Ahsoka - SPOILERS

[Zaukrie]

Show don't tell isn't. trope, it is an adage. I'm a creative writing teacher, and it is generally good advice. As I already pointed out, there can be good stylistic or practical reasons to violate it (e.g. Ferris Bueller's Day Off), but usually telling rather than showing is lazy writing, and boring to read or watch. Showing engages the audience by letting them work out what is happening on their own, and respects them by trusting that they are smart enough to do so. For example, instead of a character telling us "I'm so sad," we see them sitting dejectedly with moist eyes, holding an old photograph. Which is more interesting?

Also as mentioned, this is the first D+ Star Wars show to start with a crawl, so it isn't axiomatic that Star Wars=crawl. In fact, this bucked the trend for D+ shows and was therefore an intentional choice.

Great! I loved it. It was harmless fun. Fun is the point. We disagree on just how serious SW should be, clearly.

 

[MarkB]

Here, the Rebels (now New Republicans, I guess? - I don't like it, sounds political) are in the massive ship with the numbers advantage and just come off like total chumps. So the audience takeaway is not that the bad guys are terrifying, but that the good guys are weak.

I think that's entirely intentional. Bear in mind that they're having to work within the continuity as it's been established - pretty soon the New Republic are going to stand idly by while the First Order grows up right under their noses, to the extent that people have to form a secret resistance organisation because their own government is useless.

The New Republic is doomed to be weak, bureaucratic, blind to the true threats in the galaxy, and eventually annihilated. The current batch of stories, both here and in The Mandalorian, are laying the groundwork for this.

The Republic are not the good guys. They're not the bad guys either. They're the useless guys.

 

[briggart]

I don't think that the Imperials were ever threatened during the whole "battle". They were looking for someone escaping with important material and they could have just shot the pod, just to be on the safe side.

Well, by same token, they could have just blown up the rebel corvette. IMO they didn't because they wanted to make sure the leak was fully contained, and you can't do that if you vaporize your evidence before examining it. So it makes sense not to shoot down the pod if they believed nobody was onboard: the plans won't go anywhere by themselves.

 

[pukunui]

The Republic are not the good guys. They're not the bad guys either. They're the useless guys.

Yeah. Unfortunately, Luke, Leia, Han et al don't get the fairy tale ending they deserved.

 

[briggart]

The Republic are not the good guys. They're not the bad guys either. They're the useless guys.

So what you are saying is that they are definitely the "Good Guys"? I wonder if the New Republic chancellor keeps a Doug Forcett picture in their office.

Edit: capitalization. And spelling.

 

[billd91]

Yeah. Unfortunately, Luke, Leia, Han et al don't get the fairy tale ending they deserved.

Was that a significant complaint about the Expanded Universe books too? Because they sure didn't get it there either. I see a lot of complaints about that with respect to the sequel trilogy and it kind of smacks of selective outrage from the "superfans".

I can see why people might feel this way if Star Wars were a fairy tale. But it really isn't. It's an homage to the adventure serials and there aren't any fairy tale endings there either since heroes like Buck Rogers just got tossed into the next adventure once one of them was done.

And looking at life and history, some people get a happy ending, many don't. Gandhi didn't get one. Michael Collins didn't get one. Abraham Lincoln didn't get one. FDR didn't get one. Churchill didn't even get one because, though he survived his heroic WWII premiership, he kept on in politics and ultimately led a lackluster government that helped preside over the dissolution of the Empire he set out to preserve. Fact is, you win a battle or even a war and you then have the messy task of cleaning up after it.

 

[MarkB]

Was that a significant complaint about the Expanded Universe books too? Because they sure didn't get it there either. I see a lot of complaints about that with respect to the sequel trilogy and it kind of smacks of selective outrage from the "superfans".

I can see why people might feel this way if Star Wars were a fairy tale. But it really isn't. It's an homage to the adventure serials and there aren't any fairy tale endings there either since heroes like Buck Rogers just got tossed into the next adventure once one of them was done.

It's at least as much fairy tale as adventure serial. It's literally the young farmboy going out and learning to swordfight, saving the princess, then learning magic and finally confronting the evil tyrant wizard in his dark fortress. Happily Ever After isn't guaranteed, but it's at least strongly suggested.

 

[pukunui]

It's at least as much fairy tale as adventure serial. It's literally the young farmboy going out and learning to swordfight, saving the princess, then learning magic and finally confronting the evil tyrant wizard in his dark fortress. Happily Ever After isn't guaranteed, but it's at least strongly suggested.

Yes, and one of the reasons we give our fictional heroes happy endings is because we so seldom get them in real life.

@billd91 and yes, the lack of a happy ending for the OT heroes was a common complaint about the old EU as well. At least the EU gave the New Republic a century to fall apart instead of only three decades or so.

 

[pukunui]

So former Imperial inquisitor Marrok ... do we reckon he is Ezra Bridger? Yea or nay?

 

[Mort]

So former Imperial inquisitor Marrok ... do we reckon he is Ezra Bridger? Yea or nay?

View attachment 293298

Nay - or, at least, I REALLY hope not.

What happened to Ezra Bridger is a real unanswered question that Ahsoka is poised to finally answer. It would really depress me if that's the answer they chose to go with.