Ahsoka

Ahsoka is, for most of the first episode, fairly decent. Rosario Dawson is a rather muted hero, but there's a good fight scene early on and I thought the general was an appealing character.

But the character of Sabine makes no sense. She starts by doing something rebellious for no other reason than to show that, yeah, she's a rebel just for the sake of being a rebel. Later she does something blatantly idiotic that results in exactly what you expect to happen. And once again, the reason for her decision makes no sense.

If the rest of the episode were great then I might forgive it a blitheringly stupid turn of events, but nothing else made up for that foolishness.

I hadn't planned to watch anymore, but then someone on social media raved about how the series really took off in episode 4, which was directed by the guy who did the first Spider-verse movie. So I checked that out. And it was not remotely better than episode 1. Sabine was still stupid, the characters were still bland, and I was generally bored throughout.

Should have gone with my first instinct.

I actually enjoyed Ahsoka a lot more than I expected to. After reading all the mixed reviews I was expecting a slow moving, boring show but this was anything but. I was very entertained from the very first episode to the last. I was actually wanting more episodes when it was all ove he r. I know they're already talking about renewing this for another season so I hope they go through with that. The cast here is terrific. Obviously Rosario Dawson is great as Ahsoka but it's the supporting cast which makes this show that much better. It is extremely talented cast with Natasha Lou Bordizzo, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Wes Chatham, David Tennant, the late great Ray Stevenson, and many more. You can tell they put a lot lot of love into this because the attention to detail is very obvious. While it's I not as good as the Mandalorian or Andor, it's still a good show in its own right.

I usually don't write a series review if not all episodes are released yet, but with Ahsoka, I feel like I have to. So, just as a warning, this review gets a little ranty.

I keep seeing these amazing reviews of people praising this show to be some masterpiece and I honestly don't get it.

I have been a fan of Ahsoka's character since I was a child. I grew up with her and I am so nostalgic about her, especially because she is practically what introduced me to Star Wars, and I appreciate Filoni's handling of her character in Clone Wars and Rebels as much as anyone else. She began as an immature student and grew to be a very wise and independent person. I was thrilled when they announced her live-action show. The cherry on top was that Thrawn would be the antagonist. That being said, I do know her character and liked her from moment one.

And now, with this show, I feel incredibly gaslit by fans who claim this show (especially episodes 4 and 5) is Christ's second coming and praise Filoni for his genius. But I also feel gaslit by Filoni and the show itself. I am certainly confronted with a character I know nothing about whatsoever. Sabine is a different character; Hera is a different character. I get that animation and live-action are different, but naming this difference as an excuse for stale and emotionless characters is just a cheap ploy. All of these strong female characters that were written so well in the animated shows are now blank, emotionless slates with a history Filoni keeps hinting at but never fully explains and it honestly annoys me so much.

With the live-action show, Filoni's lack of writing skill on a line-level becomes painfully apparent, and to distract from that he keeps jangling shiny keys in front of the viewer with these callbacks and nostalgic moments like the Clone Wars or Anakin wanting to teach her one last lesson, which I still don't know what that was supposed to be. When I watched some YouTube videos of fans breaking the episode down and theorising what the lesson could be, I found myself painfully laughing at myself (in a sad way). How come the writing in this show is so bad and opaque that they have to rely on the fans to pull at loose strings and tie them together and hope that everyone then ends up thinking that this was what Filoni had intended from day one? When I tried to think of a possible explanation of what Anakin's lesson was supposed to be about, I couldn't think of any answer that matched what other people were thinking. It is not only that, but I feel like everybody has different answers and not in a way where a writer writes didactically to leave it for free interpretation but in a way where the writer had no idea what they even wanted the lesson to be.

So far, in this show, I have only seen bad writing, bad dialogue, stale acting, characters that are intriguing (Skoll and Shin) but are left so vague for so long that by the end I don't even care where they came from. You can't leave the mystery open for so long and then explain it at the end of the season (if their character will even be explained at all). If there is nothing for me to get emotionally attached to at a certain point, I will not care for the rest of it, even if it does end up being explained. The same is true with the history between Sabine and Ahsoka. What is it? Why aren't we seeing it? Why are the characters just talking about it like it is general knowledge the viewer already knows? (Again, if it is supposed to be written to keep it open for interpretation, it has sorely failed.) There are only two more episodes left and if it does end up being explained in the LAST TWO EPISODES the pacing will be off so freaking bad!! Why wait so long?

The issue I have is the writing. And the writing in a show is everything, so I have an issue with the show. And with everyone pretending this is "the best Star Wars since..." If this is the best Star Wars since the Disney area, then it's pretty bad to begin with.

I don't want to tell anyone that they are supposed to dislike this show. If you enjoy it, great. But I feel so sorely misrepresented in my opinion of this show. It seems like everyone keeps falling for these cheap callbacks and nostalgia bait moments and cheap execution of some character arc I wasn't even sure Ahsoka was on, because, again, nothing about the writing has led me to think that! I get that a lot of things about a story are supposed to be shrouded in mystery to keep the viewers' interest, but at one point, when everything is just plain vague and so unsatisfyingly touched upon and then poorly executed, I really have to ask myself if anyone working on this show had any idea about what they wanted this show to be!

I hope the last two episodes will prove me wrong, but I doubt it. You can't rely on the last two episodes to remedy an entire season of bad writing.

So far this isn't the worst Star Wars show/movie out there, but it's certainly not amazing either.

The good: It's very pretty

The mediocre: The music The plot The villains

The bad: The acting The writing

Nothing feels like people having an actual conversation, it all feels like people reading lines at each other.

The thing with the map they are trying to find feels like it's pulled directly out of the sequel trilogy. Why is there a map to someone's current location hidden in some ancient ruins behind several layers of old mechanisms you have to turn to unlock? It's the classic error of thinking of something you think will look cool and then finding a silly excuse to do it.

And then there's the whole "the force is female" thing. So far it doesn't really hurt the show, because most of the characters are established and well liked, but you can't help but notice and remember that it's because if Disney's stupid politics, and it just can't help hurting the immersion of the show.

The lightssaber choreography seems really mediocre as well. It's full of the standard up close and obscure shots and cuts, that they do when they have no choice, because it would look terrible otherwise.

The last annoyance so far is the female villain. Maybe it will get better of we get to know her, but her only trait so far is her ability to have a complete deadpan look no matter what's going on in the scene. It's the most lazy way possible to try to make a villain look evil.

I hope the show will get better and part 2 was definitely better than part 1, so there's still hope for the show.

I'm a big fan of the Clone Wars and Rebels animated series so I was doing backflips when I heard about a live action series based on the characters.

Overall, the casting is good and where Rebels left off, the series has a strong premise. The production design is all right (not quite as good as Andor's though) and the lightsaber fights and well choreographed.

The writing is where it's falling down. Dave Filoni has to take the blame since he wrote every episode and clearly needs a writing staff. Perhaps he's spent too much time writing for five year olds, because he is writing the characters as too bland and not grownup enough, and not thinking some things through sufficiently.

Take Ahoska for example. She's being written as too zen and serene, without an inner conflict that a lead character needs. She is being written as an Obi-Wan-ish mentor figure, but the series is named for her, so why isn't she written as the lead character, with inner conflict and complexity to match?

Maybe the true lead is a character for whom Ahsoka is the mentor? That could be Sabine or Ezra. But Sabine is the worst-written character of all. She must be pushing 30 by now, yet she still acts like a rebellious adolescent.

And don't get me started on "everyone is Force sensitive." It's far too late in the game to retcon Star Wars like this. If it only was a matter of trying to get a little telekinesis or mind control, it would be as common as superpowers are on The Boys, with societal upheaval like you see on that show.

Why doesn't Jabba the Hutt have a minion who can influence rivals in negotiations? Why aren't there background characters who can levitate a glass from across the table, or take an unusually large leap to avoid a mud puddle in the street? We'd have been seeing this all the time long before now. They just need to drop it.

Sabine is being retconned with the Force so she can serve as an apprentice figure to Ahsoka but Ezra is the more natural apprentice. But I'm no happier at his writing.

Okay let's recap here. He made a huge sacrifice while still a teenager to save his friends and the galaxy from Thrawn. He's spent a decade on a bleak planet, surrounded by enemies, with only some turtle people as companions. He has no reason to believe he will ever be rescued.

Then Sabine shows up and effectively invalidates his sacrifice. How does he respond? Oh hi Sabine, nice to see you. That's ALL? He isn't overjoyed to be rescued while at the same time, infuriated that the last ten years were all in vain? Why isn't Ahsoka equally angry at Sabine? Why is Sabine being written as an unstable moron?

It's like Filoni is scared to show the "grownups" being angry at each other because it would upset the presumably childlike audience. If you assume the audience is largely grownups, having conflict and drama is not only all right, it's necessary so we won't all doze off.

Since this series isn't yet over and hopefully won't be for a few years, I may be back to edit this review later on. Hopefully to bump up the score to an 8 or 9 because the writing has improved. Fingers crossed for season 2.