Kevin-42

This is a Star Wars show mostly for kids heavily inspired by old Disney movies for children like Treasure Island. Unfortunately, the show has little of theose movies' rugged charm or innocent sense of adventure. Most of the show is carried by Jude Law's rock-solid acting performance as the mystery man of questionable motives and morals. Along the way we meet a bunch of pirates, a cute owl alien, a couple of space ships (including some X-wings) and a scruffy android who talks like a first mate from a pirate ship.

Ah, yes, there's a bunch of kids in there, too. They accidentaly leave their planet, fly around in a space ship and get home again.

The entire show is so completely inoffensive and devoid of anything even remotely challenging the viewers' mental capacities that it passes by in a muffled blur. It's neither bad nor good. It's just there and then it's over.

Credit where credit is due. This show was a milestone achievement in animation. Every frame was a piece of art and if you evaluate this show on its visual, artistic expression alone then you are treated to something approximating perfection.

However, there is more to storytelling than presentation. I was completely astounded by Act2 of this second season. Never before had I been treated to something which felt so profound whilst bypassing intellect. I'm not a very emotional person but episode 6 let me see wisdom and maybe a deeper meaning to life through the lense of feeling.

Unfortunately, Act3 didn't really stick the landing. I was reminded of something Alex Yee said in the Riot series "Bridging the Rift". He mentioned that prior to Arcane Riot Games hadn't really done any long-form storytelling. They had produced what they called "fight content" and we are certainly shown a lot of that in Act3. The tragedy is that the resolution for Act3 sort of deminishes the quality of the second act. You can't "resolve" complex philosophical questions by evoking emotions alone. You can't feel yourself to truth. At some point you need to employ your critical thinking and if you do so then you are left with the very simple message for this series that our imperfections make us human and to truly live you need to appreciate our flaws.

That is a small reward for all this sound and fury.

While I stand by my assessment that Act I of Season 2 had some pacing issues and made some unfortunate jumps in story-telling hidden by all too frequent music video styled montages, I realize that it was the compromise which got me to this amazing Act II.

This act almost feels like an end-of-life final lecture given by a great philosopher. The amazing thing is that we are being treated to subjects which are deep and meaningful but we get to see them through the lense of emotion rather than intellect. That is an amazing feat of narrative skill which is artfully supplemented by near perfect music editing and directing.

This is nothing short of great art. It is touching and thoughtprovoking and it shines all the more brightly when compared to the emotional slop and writing hackery that poses for "modern media" in recent years.

Thankyou! Thanks for treating me like an adult with your gift of a story rather than preaching to me like I am an immature child.