka's ship, he sends TWO fighters lightly pepper it with laser fire. He then expects a land attack, and instead of simply raising his ship a kilometer up in the atmosphere, he leaves it anchored and accessible. He allows the Jedi to reach the anchoring tower (the door of which could easily have been welded shut, as it wasn't needed anymore) and when they get in, he orders a delaying tactic involving zombies instead of, once again, raising the ship and nuking the tower. It's as if he was playing a game in which you must present to your opponent an obstacle that they just MIGHT overcome, but without going so far as to insure their defeat. It's a sportsman-like attitude, sure, but not what I expect from a military leader. The only real strategic move I saw him make in that whole scene is getting rid of Elsbeth, as he probably decided she was getting too powerful and might prove difficult to manage.
I think the other challenge is the miss on Sabine. Rebels was never as good as Clone Wars, but it did get better over time and had some good development. Sabine was a neat character at the start (she was my favorite), but then really came into her own by the end of Rebels. It's like the stuff that made Rebels actually good they threw away, and then decided to do some generic Jedi thing. The attempted relationship between Ahsoka and Sabine they've tried to create in this series I just can't get vested in, feels like "Disney by the numbers" storytelling.
I never watched the animated show, so I don't mind that Sabine is Ahsoka's apprentice. I'm just glad she lost her edgy rebel teenager attitude!
On the flip side, Ray Stevenson OWNED the Baylan Skoll role, it is so tragic we have lost him. He certainly delivered a great final performance with his work here. Not a fan of his apprentice though, I think Shin Hati as portayed here just isn't strong enough a performance. Plus really bad hair
100% agreed. Ray Stevenson will always be the actor I wished had played Conan. What could have been, alas!
In fairness, I think both the scripting and directing have a lot of issues as well. So much flat dialogue, someone was really enamored of that approach with this series (again, I think it's this modern infatuation with "slow burn", thinking it somehow makes it more intense).
It's not so much the dialogue that annoyed me as the "and then THIS happens!" nature of the plot. So many convenient coincidences, so many decisions taken just so the plot can move forward... In comparison, Rogue One seemed far more methodical and rational (for a Star Wars story, that is).
I can cherry-pick plenty of good moments throughout the series and see why a lot of folks here like this, but overall I don't enjoy the flow of the series as much as I had hoped for. It's like, just make it fun. It's not rocket science. I don't need all this "pseudo-emotional" modern approach baggage weighing it down. Old school Star Wars had a lot more humor, and a lot more epic action. Clone Wars somehow brought that back nicely as well. Heck, Mando nailed it too in a big way. The Star Wars bar may be high as such, but I think Ahsoka could reach a fair amount higher.
I see a dilution effect taking hold of the franchise. Also, it's better to leave a lot of things to the viewers's imagination instead of trying to connect everything and everyone. The more connections we make, the smaller (and less realistic) the universe seems to be. I mean, I was fine with "Obi-Wan Kenobi killed Darth Maul. The end". Not so much with "Obi-Wan Kenobi cut Darth Maul in half, but the bad guy somehow managed to survive and was turned into a cyborg and became a crime lord who had dealings with a young Han Solo's girlfriend, which cause Solo to fund the start of the rebellion, and years later Maul went after Obi-Wan on Tatooine after the Jedi had helped a young Leia live through a series of zany adventures they would never mention again and then Maul finally died".
Star Wars was pretty simple, originally. I liked that.