Star Wars: Critical Divide (This is the way)

[Myrddin]

I haven't watched Ashoka yet, but the Filoniverse has always had the Clone Wars/Rebels pacing issues, but without the amazing moments (well, a couple) that made those shows stand out.

Season one Mando was fun and different, but season 2 showed more of a quest of the week formula that annoys me about Bad Batch. Season 3 was kind of all over the place. Boba Fett suffered from too large scope with too small production. Fett somehow didn't have a clue how to be a strong man and had the political aptitude of a kid picking up power converters. Oh, and a Vespa gang on Tatooine made it through the writers' room as a good idea. The best part of that show was the Mando season 2.5 that got inserted (which somehow felt more satisfying than season 3).

I do enjoy Filoni's work. In fact I just rewatched the Rebel episodes from the Essential Ashoka collection on Disney+. (Ashoka v Vader is one of my favorite SW scenes ever). I'd just like to see him take his superb instinct of character and theme, and mature a little in his overall storytelling.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

50 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Really solid episodes , if the only criticism you have is that bad guys have red lightsabers or vague things like it’s not like another SW show you saw, I don’t really count that as criticism. This was miles ahead of Andor in gripping my attention and I’m excited to see the rest! 

I fell asleep.  That’s how little it held my interest.  Out of curiosity are you a big Rebels and other Star Wars Animated show fan?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

21 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

 

You don't have to agree with it, but Scott's 'its hard to watch this after Andor' is not a vague criticism. It's a very specific criticism. You just have to understand context.

 

For further simplification, and apologies if im misrepresenting Scot's position here, the overall problem people seem to be having is 'Andor was prestige television, the Filoniverse is starting to feel a bit CW'

Yeah… I also like Dawson.  She has gravitatas.  But the script feels like it is written in crayon.  I reserve full judgment until I finish the second episode from the point where I fell asleep.

[Tywin et al.]

I've been checked out on SW for a bit. The last movie was offensively bad and TboBF was only good when it was S2.5 of The Mandalorian. In terms of viewing I should do Andor>S3>the new show, right?

[Jaxom 1974]

48 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

For further simplification, and apologies if im misrepresenting Scot's position here, the overall problem people seem to be having is 'Andor was prestige television, the Filoniverse is starting to feel a bit CW'

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...

[polishgenius]

1 minute ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

It also should not be gate kept by my generation because of that. 

 

Someone saying 'I'm having trouble watching this' is not gatekeeping. On the other hand, someone* earlier in this topic distinctly implied that if you're not a fan of the Filoniverse it's weird to be a fan of any Star Wars. That's gatekeeping.

*you. It was you. 
 

[Ran]

I've watched the first episode, and I liked it pretty much. The start was strong and gave me the vibes of a modern take on what Lucas was doing with the OT, and the only real hitch for me started with the introduction of Sabine where I could see broad, cartoony characterization with her running off from the memorial by being "I Am Very Bad Ass" on her speederbike. Didn't watch Rebels (or the non-Tartakovsky Clone Wars) , feel nothing in that regards, but seeing what's essentially a live-action cartoon that's trying to do serious and comedic in a particularly cartoony way was .... interesting. Not entirely successful, for me, but it didn't pull me out of it because it fit sort of what I expected to see.

Still, looks good, Ray Stevenson's a draw (RIP), and I'm liking the performances.

It's not Andor, but it has neither the interest nor the ambition to be that. It seems like a throwback to The Mandalorian S1 when everyone was mostly wowed by it, before the success led to the over-burdened-with-fan-service follow up season(s). It's definitely better than what I saw of both Obi-Wan and The Book of Boba Fett, at least so far.

ETA:

Okay, one early eye-roll at the start:

Spoiler

The New Republic captain just deciding to "call their bluff" and let them on board. Bro, what if they rigged their ship to explode or something? This was an absurd (read: lazy) way to get them onto the ship.

 

Edited August 23, 2023 by Ran

[Raja]

14 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

Someone saying 'I'm having trouble watching this' is not gatekeeping. On the other hand, someone* earlier in this topic distinctly implied that if you're not a fan of the Filoniverse it's weird to be a fan of any Star Wars. That's gatekeeping.

*you. It was you. 
 

Yeah, I don't find any of the Filoni stuff enjoyable and never have, but count myself as a fairly big star wars fan and have enjoyed lots of the other stuff.

I guess S1 Mandalorian is the thing that came closest, it was fine and I'd classify it as a 6 or 7/10 show which was good but not spectacular.

[Heartofice]

It's perfectly fine to do different things in the same universe and for it all the feel of a whole. Star Wars has always been a mish mash of different styles in different shows, depending on the audience. It's hard to get precious about it.

I just wish every show was just its own thing and tried to lean into what it wants to be rather than falling back on fan service or trying to connect everything together. 

Mando would be a much better show if it really just stuck to the Lone Wolf and Cub shit and was a modern space western. I have no idea what that show even is now. Consequently everything is just bland sci-fi... stuff! 

Also, I just think Clone Wars is pretty shit, so I'm very unlikely to ever watch this Ashoka

[Jaxom 1974]

34 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

Someone saying 'I'm having trouble watching this' is not gatekeeping. On the other hand, someone* earlier in this topic distinctly implied that if you're not a fan of the Filoniverse it's weird to be a fan of any Star Wars. That's gatekeeping.

*you. It was you. 
 

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.

 

Edited August 23, 2023 by Jaxom 1974

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

42 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

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.

 

We’re good.   

[Werthead]

I though this was pretty good. Obviously not on the level of Andor but superior to Obi-Wan, Book of Boba Bett and Season 3 of The Mandalorian (maybe Season 2 as well). It's unabashedly Star Wars, and after Mando doing it's "let's not have Jedi in it apart from like three episodes when they are in it but hey whatever," thing it's good to see them cutting loose with lightsabres, entertaining droids and a charismatic villain played by an actor with fine gravitas (RIP "our good friend" Ray, and his performance is nicely nuanced; he was always a far better actor than people gave him credit for). 

Natasha Bordizzo is also very good as Sabine. Dawson is a bit too reserved as Ahsoka. Yeah, Ahsoka is now in her forties and should be a bit more zen and chill, but in this she was almost inert, although her fight scenes were good. Mary Elizabeth Winstead was also fine as Syndulla. Clancy Brown coming back as his Rebels character was also cool: Brown always elevates everything he's in, and I hope we see more of him. David Tennant was also great as the semi-sassy, what-Jedi-shit-am-I-dealing-with-today droid.

Something I thought was interesting and subsequently proved to be the case:

Spoiler

Sabine got stabbed in a very specific way just off to one side of her chest that made it look like she might have missed all her important organs, which proved to be the case (fortunately, for her). Still, her surviving and being up and around, ready to fight again within about 48 hours seemed a bit much. That looked like a "week in the bacta tank" job at least.

Fun to see Corellia again and nice to see some more leaning into the idea that the New Republic and the Empire are seen by (too many) people as the same thing with a different paint job. Also cool to see Home One again, and them using the "many Bothans died," hologram for some unimportant minor shit.

The main threat of the season is interesting:

Spoiler

A mega-hyperspace bridge capable of intergalactic travel? Interesting to get more development of that as an idea, and how the hell Thrawn ended up out there. Can those whales travel between galaxies?

There's a big missing piece of the puzzle here:

Spoiler

Where the hell is the Ghost? 

 

Edited August 23, 2023 by Werthead

[Kalbear]

Saw only the first ep. I thought it was very much what it is - a followup to Rebels. It felt about the same pace and level of dialogue and scripting as Rebels, with similar problems in emoting, speech and pacing. 

It's quite pretty, the actors are pretty cool, and they're taking it seriously. It also suffers from the feeling of emptyness that using the Volume as the primary system continues to have. This worked fine in the Dathomir temple and worked less so around Lothal. 

The opening crawl was awesome! I missed those. 

I am so very tired of the puzzle thing though, especially puzzles that can be worked out by a 9 year old. I mean, come on, the sphere had 3 choices of variables and 6 options - you can't just brute force this? This is what you needed Sabine for? That was lame. Just have Ahsoka realize she can't take on two Jedi on her own and that she needs backup, and go ask Sabine for help. It was a very video-game puzzle and pretty weaksauce. 

[Kalbear]

Also this is something that probably bugs me and only me, but the costuming is utter shit at times as far as quality goes. Maybe that's by design but things like the Rebel uniforms end up looking like they just don't actually fit all the actors - like bad cosplay that isn't tailored to that specific actor. Ray Stevenson looked like he was wearing football shoulder pads. I saw the same on Mando S3 at times too, especially when they were on Coruscant. 

[Ran]

There's all sorts of things like that, the cartoon origins of it, that do leap out and you realize that you're not really supposed to think of it at a level greatly beyond what the target audience of Rebels might have thought. So, yeah, the puzzle was just... why her? Because she has an "artist's eye"? Surely the New Republic has cryptographers who just work on this all the time. And as you say, it's not _that_ complicated a puzzle for anyone to brute force...

Or, having watched some of the 2nd episode, why is Sabine the person tasked with extracting data, while still sitting in a hospital room no less? Again, there were surely other, more capable people... but everything has to be done by the main characters because, in cartoons, that's just often how it is.

Edited August 23, 2023 by Ran

[Werthead]

3 minutes ago, Ran said:

Or, having watched some of the 2nd episode, why is Sabine the person tasked with extracting data, while still sitting in a hospital room no less? Again, there were surely other, more capable people... but everything has to be done by the main characters because, in cartoons, that's just often how it is.

Not just cartoons, but most stories have the "Main Characters Do Everything," problem (it's even a TV Trope!). It just works better in the Rebel Alliance when everyone has to do everything themselves, and Rebels actually frequently mentioned about them not getting more resources from the Alliance to do stuff. When the characters are now senior members of the New Republic, it makes a bit less sense.

[Frey family reunion]

My wife sure got bored during the show.  I also thought it was too slow but I’m invested enough to keep watching.

Sabine was probably the most interesting character and I thought the actress did a good job.  I like Rosario as Ashoka but I thought the direction she was given didn’t do her any favors.  Filoni is definitely trying to keep Ashoka Zen, but I think he’s making her too low key.  I didn’t like the actress who played Hera.  She didn’t capture any of the personality from the character in Rebels.

The bad guys seemed pretty paint by the numbers.  Nothing really special.  I’ll say one thing, you can’t accuse anyone of overacting.

 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

11 hours ago, Relic said:

Lucas, the writer and director of the prequels? 

PREQUEL FIGHT! PREQUEL FIGHT! PREQUEL FIGHT!

This stuff must correspond to phases of the moon (or something) and I'm totally here for it.

8 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Why do “bad guys” always have Red lightsabers?

 

Canon.

-

I can take or leave new SW content at this point, but I gotta say, some of the reactions on this board are really depressing. I so want this one to be good.

I'll check it out on the weekend. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

24 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Canon.

Okey dokey…

[Kalbear]

I don't know what you want, @Ser Scot A Ellison - red lightsabers as the bad guy thing is actually part of the lore. You might as well be asking why Targaryens have platinum blonde hair and purple eyes sometimes. Going to the dark side means you go and get your red saber - largely because (according to lore) it makes you more powerful and closer to the dark side. 

That said, I'll be the Comic Book Guy and point out that their sabers are orange, not red. I don't actually know what that means in this context - in other contexts that means it's kind of awesomely powerful and rare, but here? They also don't have the typical evil sith eyes or obvious sith corruption values, so it's possible they aren't darkside influenced yet - but want to ensure they aren't being mistaken for Jedi. Same is true for Ahsoka and her pure white blades.