Doesn't help that Dawson looks pretty awkward swinging a lightsaber around. But hell, that's the least if this shows problems

This whole episode was probably the most filler heavy yet. Light saber fight, bad guys escape, roll credits.

I keep thinking of a line from the very first Mr Plinkett Star Wars review: "how can you screw up Star Wars so bad? It's like making mashed potatoes. You boil the water. You open the packet..."

I actually think that it's nice that Disneys acquisition of Lucas Films has allowed for a full diversity of Star Wars fans to be under one umbrella. There's something for everyone! Andor is for folks who think Star Wars is about storytelling, anti-fascism, and revolutionary politics, and Ahsoka is for cute chicks who want to cosplay, support capitalism, and cash checks!

It really breaks down as such...

Filoni projects are for prequel loving millennials. Kennedy projects push female agendas. Gilroy projects are for original trilogy loving adults. Favereau tries to appeal to everyone.

Gilroy is the only one batting 1000, and sadly he'll be done with SW after Andor wraps.

The problem with Ahsoka is that Filoni is repeating the weekly cartoon formula he's been doing for 15 years & it simply does not translate well to live action.

Next Episode: Weird time travel shit happens, there's a shark, Anakin doesn't turn evil, the republic never fails, Anakin & Natalie Portman have (1) baby, a girl named Leia, she's a badass female Jedi, a win for the girl bosses, Luke never exists, Rey never exists(thank the lord), the original trilogy doesn't exist. Everyone wins. Let's just go full dumpster with this shit & stop pretending any of it is remotely good. It's all dog shit including Andor.

I'll watch it next Tuesday regardless. I'm hooked.

I like the cut of your jib.

<blockquote

Good one....just to add to the farce of it all, Gilroy has never been a big fan of SW, but he's a good writer and knows how to work a script. It's like everything else in life, you do something long enough and if you have enough brains to be curious about it, you will get good at it. He gets storytelling....it's not that hard really, and it amazes me that the others fail at this basic concept. Check out the NYT article below, you'll see what I'm saying about him getting it. Basically, a story has to have characters you care about, have something driving that character, that something should be something the audience can identify with. You then need a conflict, a protagonist vs. something, or someone, then the journey begins towards a dénouement, and that's storytelling 101. I was thinking why recently everything sucks so much, I think one big reason is the filler parts in the shows (As mentioned by pinsider Jason43), the system we have now, is basically a vendor/network thing, where they pitch the story to a network, get a greenlight and funding for the pilot, and if all good they get an order for 10 or 12 episodes. Then the vendor goes off and makes them. Typically the contract says 10 episodes, so they stretch that same pitch story that good taste dictates can be done in 5 shows to span 10 episodes, but they have to do it with lot's of nonsense filler stuff. This is the same reason why we have a shit load of documentaries on Netflix that are 4 or 5 part series. I swear, maybe 5% of them need to be more than 2 hours, but they get paid more for delivering more content, forget if it's good or not, it's content, as far as the network is concerned.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/15/arts/television/star-wars-andor-tony-gilroy.html

Plus the Andor show is 12 episodes each season, with each episode running close to an hour. Zero filler, story moves forward, characters develop each week.

These 8 episode Mando/Ashoka seasons with 35-40 min episodes are a joke. Shit Obiwan was only 6 episodes & 4 of them were unnecessary!

People are too busy crying over moments they’ve waited forever for, without admitting how damaging time-traveling macguffins & non-critical lightsaber gut stabs are damaging the franchise. They also showing Episode 5 in theaters next Tuesday for the big Thrawn/Anakin reveal. Someone needs to pass me the kool-aid I guess.

Well my tin foil hat is going back on! This show is really playing with my head.

I'll admit that Filloni did a really good job with Episode 5. Turns out they didn't go crazy with the WBW macguffin, turns out it really was a "force vision flashback" after all. I must also admit that it was pretty damn satisfying seeing Christensen in live action again (I'm not a hater), as they handled this long awaited live-action interaction between these two characters very well. They got me. Loved seeing all sides of Anakin's character represented. Ashoka learns that she is not responsible for Anakin's downfall, but she finally rejected the fear that his darkness lies within her as well. New confidence moving forward. That was my take.

Some may say that was fan service at it's finest, but at least there was some character growth. And a good 50 minute run time to get it done. Now bring on Thrawn next week!

I don't think he did a good job on episode 5.

Pointless Anakin flashback just to have an excuse to bring Christensen back. More walking. More dumb kid. More long, pretentious shots to fill time...and then, possibly the dumbest thing I've seen in a franchise that is overflowing with dumb shit: traveling to another galaxy in the mouth of an intergalactic space whale.

What was the point of green lady/worst parent ever coming with a squad of x wings, just to turn around and go back after achieving nothing? Fucking wheel spinning.

This episode was what, 40-50 minutes? All that time to just set up that they're following the bad guys.

Literally 5 minutes of plot spread out over an entire episode.

This show is dumb as fuck.

Could it be that ChatGPT wrote these episodes?

There was no purpose of the last episode, same as all the other star wars crap of late.

The short propaganda piece called Master and Apprentice on Disney+ has about 1 min of original footage with Hamil, Prose, and Guinness and man - have we lost gravitas in our characters.

nice summary, I must concur.

Ahsoka acting/writing is worse than a low budget porn movie. Disney truly has flushed Star Wars down the toilet.

Each of these episodes consist of the characters standing around, pontificating over something or each other. Then a light saber battle, then more self absorption/pontificating about purpose and people. Then more light saber conflict.

Disappointing.

There are two macro narrative problems with Star Wars. When every second of backstory is written, then the result is a demystification of the overall narrative universe. This is the problem with backstories after the fact. Example, no one really cares how Boba Fett got out of the pit. We all have our own imaginations or theories. These imaginations are way better than the actual backstory as seen in an episode. So naturally, we are let down.

Second problem is the demystification of the future narrative. Ahsoka is cool but there are NO stakes, whatsoever. The threat of Thrawn coming back is cool. The fact that we all know he isn't around in the sequel trilogy, takes away from the "stakes" of him being a threat.

So narratively, the past is cool but kind of a let down & the future is already set with terrible stories so there are limited stakes. Also a let down, even if it's subconscious.

Disney really fucked up by not focusing on characters like Ahsoka, Luke, Leia, Han, Thrawn, etc. They could have release EP7 with Rey looking for Luke, only to find Ahsoka. Released a whole TV series about Ahsoka, & continued the sequel trilogy or whatever.

Star Wars is a dead IP because it's narratively bankrupt. There a no themes or motifs. Characters lack motivation. Villains suck. Mando isn't that good even but by comparison it's a 4 inch poop surrounded by diarreha.

Shit like this is kinda why I hope the writers lose their asses with this strike.

I think it should be mentioned that nobody in this thread is wrong. Everyone has valid points about this show (and Disney SW in general) being good/bad/somewhere in-between. Those conflicting thoughts are in my head constantly. There are just too many expectations from being a fan for 40+ years that I can't help but be critical, especially when the content is trickled out weekly over several years.

Filloni know this. He's got the keys to the castle now, for better or worse. Kennedy is going to be let go in 2024, and once her contract is up, they are free to fix the franchise. Besides the initial box office gross, Episodes 7-9 has been a complete financial failure across merchandising, theme parks, hotels, etc. I'd expect The Acolyte to be an even bigger failure & perhaps written-off next year. Can't keep hemorrhaging millions on bad, unpopular projects. Time to reset & focus solely on the post-ROTJ era.

His upcoming focus will clearly be a "Thrawn Trilogy" adaptation, retconning the post-ROTJ time period & making Kennedy's Rey Trilogy forgotten. I'd expect Lucas to be more involved as an executive producer or guest director for Filloni & welcomed back with open arms. The problem Filoni has is that he's adapting the Thrawn storyline that is almost as popular as the original films. He can screw it up easily by trying to make it his own. It's a tall order. Thrawn deserves a big budget adaptation, with de-aged CGI Luke, Han, Leia, Mara Jade, huge space battles, etc etc. I really believe that is Filloni & Faverau's ultimate long term goal.

The problem is that the TV shows are a slow grind unfortunately. And the TV format is always going to feel small scale due to budget & effects constraints. The shows just don't feel high stakes. Perhaps they will at some point. We're just being spoon fed this material now, so we tend to overanalyze as the episodes trickle out.

You know that was my first thought too. Why is this dumb kid being forced into this show? Why bother? Then it got me thinking what about what Dark Jedi Baylon Skoll has been saying, and then comparing with the Thrawn books.

Seems like Skoll is a loosely adapted version of Joruus C'Baoth. In the books C'Baoth worked for Thrawn to bring down the New Republic, and in exchange he could claim Leia's unborn twins for his future apprentices. Skoll is always saying he's aiding Thrawn for a greater purpose & how so few Jedi are actually left. His ultimate goal may be to obtain a force sensitive child, like Hera's son Jacen, once he learns of his existence. The problem is that Ray Stevenson passed away this year & I'm sure it's created a huge problem for Filloni's future storytelling.

Or it could simply just be a dumb kid. haha

Well said.

I would add that the original creative team had real inspirations to draw upon.... classic samurai tales, old 1930s action serials and old radio shows, Nazis/totalitarian state with real uniforms and style....

Classic storytelling is not being practiced here today.

Have to admit, these last two episodes have been a lot of fun. Show is picking up steam. Doesn't change the fact that episodes 1-4 could've been a ten minute opener for an episode and we would've gotten the same effect. Also, the acting for Sabin has been pretty terrible all around. But even with that, I am starting to enjoy it a lot more.

SPOILER

Thrawn and his troopers looked incredible. Loved the degraded and run down look of the troopers. Enoch looks like another awesome side character. Hopefully he doesn't have a pointless death like Marok.

Wishful thinking. They will continue to produce stuff banking on the folks who grew up on the prequels until they can milk out all of the folks who grew up on the sequels then rinse, repeat.

yeah that last episode wasn't the worst. Sabine is really the problem (and to a lesser extent, Rosario). I can see they hired her for the action sequences, but her acting is pretty bad. Of course so was Mark Hamill's in the original.

Thrawn definitely stole the show, but Pullo and his student are also great.

I actually enjoyed the last episode of Ahsoka, although I think they should have renamed the show Rebels instead.

Still, the entrance of Thrawn was awesome. The detail they put in his star destroyer still showing the damage caused by the ship being dragged by one of those "warp whales(?) was cool and the appearance of the night sisters looked awesome as well.

Didn't realize Thrawn's army consisted of dead stormtrooper brought back to life by the Night Sisters. Didn't notice the crates being unloaded from the destroyer was actually coffins of dead stormtroopers being brought to the Night Sisters in order to bring them back to life. That would explain the dirty armor and the red wrapping around the army of the troopers, which would be the garments the Night Sisters would wrap around the body before they would bring them back to life.

When I first observed Enoch I thought to myself "Well, Hasbro is going to make him into an action figure". He looked cool, but I'm not sure if he's an undead trooper or one of the last living ones of the army.

Loved the spooky feel of Thrawn and his army of the dead, putting me into the early spirit of Halloween. Here's hoping the last (2) episodes will put this show over the top along the ranks of Mando, Andor and Bad Batch.

What? Luke was perfect

Seriously. Mark did a great job and his screen test footage proves it.

Not going to lie, I was a little lost last episode. Maybe it was the after bowling beers I had before hand. Witches? Zombies? Star Wars? Huh?

As someone mentioned before, this show really should be titled Rebels. It's just an extension of that show plus some clone wars threads. If you haven't seen those shows then I can understand being lost.

He played the roll of awkward farm boy well.

My favorite part was when the bad guy Jedis are like "ughhh witchcraft". They literally move things with their minds, but when these chicks do it, it's the dark arts.

That and the intimidating side shot of Thrawns beer gut as he's walking up the aisle. The stormtroopers may be going to shit while stranded on this planet, but he ain't missing seconds.

Other thoughts:
-why are the stormtroopers so dirty? White plastic has to be pretty easy to clean.
-why is Thrawn wasting resources to follow and kill Sabine/Ezra? Just leave them. They're in another fucking galaxy.
-how do space witches from another galaxy speak English?

I'm still convinced this is Star Wars for stupid people.

And I also get a good laugh at the people speculating that Ezra is going to be some amazing badass. He's a male character in a 2023 Disney-Star Wars show. Of course he's going to simp for the female characters.

Yeah no shit! He’s been in exile for what? Ten years? A good narrative would have had Sabine make a meaningful sacrifice to find Ezra, only to find him happy in exile with a family; a wife and a few kids. Instead he’s stuck watching weird rock/bug people porn, thinking about Sabine.

Hell a better, more “2023” plot would have been, Sabine, the witch lady, and the Jedi show up to find everyone dead on the Star destroyer. They search the planet only to find Thrawny and Ezra holed up in some cave together, clearly together. They spend the whole next episode convincing us they are NOT gay, even though Ezra’s clothes are covered in ten years worth of blue splurge.

I’m a real Hollywood writer guys!

To answer your questions.....

I believe the stormtrooper are actually dead troopers, brought to life by the witch sisters. They were probably buried and brought back to life afterwards, thus showing the dirty armor. I recall seeing some of the troopers having blaster marks on their armor denoting they probably were killed by blaster fire. Plus, they do have those red cloth items wrapped around parts of their armor, which is what those night sisters would wrap around the bodies prior to them performing the magic to revive the dead. You don't see walkers or zombies walking around with fresh, clean clothing do you? They're probably just happy walking around and using what brain activity to do just that. IMO I think the producers made them look that way to give them the perception of being dead troopers, which I thought was pretty cool. Maybe when they get back to the regular universe they can hit up Pinball Life and get some wax to shine up their plastics, huh?

Thrawn is pure evil and just wants to get revenge on them, regardless if he has the upper hand or not. Why leave them on a remote planet if they have a chance of living and possibly coming back to antagonize him again? Plus he knows Ahsoka is in the picture and is enroute to possibly confront him and/or save Sabine/Ezra.

Would you really want to watch a show that has to use sub-titles for whenever a creature or alien being says something? How can I concentrate on the action or the visuals of any movie if I'm constantly looking down to read a sub-title?

All in all I'm enjoying this show and I don't consider myself stupid. I suggest finding the time to open your mind and go back and watch the clone wars series and possibly the Rebels show to get the back story. You don't have to watch all of the seasons, maybe checking on the episodes that has the night sisters and Thrawn in them.

I do agree on the beer gut theory though, but I guess every character can't be skinny minnies. Look at Jabba and he has a fan base. Just saying.

This is the way.

I appreciate people here filling in the backstory about the dead troopers, it is a bit of a miss on the part of the show not explaining or at least alluding to it in some better manner. Though I freely admit in only watching this episode and even then only the back half so I might have missed it in some prior episode.

Thrawn was not evil in the first book or two I recall back in the day, he was simply a loyal servant of the Empire. If I recall he was regulated to the back waters due to being out of favor with the Emperor since he wasn't human. Zahn wrote him as a very nuanced character.

And yes "beer gut" Thrawn is a bit jarring.

He's in power - of course they always eat the best. I think it adds realism.

I love all the constant hate watching folks do for Star Wars.

Star Wars is and has always been fantasy, it's not sci fi. George Lucas own words on the original screen treatment was that it's space fantasy, it's a series that revolves around literal space wizards. It's funny when people get uppity about when they do anything that is not "grounded" in star wars.

But lol yea that tiny puppet guy lifts star fighters with his mind. That old dude shoots lightning out of his hands..... wait there is witches now?! HOLD UP.

Welcome to the thread! First off, Star Wars isn't fantasy, it's a space opera!

Secondly, let's consider the "Force" to be a magic system. It should have bounds. For example, force speed(episode 1) is ridiculous. Force healing is a necessity in Star Wars video games but breaks the narrative in any other medium. Why isn't Force healing the first thing Jedi's are taught? Why learn about anything else? Witchcraft is a "new" magic system, introduced to the live action scene for the first time by the Asoka series, if I'm not mistaken. So narratively, it breaks the universe. Why not topple the empire with magic users?

Third, you see like the kinda person who will enjoy it when the werewolves & vampires are introduced.

Even fantasy universes have set rules, Disney Star Wars disregards established canon at every opportunity.

That is quite possibly the dumbest thing I've ever heard, in a franchise that's been pumping consistent dumb shit for decades.

Simply being fantasy is not a free pass for bad story telling. There's rules that have been pre-established in this universe and when you start going around those rules, you get shit like this. Now people take lightsabers to the chest like it's nothing. Now, you have space zombies and intergalactic space whales and people force throwing space ships. Because it looks cool.

And I could almost accept those things if the story was crafted by someone with talent, but it's not, which makes the stupidity glaringly obvious. That's the difference between this and the OT. Yes, it's ideas are dumb, but it doesn't matter, because it was made by people with talent, who could make the silliness work through good story telling.

If you like it, great. Watch it, love it. Roll your eyes at the people like me who can't blindly consume the sludge.

personally feel the whole genre is mislabeled science fiction and should really be called science fantasy.

I really can't think of any real science in the star wars universe.

except the hyperspace wales that live in space and travel between galaxies. that total make's sense and is probably real.

Personally I think the mouse/Disney could use a vasectomy.

Yes!! Spot on....I didn't realize till you guys mentioned it....this is basically live action Rebels, and again someone had mentioned this types of stories work for the animated series but don't translate well for live action tv or movies. Just like the magic/witchcraft stuff and the afterlife sequence, these type of things got a pass from Lucas because it was made for young people, I doubt very much if he would've greenlit these storylines for a movie. We are witnessing Filoni's education in writing at ours and Disney's expense. It will take a long time for him to learn what works and what doesn't. For example, Gen Syndulla bringing her kid along on a mission...Why? Because Filoni needed the kid for the rescue part (perhaps more, hostage seq coming up?), but it was done in such a questionable way, it sabotages the story. Again, this type of dull writing, and I mean dull in the strongest way, is ok for cartoons but for live action they leave a lot to be desired. Anyways, I haven't watched the last episode yet, but after reading your comments I'm really looking forward to seeing Thrawn's powerful mystique destroyed.

Here….have a snickers.

I'm a bit late to the party as I watched Episode 6 yesterday.

Thrawn's reveal was pretty satisfying. Cold & calculating, exactly as he should be. The Kintsugi or Undead troopers (whatever they are) were cool AF & totally unexpected, as well as seeing his pieced together Chimaera destroyer. Thrawn is not described as round faced & beer bellied in the books. But since they wanted to cast the Rebels cartoon voice actor in the role, this is what we're getting for live action. Remains to be seen if Lars Mikkelsen can fill the role on camera.

As far as the reveal that the Nightsister witches are from another galaxy, well I guess it makes more sense now, because the introduction of witchcraft & magic into the Star Wars universe during the Clone Wars cartoon was a pretty big leap in lore.

He was pretty clear. Use the Dark Jedi mercenaries to follow & then kill Sabine/Ezra. Ultimately all of them are expendable & inconsequential. Priority is leaving returning to SW galaxy ASAP. That's essential Thrawn thinking. I was just surprised that Thrawn had no knowledge of the Dark Jedi working with Lady Morgan.

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The concept of undead zombie stormtroopers is actually from a very popular extended universe novel. This show really is not for the casual SW fan, and the show is not making any apologies for it. They don't care if the casual fan is lost. They are taking popular EU concepts that fans have been asking decades for & turning them into live action cannon. Show is picking up steam now, hopefully it continues without getting sidetracked. But with that said....

This is what's in the back of my mind as well. How long before Filoni makes Thrawn look like a damn fool & ends up destroying 30 years of mystique.
It's just that Filoni's cartoon-style writing just keeps stumbling. Case in point....

Ezra & Sabine are reunited. He's been shipwrecked & abandoned on a strange planet in another galaxy for a decade, with practically zero hope of rescue. It would have made sense if he was completely hysterical & crying upon seeing Sabine, and she would be overwhelmed with emotion upon finding him. Nope. Instead we got a smooth laid-back "Hey Wuzzzup" greet & hug. Come on. And then he when asked how she got there, Sabine is like "yeah lets not worry about that right now, let's just chill". HUH??? Bad writing, dumb characters, or both. These are the moments where the show fails badly.

Spoiler for everyone: Sabine & Ezra are awful characters. Now that they are reunited, it won't take long for viewers to start cheering for their deaths every week.

Yes and yes I agree with these statements

Yet another week of low-stakes "stick slapping", where nobody dies or loses a limb, and then one of the combatants runs away. Or in Ezra's case...no stick required, just punch & force push everyone. If I remember right, he was briefly facing off against Shin Hati & dodging lightsabers no problem.

But I figured ok, rematch of Baylon Skoll vs Ahsoka. This should be good, rare for two force users to face off repeatedly without someone paying a price. Nope! Ahsoka just runs away before resolving fight. What was the point of that then? And did you notice that during that fight, they kept intercutting to lame comic moments of Erza telling crabs to stay in their shellcraft? Good lord who edited that??

Enjoyed the moment where they worked C3P0 into the story. They can't ignore that original main characters are alive & well during this time period. I think next week is last episode. If they go from Ahsoka Season 1 straight into a feature film, that's going to be a huge mistake.

Talent like George Lucas? Oh that's right. Oh yea zombies are dumb.... oh btw, guess who was involved in bringing zombies to Star Wars? Yea... George Lucas. George was heavily involved in the writing room and had final say on most ideas that were presented in The Clone Wars, he's the one who designed the entire mando background that they have gone with. Witches, undead, yea he was part of this whole thing, that same talent you are praising for the OT is the one who pulled the strings to create your sludge.

Your mixing "bad story telling" with "I DON'T LIKE THING"

Lucas has often noted it's a fantasy series, just with space ships and laser guns. The original treatment for Star Wars he wrote literally called it a fantasy on it's front page.

Everything I've read says Lucas was not really involved, creatively speaking. As a matter of fact, the executive producer title is sometimes demanded by people because they helped secure financing, other times is to have their name on the credit list.

This is what is bringing the show down for me. I like the overall concepts in the show, but Sabine just sucks all the air out of the room. The writing and acting for her character have been atrocious. The fact that she hasn't told Ezra what's going on yet is insane.