Part Four: Fallen Jedi

It took four episodes, and in the fourth installment, Dave Filoni finally returned Star Wars to Its roots. Episode four, titled Fallen Jedi, is an homage to the style as George Lucas's prequels in shot blocking, space flight sequences, attention to the different sword fighting styles for lightsaber duels, scene transitions, and bad dialogue. This episode was like coming home again. The pacing and special effects in this episode are noticeably better than episodes one and two. The absence of a campy light saber versus space fighter combat is thankfully missing. What remains is pure Star Wars and it could not have come too soon. I can only hope that the remaining episodes continue in the same tradition.

Theres a lot to unpack not just from this episode but from the entire series so far. We've been with this story for 3 weeks now and there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel!

The team around Filoni have been able to piece together a story that is part new and part legends, so many of the comments and issues surrounding the series so far have been down to the pacing. So far its living up to my expectations, this is a prequel series to a large scale feature film. The story that is being told in this is the hunt for Ezra and Thrawn. Not the conclusion to the Heir to the Empire story line. To get to the point that we are now proves that this is running at light speed. The attention span of many audience goers these days may be the reason that a weekly series is being impacted in the way that it is.

There are so many moments that bring me back to George Lucas' Star Wars but the one thing that is lacking is the saber fights. I totally understand where Filoni wants to take the styles to be far more Samurai but i need a full flashy saber battle from the prequels! This maybe down to the style of practical effects that are being employed today compared to the blue screen sticks but we are getting there with the style that Ahsoka has but just dial it up another 20% and then i think we'll be there.

At the point that this story had been left im truly hopeful in what is to come. My only theory that can be added to the fire is if its possible that the world between worlds is where all of the force sensitive being reside in the living force. Able to travel to any point in time and appear but to return as Ahsoka did may drive a lot of conspiracies!

Ashoka did it. It finally got from okay to really good. The one thing that tells me is that Filoni clearly has a strength for Pay Off but not so much for Setup. You can see that through out all of his work. But this episode was very much a mid-season finale and it worked. Ray Stevensons character is really interesting as always but this time around others like Sabine can shine to and her acting has greatly improved. Even Ahsoka gets to show some emotions, wow show your title character is finally getting interesting Halde way through.

The slow pace is not so mach felt here, which is good. This is no Andor where the writing is so great, that you can allow yourself dialogue heavy episodes and extended scenes. It's no Andor but it's enjoyable and it's improving, finally!!!

This episode is definitely an improvement over the previous episode in terms of plot progression, but the quality of everything else stays the same.

We are halfway through the show and I still don't particularly care about any of these characters, especially the titular character that's supposed to be the protagonist and the main character. More and more, it feels like I'm just watching a Sabine show or just a show about a group of rebels or something and not Ahsoka. I haven't watched her animated show, and I shouldn't have to since it's the live-action's job to make me care about and understand these characters. Which has been doing a pretty bad job in my opinion. Like with the Mandalorian, you'd have no doubt that Din is the main character and the protagonist. Even in the awful Boba Fett show, you still see who's the protagonist and why the show is named after him.

But here? I still have yet to feel that way about Ahoska's character. It feels like the creator left the heavy-lifting part of actually making you care about characters to the animated shows. Which doesn't work since I and I'm sure many others haven't watched.

Like it's a fair demand to expect you will who the main protagonist is and you care about her halfway through the whole thing right? But at least, with the ending scene of this episode, we might get to know more about Ahsoka's past hopefully.

I think the bigger problem is that they gave Sabine a character arc and Ahsoka is just kinda there. I think this is the reason why it feels like she's not the protagonist, she doesn't particularly have a character arc or a conflict to overcome. She had some conflicts about Sabine in the first two episodes but she already overcame them in the same episode.

I also didn't really like the direction and the editing of this episode even more than the previous one. Especially with the first fight scene where you don't even see wtf is happening. It gets better after that and the next lightsaber fight scenes are decently shot and edited at least, but the first one is just atrocious. They should get better directors and editors and someone who actually knows how to shoot fight scenes.

I also hate this trope of characters just waiting and staring at their enemy when they have every opportunity to attack them and do damage to them, even when the enemy has their back to them. Like even if you missed and the enemy anticipated and deflected your bullet, at least try? At least try shooting at their head first when they have their backs to you and don't even know you're there instead of just yelling "stahp!"?

Nevertheless, this is probably the most interesting the show has been so far, but it's not amazing either. I mean yes, compared to Obi-Wan Kenobi this is a masterpiece production-wise alone, but on its own, it just has been meh so far. At least the plot moved forward a lot in this episode and a lot happened here and the ending made me a little more interested to see what happens next. But like I said, the uninspired directing and editing, the half-baked characterization that makes you think you're watching the second season of the show and missed all the characterization, and a lot more problems on the writing part just make this show above mediocre and just meh and way less interesting and exciting as it should be.

This was definitely one of the best pieces of Star Wars television since the series finale of The Clone Wars. It's got amazing action, awesome performances, a great script, a fantastic soundtrack, and I absolutely love what it's doing with the characters; old and new!

I'm especially loving the character of Baylan! Ray Stevenson was absolutely incredible in the role, and the character is so well written. So far, he's turning-out to be one of my favourite antagonists in the Star Wars Universe

We're also half-way through this series (or at least the season), now, and I'm feeling quite confident about it, which is something I've not said about any Disney+ shows in a while. It's a really great change of pace after a lot of underwhelming Star Wars and Marvel projects on the platform.