It sucks so hard. It might have been the worst Star Wars thing I've seen since Rise of Skywalker.
Thats okay. I feel the same about like...most of the season 😀
I liked it!
I went in expecting this to end with a "cliffhanger" (or at least things unresolved), so storyline-wise it went as I had expected. I am not sure we needed 8 episodes to get to this point?
I didn't have the extreme negative reaction some did, but then again I thought the show had been solid not great anyway, and this was solid but not great. I think the three parts that bugged me was the riding of the creatures through the fire from the Star Destroyer - we've seen that Star Destroyers and the Imperial Fleet can devastate a planet (Mandalore) but they can't some horses riding in a straight line the front - I know it is Star Wars and the Imperials never blow up anything, but that seemed a bit much. Second part was Ezra walking out of the shuttle with the helmet on...? I mean, the coms don't work to say who he is or he can't come out with his hands up with his face showing so no one shoots him, but they let him land? Finally, if you are doing the clicking clock storytelling, it would be nice if the characters seemed in a hurry for that reason, I never felt that "You know, if Thrawn leaves, not only is our galaxy at risk but we may be stuck here forever, maybe we should get a move on and have a plan - or lets hang out and protect the snail people".
But ultimately, I just dislike the Witches and connecting Jedi lore to another Galaxy in general, and being able to form swords from mystic energy and reanimate the dead and what not - so that whole addition to SW doesn't click for me I guess. Nor will what I assume will be Thrawn's zombie army - just doesn't seem Star Wars enough for me - I suspect they want the Zombie Troopers so they can be hacked and slashed without compunction from our heroes.
I think some of my ambivalence is that unless you really liked Rebels and to some extent The Clone Wars series, I am not sure this show gave me a reason to think getting Ezra back was all that important or Thrawn with his one Star Destroyer so dangerous. A lot of the stakes came from past shows - which is OK but I am not sure the show really made me think this band would go through anything to help each other - especially as no one seemed all that excited to see each other, or all that upset about being separated again. That and I feel they are trying too hard to explain how the Sequels happened - and no matter how they do it, it just seems to diminish the OT more and more.
And who is feeding Sabine's Lothal cat?
So I’m concerned that the story guiders are not willing to take risks. I see the blame being thrown around on social media. It starts with Kennedy helming Lucasfilm and right down the list Filoni as Lucas’s padawan, and Favreau who likes playing with the Star Wars toys…
Lucasfilm.
Take a risk.
I mean add meaning to these terms Jedi or Sith or whatever you want to do with these space wizards controlling an all powerful Force. Don’t dance around it. Declare your story and either sink or swim if the story has merit.
Thrawn. I guess if you keep saying he’s the smartest guy in the room people may believe it. I’m Thrawn. Destroy the space vessel. Now take off. Ahsoka and her Allie’s are no threat. Dock in space with your super hyper drive and zap on off. The comments of rain down fire means nothing. Even zombie Storm Troopers can’t hit anything.
Surely he has a cargo full of Dathomir witches they hope to reanimate to control the galaxy as a new Empire of Star Wars version of vampires, Force/Life sucking creatures that are hard to kill.
The more times they say “hey a cool story is coming” and just drag it out, the less people will buy into the hype.
It was a dumb and sometimes fun story. I guess that’s the it of it.
It still bugs me Ezra seemed to turn a corner. His plan with the Pergyl whales to end Rebels show was a spectacle. All through the show Ezra communed with the creatures of that galaxy and it gave him an edge. They did nothing to continue that.
I also think it’s a wasted opportunity to give more mystique to the whales story by not having the whale who transported them to that galaxy not begin to die not from mines but it was the end of its life cycle. Obviously they are setting up this point in the other galaxy as a tuning point for the Force.
I enjoyed Ray Stevenson’s role. I hope this character he embodied the story is not abandoned.
I was fine with Ahsoka being “stranded” I liked the characters they set in place for that planet.
I’m interested in seeing more if they will actually tell a story and take a risk. It could be really good or it will suck. Doing not really much seems worse than failure.
Thwipp!
And who is feeding Sabine's Lothal cat?
The very question I thought the last time we saw it. That apartment thing was high off the ground, too.
I haven't thought too highly of this show since the start — I could never get into Rebels which I think was a prerequisite for really liking this show — but found it mildly entertaining, even if it was a slow slog. And then this, it's hard to find one redeeming thing about that finale. So many stupid things. It's so bad it taints the whole series.
Like I said, I didn't watch Rebels but they really took a great character in Thrawn and trashed him. They should hire Timothy Zahn on — or some other competent writer — for whatever's next and get that back on track. Awful.
At least I got to see some E-wings in action, kinda.
Awesome. I got more enjoyment out of that than the entire series. It was funny 'cause it's true. And they nailed the '80s TV commercial vibe.
Spoilerjust hiding this when it posts but quoting so I can respondSo... I'm gonna preface this by pointing out that I have been almost 100% positive on this show for the whole first 7 episodes. Like.. I loved the show and was singing its praises.
Episode 8 fucking sucks. It sucks so hard. To the point where I repeatedly paused it to question whether or not anyone involved in the previous 7 episodes had anything to do with this absolute trash. There was basically nothing redeemable here. Even the stuff that could have been good was so forced and rushed that it just wasn't good.
It's like the writers/directors/whatever forgot there was only going to be 8 episodes, filmed 7 of them, and then spent an entire episode going 'OH SHIT!'
Dawson's lightsaber/fight choreography was the worst it's been in the show, and in fact represents some of the worst fight choreography in the entirety of Star Wars. Way too much stuff was just 'and then this has to happen' rather than anything happening organically. I did not, for one moment, buy into Sabine suddenly being able to use The Force because we did not build to it at all.
And even before she really shows any ability to even do ANYTHING with the Force, she's deflecting laser blasts with her lightsaber - which should require actual attunement to the Force that she -demonstrably- does not have. Ezra barely uses The Force - his own attunement to which being the reason he told Sabine he didn't even need a lightsaber - during the fight with zombie Death Trooper and instead decides to like.. fist fight an undead soldier in full body armor.
Magic flaming sword.
Sabine's helmet is back. Probably dropped out of fucking Narnia with the magic flaming sword.
Thrawn is a terribly tactician. Just terrible. He makes constant bad decisions. It's like making a show about a person that's an absolute chess master and then showing them losing at checkers for three straight episodes.
Shin and Baylan were only in this episode the requisite number of seconds so the showrunners could pretend they didn't forget to write something for them to do. Even more tragic considering we lost Ray and his story now probably goes absolutely nowhere.They overplayed their hand with the 'ticking clock' trope because there was no apparent rhyme or reason to why Thrawn's nonsense was taking as long as it was, or why it wasn't 'ready' when everyone said 'ready.' Or why they didn't get the ship ready to move -WHILE- they were getting it loaded. Like.. just what the fuck.
None of this episode made any sense. None of it was choreographed well. None of it was convincing. It might have been the worst Star Wars thing I've seen since Rise of Skywalker.
I was also mostly positive about the show. It started out okay for me, got a lot better, but I felt it finished okay too. I didn't hate it, heh.
A lot of the stuff you went into is opinion and obviously I can't counter that. I didn't notice anything particularly bad about Dawson's dueling. I've noticed little things here and there but I'm sure dueling with the prosthetics isn't easy and maybe this was shot earlier in the schedule, but again nothing really jumped out to me.
But not building toward Sabine using the Force at all, I feel, is incorrect. It was clear they were building toward that. She had way more training than Luke did the first time he deflected laser blasts, and though he clearly had a more natural talent than Sabine, it seems like it was something she had to unlock in a moment of stress or dire need. To me, it kinda taps into Lucas's original idea of the Force as expressed in the late 70s that anyone can be trained, but some are gonna have the talent more than others. I do agree Ezra should have been Force pushing a lot more during his fight, but that's also something that happens to a lot of people in a fight. Especially if it's been a decade since he fought someone. So, yeah I agree but I can fudge it.
I assume Ahsoka brought Sabine's helmet back on her ship in the whale mouth.
I agree Thrawn wasn't really portrayed well. The writers obviously don't know how to convey tactics well and didn't bother to research or question actual military leaders about it. Didn't bother me a ton but I totally get why it would for you or others. I'm not the biggest Thrawn fan anyway so maybe that helps in my case.
Definitely a bummer about Shin and especially Baylan. I went into this hoping for minimal cliffhanger, got ultimate cliffhanger, but somehow didn't mind as much as I would have thought. They did a decent job of sort-of-resolution, to me.
I do agree about the ticking clock. There was never much sense of urgency from the heroes. I didn't understand why they were traveling at Noti pace. Were they taking all those mobile homes with them onto the Star Destroyer? The race on the ratwolves was the only time they seemed to get that time was of the essence except at the very end, but beyond that I did say "stop stopping!" a lot to the tv. There's a whole sequence in the JJ Abrams (I know, I know) Star Trek where they're in the middle of a disaster and the characters are rushing through the ship (ticking clock) to get to the thing to stop the whatever, and having a fast-paced conversation along the way. It was one moment that got me excited for Abrams doing Star Wars when he was announced because it fit with Lucas's 'faster, more intense' style for the saga. But from the moment the trio got into the temple, until they reached the roof, they were painfully leisurely about it. So that is definitely my one gripe about the episode. I would definitely have liked more resolutions as this felt more like a mid-season finale. This is compounded more by knowing the second season, or where ever the conclusion will happen, won't be coming for at least a couple years.
I gotta say, it's a relief hearing other folks not loving this finale. I thought I was totally missing something. I had the exact same thought comparing the choreography to TROS. It looked very much like B-movie quality. Sabine showing no aptitude for using The Force, suddenly using it to throw Ezra. Every single character had the same dumb look on their face for their final on-screen appearance. Slack-jawed confusion.
If she suddenly used the Force at any point (after a season of clearly telegraphing a big moment of her being able to), it was when she was on the verge of being killed and pulled the lightsaber to her hand. It was in that moment of dire need that Sabine was finally able to tap into it.
I generally feel that Filoni's Star Wars work is very good but has two minor flaws - stories sometimes move too slowly/feel stretched out and he expects knowledge of his own mythology a bit too much when it comes to stakes/engagement of the audience.
@mickjohnson See, that's really not what this is, though. And we shouldn't let writers/directors/whatever use the 'the audience should be able to use their imaginations' thing as a crutch for bad storytelling. The use-your-imagination argument comes into play if, for example, Ahsoka is shown looking down at the helmet before boarding her ship. Or is shown picking it up. Or you know.. something. The 'use your imagination' kicks in because you don't show -everything-. You don't show Ahsoka picking it up, then putting it somewhere on her ship, then getting it from the ship, then handing it to Sabine.
You show one of those things and let the audience fill in the blanks. But you can't make the whole thing a blank and expect the audience to fill in the entirety of it.
Now, I only watched the show once. So I absolutely might have missed where the helmet was alluded to in the way I described above. If so.. totally fair. That's my bad. But I don't -think- any of those things happened. It was just.. there again. And that's bad writing.
@ru1977 You don't have to dislike all the stuff I do - I totally respect your opinions on the show. And that actually makes it hard sometimes to be more specific and detailed on why I don't like certain things, because I'm honestly not looking to convince anyone, or potentially taint anyone else's enjoyment of something. Just want to.. bitch, I guess, about what I don't like. So just go into my response with that in mind - I'm not saying any of this because I want you to dislike anything. Just explaining my reasoning the best I can.
I have two problems with Dawson's dueling. The first problem is definitely a 'me, a sword guy' problem, although I can see other people noticing it too, if they're paying attention. The second thing is something I believe is a way more obvious problem that I'm surprised no one else is mentioning.
The 'me' problem is the reverse grip thing. It was definitely used more extensively in this episode, and with both blades, and it's, to be bluntly honest, stupid. It's SO stupid. And how stupid it is can be more or less obvious depending on the choreography. In this particular fight we see multiple times how much less effective she is like this. How she completely obliterates her reach, how completely unable she is to actually make attacks, etc. It is a bad way to use any kind of sword-like-object, but in this case they didn't even do a good job of hiding that fact.
A good example of the opposite of this is that first fight in the original season of The Witcher. Geralt does some reverse sword stuff. It's still soooo stupid, but they choreographed it in a way that it looked great, so who cares. This episode did not do that. In fact, it was like the choreography was especially designed to show you every single element of why this actually does not work as a fighting style. It -highlighted- the weaknesses, rather than hiding them.
The other thing, and probably the thing that bothered me way more about Dawson's dueling, is how incredibly, mind-numbingly, distractingly SLOW she is. Every time she does anything, whether it's deflecting laser blasts or fighting, each movement looks like she's trying to copy the movements of someone off-screen. Like, 'okay this.. now this.. then I move this way..' very calculated and agonizingly slow. Like she's never practiced any of it and is learning all the choreography right there as we watch, if that make sense.
It's probably not a totally fair comparison, and I'm not saying this is the best lightsaber fight ever, but compare the saber stuff from this specific episode to the final fight in Revenge of the Sith. Anakin/Ben were moving SO MUCH faster. It's obvious they spent a ton of time practicing that fight so they could absolutely run through the movements. Whereas the entirety of Dawson's sword-work in this episode looked like she'd never done any of it before. Now, is it possible this was filmed first? Sure. But that's actually a terrible excuse, because it's everyone involved's job to make this look good and to know when it isn't looking good and fix it.
With Sabine it just almost feels out of order. Like she should have force-grabbed her saber -before- she started deflecting laser blasts. Maybe even missing some laser blasts and taking the shots on her armor. Something to show that she's not as attuned and capable as other force-users we've seen. Instead, like.. the moment she ignites her lightsaber she's fully capable of using the force to block EVERY blaster shot with it, even when she's not even been shown to be capable of moving a cup across a table.
Not saying that has to be your line in the sand or anything, but it definitely felt really wrong to me.
When I say they didn't build up her ability to use the Force - I know they were building towards it from the start. It was obvious from very, very early on that this is where they were going with her abilities in the end. I just don't think they did the work to build into it. They laid the groundwork of 'she's going to be able to use the Force eventually' and then jumped into 'She's pretty awesome with the Force.' But the middle part is fuzzy, like they were supposed to have a few more episodes to show us her getting better and just.. cut them out. So she basically went from 'barely can feel the Force at all' to 'deflects laser blasts more effectively than most of the Jedi Masters in Attack of the Clones' (oooh.. too soon?).
I'll grant you that Ezra -probably- hasn't been in a fight in a long time (although the presence of the raiders on that planet seems to indicate he probably did have to fight someone at some point - especially with his comment that he learned that the saber is just a crutch, or whatever he said). Still, I can tell you from experience that you don't need to be a regular combatant to know that it's a bad idea to punch someone who's wearing full body armor. Rather, I think this is indicative of bad choreography. It reminds me of Lord of the Rings, when a Gondorian in full plate armor gets hit in the chest and just like.. dies. People that make movies and TV shows love to choreograph stuff as if no one is in armor and then just.. have the armor make a difference only when they feel like it's thematically appropriate. So they needed Ezra occupied and scuffling around, which meant he couldn't just Force Throw this dumbass off the tower and needed to be fighting him. Even though it made no sense for Ezra to be fist-fighting a zombie in full armor.
That's the easiest explanation. It was just that they didn't think this mattered. And, to be fair, I'm sure to 99% of viewers, it didn't matter. I'm fully aware that I have my own unique bugbears.
The cliffhanger ending doesn't bother me as much as I would have thought. Maybe because I was expecting it. There was no way this was ending any other way, really. But Baylan's cliffhanger bothers me a fair bit, of course. And more than that, it's how they did it. Like I said.. Baylan and Shin's seems literally seemed like they were tacked on because the showrunners realized they had run out of episodes.
Worth noting, I think, that I still think this was a really, really solid show. They just, in my opinion, really bungled the ending and kind of bungled the overall character of Thrawn. And to be clear... I don't care about Thrawn at all. I have zero opinions on the character. So I'm not just sour that he's not however he was in some book I didn't read or cartoon I didn't watch. I just don't think they did a good job establishing him as a dangerous enemy. He struck me, as a movie fan, as being really no different from every other bungling stooge Imperial Officer we've seen before. And that's not great, right? But I mean.. one bad episode doesn't make a bad show. It's just really unfortunate that the bad episode was the LAST episode, so it leaves that taste in your mouth and gives you an unsatisfying ending to things that previously had you excited and interested.
In the Disney Plus TV series, Ahsoka Season 1, Episode 5, Part Five: Shadow Warrior, Ahsoka is seen observing the helmet left behind by her former Padawan learner Sabine Wren after she was hastily arrested and escorted by her enemies to the intergalactic hyperdrive ring ship known as the Eye of Sion at the 34 minutes and 25 seconds mark.
It can then be reasonably assumed that Ahsoka, rather than leaving it behind on an uninhabited planet, took this part of Sabine's Mandalorian Beskar armour with her on her mission to rescue Sabine, knowing that it is an important possession of hers and part of her Mandalorian identity and upbringing - a concept explained in Season 1, Episode 2 of The Mandalorian.
@mickjohnson I swear I was paying attention and not scrolling on my phone or anything, but I completely missed that scene somehow. Thanks for the correction.
Of course, all my other critiques stand, but I absolutely was wrong about the helmet thing.
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