Spoilers AHSOKA series [Spoiler Discussion]

[Crewman6]

If you've never seen an episode of animated SW before watching this show, it gets a 2/10. The viewer will be completely lost, and worse still, completely un-invested. The show assumes that you know who ALL these characters are, and their backstory. If you don't, well, the writers ain't got time for you, despite the glacial pacing.

If you've seen TCW and Rebels, it gets about an honest 5/10. Good visuals and some good action sequences spliced into a boring, glacially slow storyline. The return of Thrawn should have been the stuff of epic greatness. Instead, Filoni ran with the absolute worst space-horror elements of his animated shows. We get Dathomiri witches, space zombies, a revisit of the Mortis storyline, WBW Anakin fanwank, space whales, and turtle-hobbits. All in a 'different galaxy' which is a nothing but an even more barren, boring planet of the regular SW galaxy.

Couple other points in summation:

Some aspects of animated shows don't necessarily translate well to live action.

For purposes of this series, Baylan and Shin ended up a B-plot sideline that went nowhere.

Hera and Thrawn were total miscasts. Yes, I said it: Lars sucked as live-action Thrawn. People are in love with his voice. Well, that's obviously not everything. Someone like Jason Isaacs would have brought some genuine menace to the role.

I can't decide yet if Rosario Dawson is a miscast or not, but she is wooden as hell as live-action Ahsoka Tano.

The less said about MEW here, the better. I saw a clip from Galaxy's Edge where some rando Disney employee was playing Hera. She looked more like her, with better looking makeup, and displayed more life and personality in 30 seconds than we saw from Winstead's Hera this entire series. Since we know MEW can act, I don't necessarily blame her completely, but definitely some.

As I said earlier in the thread, I LOVE Rebels, those characters, and I really, really wanted to love this show. I tried to mentally give it the benefit of the doubt wherever possible, but I just reasonably couldn't after a point. I hope that whatever follows this (if anything is allowed to), it improves a lot. Dave Filoni's creative output is at that dangerous tipping point where he's about to follow his mentor GL into the trap of discarding 'entertainment' in favor of going way too deep into his own head.

My score for this series: 5/10.

Wish I could give this post more than one "like." Spot on. Though my final grade would probably be a 4.

Filoni crawls up his own ass here and makes the least essential, most pointless piece of SW content yet. Dear god, let this die. Don't give it another season, don't give Filoni a movie. Don't let him touch live action ever again.

 

[Crewman6]

It's not.

Not sad at all.

I disregard 90% of the books and SW content. People have made the SW content too preeminent when it was always a mixed bag. And trivia knowledge became more important than quality.

I'm over it. The Disney bashing is as tiresome as the "Lucas raped my childhood " arguments 20 years ago.

You want to send a message? Stop buying.

I don't bash Disney. I bash the creatives behind specific projects. JJ Abrams, Dave Filoni, Jon Favreau.

"Disney" has given us some of the best SW content of all those.

Those chuckleheads have given us the worst.

But Disney definitely is responsible for rushing to kill the goose by giving us a massive, unending glut of SW content, something even Bob Iger admitted. They've harmed the brand by throwing so much content at the wall. Even if it was all good, it'd be exhausting.

But it's very, very far from all good.

 

[Nombrecomun]

My summary: 8 episodes for a story that could have been told in 4.
But...media companies need to stretch out content.

The tragedy is Ray Stevenson; a solid actor with a great character that went practically nowhere. I was a lot more interested in his story than anyone else's. Somehow his acting shined through where others fell flat.

Still no idea why the show was called 'Ahsoka'. 'Sabine' made more sense if they wanted to go with a personal name.

 

[fireproof78]

But Disney definitely is responsible for rushing to kill the goose by giving us a massive, unending glut of SW content, something even Bob Iger admitted. They've harmed the brand by throwing so much content at the wall. Even if it was all good, it'd be exhausting.

"harmed the brand" No, not at all.

But it's very, very far from all good.

Here's a hot take: it never was all good. ROTJ took so much flak from the fans, and the Lucas followed up with the Ewok movies. TPM was treated worse than excrement.

Somewhere, in the past several years, the standard for Star Wars has been raised to absurd levels. I'm not down for that. Has Disney had some missteps? Yes. Have they had good stuff? Also, yes.

To me, there is no one who deserves "bashing" (how absurd to insult people over art) just because I don't like the work. No, it doesn't ruin the brand, it doesn't damage anything. It's just not all good.

Just like it was before.

most pointless piece of SW content yet.

None of it has a point. It's all entertainment.

 

[Set Harth]

Filoni crawls up his own ass here and makes the least essential, most pointless piece of SW content yet. Dear god, let this die. Don't give it another season, don't give Filoni a movie. Don't let him touch live action ever again.

They had six different directors over eight episodes. I'm not sure I agree with that approach. I thought Filoni would direct the final episode.

 

[Crewman6]

They had six different directors over eight episodes. I'm not sure I agree with that approach. I thought Filoni would direct the final episode.

Directors in TV really don't matter that much. They're not responsible for the creative direction of the series. That'd be the showrunner. In this case, Filoni, who not only created and ran the entire show, but wrote every episode by himself.

 

[FreezeC77]

I enjoyed the series well enough, but it left me at odds due to it being nothing more than a giant set up for something else down the line. Really wanted some sort of conclusion, instead it was just one giant "To Be Continued".... 6.5/10 from me

I feel like a lot of TV, especially genre TV has swung the pendulum like WAY TOO FAR from like that pre 2000's mindset of stand-alone episode to everything needing to be continuous storyline with impact on the next episode.

I was someone who loved when Babylon 5 and DS9 presented ongoing story-arcs with consequences going forward, but some of my favorite episodes of Star Trek, X-files, Buffy/Angel, whatever genre stuff would be considered 'stand-alone' episodes or episodes that you could insert into other seasons of the show without having to change it much (if any) and it still would work.

Now you have Disney+ putting out all this content and you rarely ever get satisfying conclusions. Almost all of it feels like it's just trying to keep that subscriber going for the next month and the content ends up feeling like sometimes those prequel comics that would come out right before a movie or tv show and explain the set-up, how you got to where the characters are at the start of the actual movie/tv show.

I think the writing staffs of today really have lost the ability to put out self-contained episodes that are compelling and can stand on their own without each episode just being 12% of the story and right now in the Disney+ Marvel and Star Wars show universe the "season" story is actually just a 'prologue chapter' for something later.

 

[fireproof78]

*looks at "Tales of the Jedi and "What If? and Book of Boba Fett"

Yup, no one knows how to put out self-contained stories at all.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Heck, I forgot it was meant to be standalone. I doubt it'll get the viewing numbers for further seasons to get commissioned. The producers seem to have been completely blind to its potential faults, in that case, if they really wanted to grab people's attention. Not even the existing popularity of the main character might save it.

 

[Crewman6]

I feel like a lot of TV, especially genre TV has swung the pendulum like WAY TOO FAR from like that pre 2000's mindset of stand-alone episode to everything needing to be continuous storyline with impact on the next episode.

I was someone who loved when Babylon 5 and DS9 presented ongoing story-arcs with consequences going forward, but some of my favorite episodes of Star Trek, X-files, Buffy/Angel, whatever genre stuff would be considered 'stand-alone' episodes or episodes that you could insert into other seasons of the show without having to change it much (if any) and it still would work.

Now you have Disney+ putting out all this content and you rarely ever get satisfying conclusions. Almost all of it feels like it's just trying to keep that subscriber going for the next month and the content ends up feeling like sometimes those prequel comics that would come out right before a movie or tv show and explain the set-up, how you got to where the characters are at the start of the actual movie/tv show.

I think the writing staffs of today really have lost the ability to put out self-contained episodes that are compelling and can stand on their own without each episode just being 12% of the story and right now in the Disney+ Marvel and Star Wars show universe the "season" story is actually just a 'prologue chapter' for something later.

The unintended consequences of this trend is that it's going to destroy the long tail of these shows. It kills rewatchability. Look, some amazing shows in the past 20 years have been heavily serialized and some awful shows have taken the wrong lessons from all that.

But particularly with genre shows, it's problematic. Everyone loves going back to rewatch their favorite episodes of Star Trek or TNG or whatever.


Who's going to go back and watch just one episode of Picard or Discovery in a few years? You know, episode 6, which is just....a tiny chunk of story wedged between two other tiny chunks?

As much as I decried the children's book level storytelling of "The Mandalorian", at least those episodes were distinct and each one had a beginning, middle and and end. If you didn't like one, the next one could be different and better.

People will still be watching TOS, TNG, etc. in 30 years. No one is gonna be rewatching Disco or Picard or arguably Ahsoka.

 

[fireproof78]

Who's going to go back and watch just one episode of Picard or Discovery in a few years?

Me.

That's how I rewatch things.

No one is gonna be rewatching Disco or Picard or arguably Ahsoka.

I love being called "no one" in these broad sweeping generalizations. It always tickles me so much to know how low other fans think of my opinion.

 

[Disco]

I second the above. I'll also rewatch Picard and Ahsoka.

I thoroughly enjoyed Ahsoka. Far more than Andor.

The beauty of Star Wars (and Star Trek and the MCU) right now is that there's something for everyone.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

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The Ahsoka 1986 opening credits.

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[cooleddie74]

 

[Gaith]

"harmed the brand" No, not at all. [...] Here's a hot take: it never was all good. ROTJ took so much flak from the fans, and the Lucas followed up with the Ewok movies.

So you're saying that boring, gray sludge like this show doesn't harm the Star Wars brand because only fanatical completists got any enjoyment from the Ewok movies, too?!

 

[fireproof78]

So you're saying that boring, gray sludge like this show doesn't harm the Star Wars brand because only fanatical completists got any enjoyment from the Ewok movies, too?!

No.

I'm saying that Star Wars is more than one or two installments that people happen to not like. If Star Wars can last past the backlash against the Phantom Menace (that was awful, by the way.) and various bumps in the road like the Clone Wars film, or the mixed reviews with the ST, as well as the Ewok films, and such then the brand will endure.

If not, if one show does it harm, then the franchise doesn't deserve to survive. Burn it to the ground for daring to be boring.

Moments like these remind me why I just watch shows and dare to enjoy them. Fans make enjoyment very difficult sometimes.

 

[Jedi Marso]

How i wish the fight between Zombie Stormtroopers and the Jedi went like this:

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This is just the evidence that a lightsaber is truly too devastating a weapon to place into a kid's show. In any sort of close-quarters fight where a Jedi Knight can use it to defend himself from blasters, it's certain death by UGLY dismemberment. The only saving grace is the cauterizing effect that stops it from being a literal bloodbath, but it's bad enough.

The zombie stormtrooper fight was ridiculous, using this video as a standard for how a lightsaber actually works. Should have been over in seconds, with no coming back unless they wanted to do the creeping, dismembered hand thing.

And I'm sorry, but even being stabbed straight through the brisket with star-hot plasma is going to kill you. It would flash-burn the organs, cook everything around it, and boil your bodily fluids. It's like surviving being hit with a stream of molten lava- you're done. Disney needs to get off this kick of nerfed lightsabers and blasters. Characters shouldn't survive multiple direct hits from those, either. Beskar armor or not.

 

[Jedi Marso]

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The Ahsoka 1986 opening credits.

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Pure gold, and, as it happens, more entertaining than the actual show.

 

[Set Harth]

I thoroughly enjoyed Ahsoka. Far more than Andor.

Ahsoka is kind of the anti-Andor.

And as much as I ended up loving Andor, I was here for it.

 

[FreezeC77]

How i wish the fight between Zombie Stormtroopers and the Jedi went like this:

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10/10 Show none the less. Thrawn and the music were top notch. Glad most of them made it back. Now i hope they can build up more Empire forces and give us a good fight.

When the 'live' troops were resurrected into zombies I actually thought we might see more dismemberment... Thinking maybe the execs would feel "ok, these are zombies now... not real people" and allow it or something, but nope.

Even tactically when it would have made more sense in those hallways to lop off heads/legs.

Honestly when Ahsoka turned and saw the reanimated troopers standing and all grouped up like bowling pins... FOR a split second I actually thought we'd see a LIGHTSABER THROW like in the video games. Ahsoka throwing dual sabers out there and slicing up every reanimated trooper would have been an epic visual.