Jaxom 1974

I honestly thought it was going to be some sort of feint...that it was going to play into the whole, "work together Ahsoka ans Sabine, you're better that way..." and that they'd somehow planned a possible switch to the other side for Sabine, but then Ahsoka apparently didn't just go over that cliff... (The whole better together line/expectation is a Chekov's Gun for me as the show progresses, by the by...) I thought her use of just the one blade has as much to do with the move that was used to beat Marrok...as she just stood there blade overhead for the moment before...with regard to her fight with Marrok.

Yeah. That was solid.

Friday is best for me right now.

Drop: Pringle, Scott, Abdullah

I don't know that the quality dipped, for me. Where I struggle sometimes, I the extrem layering of back story and world building that the show did, but then the long breaks...it wasn't always easy to remember everything. I love layered and well built storyworlds...but they didn’t make it easy...

Adult Swim has the Venture Bros. movie on last night. It was...fine...if you hadn't watched the show and went in cold it would have made zero sense, particularly as they sought to get just about every character into at least a scene...mind you, I've watched the show and I was still struggling to follow all of the story. That there was an A and B plot working that eventually blended together felt...eh... But they left things open enough to do more...

Or...they do something radical and use the World Between Worlds to launch the Sequel Trilogy into an alternate universe and continue on as though they no longer have to shoehorn all of that in...What? A guy can dream...

When you're famous, they just let you do it...

True. And then it became about the two of them trusting in one another again to get the job done... it was almost like it was meant to build the characters and the relationship...a little...

It's an interesting thought on the dynamic... Plus, you know, more Mandolorians...forget Bo-Katan! It's Sabine who's gonna be the next Mando on a show!

I kept thinking they were using early WWII fighters, they only needed some propellers...

Rewatched Tron: Legacy the other day...it's still enjoyable to me, though such a missed opportunity fora proper movieverse...and regardless of how bad, or good, you may think the de-aging of Keff Bridges was, remembering they were doing that about 13 years ago and the technology doesn't seem to have gotten that much better... That Jared Leto is behind the next movie, if it ever gets done, does not fill me with joy though...

JJ Abrams? The "force" that made Star Wars movies without really knowing anything about Star Wars...? Never met a moment of ANH he couldn't rip-off...and he created the idea that the New Republic was so incompetent that Leia had to create a "Resistance" to fight the bad guys, who weren't actually in charge of anything... That JJ... Of course, you might have been being sarcastic...

Seeing that they're constrained by the canon of the sequels that say the New Republic must be a dismal failure...thanks, JJ...

The perfect summation of the White Sox season doesn't exis...

The final scene in Rebels was a flashforward (evidenced by Hera and Kanan's kid been a few years old). The idea is that the first two episodes, despite some small inconsistencies, is the lead up to when Ahsoka picks Sabine up at the very end of Rebels, post Rebellion, thus giving time for Sabine to have trained with Ahsoka, then had a falling out (over I suspect looking for Thrawn vs. Ezra)...it isn't perfect, but makes sense.

Oohhhh...I totally missed the idea that the first two episodes were a bit of a prequel/catch up to where Rebels left ofleft that actually makes some sense...kinda...

He'll still command upwards of 500 million though...

I did watch all of Rebels...and with that knowledge watched the start of Ahsoka and even then, the way it was presented, it absolutely worked if you had no working knowledge of the characters. Even with working knowledge, the same questions are being asked: What was the actual relationship of Sabine/Ahsoka? How did Ezra's disappearance and the search for him play into what happened between them? Will, does, that matter to any solution to the show, or is it background? Who is Balyan Skoll ultimately? Who is the mysterious, silent Inquisitor working with him? (A question the clickbait media wants to be a bigger part of the show - is it Bariss Offee or Ezra?) Why is the New Republic so bad at things? It all worked overall...

To be fair, we don't know what Thrawn's motivation is yet...or why it seemingly works for the dark side users to want to work with/for him. And Baylan Skoll is only, at this point, a mercenary anyway. And the thing about the Rebellion, and I think this comes through in Andor in some ways, is that there doesn't seem to be much of a plan of what to dononce the Empire is overthrown besides, "Restore the Republic"...which is, as shown here in the second episode, only possibly if so many of the Imperials are allowed to continue on doing what they'd been doing. Yes, Mandalorian seems to indicate the more hard-core Imperials have to be re-educated to some degree...but the New Republic seems to miss the point that the Empire appears to have succeeded and been accepted so readily because so many of the galaxy's population was already buying what the Emperor was selling...I mean, they had to have jad the same personnel issues that the New Republic faced, right?

This is why the Special Counsel went for the Twitter stuff, I thought. For the tweets, but also all those sweet, sweet DMs...

Hmmmm...and to think when the space map first appeared, I thought she'd found the Power Stone... And while it was clunky in its overall execution, at least the reason for a map makes at least a little sense...moreso than a map to find Luke...

Hmmm...I will accept the rebuke because gatekeepering is not something I believe in, and I in no way intended to come off that way. Though I can see that it might be interpreted that way. @Ser Scot A Ellison has my apologies if I said something to offend him. However, I will rework my initial statement to suggest that I, me personally, struggle with the idea that one form lf storytelling within a shared universe, "can ruin" the rest for someone and allow them to remain fans of the greater whole with new material. I don't believe shared universe storytelling should be a zero sum game and saying the rest is "ruined" by one version over potential others does seem very limiting. To me. That is what I wished to convey when I was disagreeing with Scot's assertion. Doing so poorly is on me.

And...? In a shared universe setting of the scope of Star Wars, that has existed for nearly 50 years, a universe built for my generation who were children during the OT and grew up on the stuff, it simply cannot be one or the other. It also should not be gate kept by my generation because of that. As a fan from the beginning, who grew up on this stuff, I want both. I need Filoni's storytelling and looser scripting to make things as light as it can be serious so that my children can come into this world and enjoy it and want to explore it. And I, as the longtime fan, want to see what can be done in a prestige style of storytelling within this universe now because I also think the story world can support it without reducing my take on the other stuff to, " Well that all sucks now because those telling the stories can do prestige so well". It isn't zero sum storytelling. It can't be. This doesn't mean the stories that aren't Andor can't be less than compelling. It also doesn't mean Andor Season 2 will stick the landing (based on expectations) either...

I'm less than ten miles from the Fiserv Forum and I can decide if it is the debate or the 100 degree heat that's keeping me from wanting to do anything outdoors today... Next summer is going to suck soooooo much...