Ahsoka - SPOILERS

[Paul Farquhar]

At this point in time isn't Luke around and training new Jedi? He's pretty famous and a jedi training academy would well known, especially on a New Republic ship. The claim isn't as far fetched as you think.

Luke is following the old jedi tradition and only training kids. And would be using New Republic transponder codes, not pre-Empire Jedi Order codes. And one assumes it's pretty secret, or the Mandalorian wouldn't have had to spend a season looking for it.

And if it had been Luke himself, the outcome would have been the same: better hope he is friendly because there is nothing the captain can do to stop him if he isn't.

 

[billd91]

As I mentioned upthread, I think what @Clint_L is demonstrating here is that this show unfortunately doesn’t stand on its own that well for someone who isn’t familiar with the cartoons.

Case in point: @wicked cool David Tennant’s droid, Huyang, was previously seen in the Clone Wars. He’s the droid who taught younglings how to make their lightsabers after they’d retrieved their kyber crystals from Ilum. If you haven’t seen the Clone Wars episodes he features in, you’ll have no idea who he is.

I hadn't seen that episode of Clone Wars, but there was plenty of context in the Ahsoka episodes to get a feel for what Huyang did for the Jedi Order. That said, the references back to Rebels are a bit less obvious. I haven't watched all of Rebels either, but I have watched some and have a lot more context than anyone coming in without that background.

 

[billd91]

I found a lot of the line deliveries in the first episode very flat, like, there was zero energy in the scenes. The second episode did a bit better.

I had the same feeling. I hope the rest of the show continues to pick up the energy.

 

[briggart]

Right, we start with a text crawl, which is fine, I guess - it's a (somewhat lazy) Star Wars tradition that lets us start in media res - followed by a massive spaceship coming across the screen - let's generously call this an homage to the first film, and not pandering.

While I agree with most of your points, I did like how they made the opening crawl subtly different from the main movies. In the main movies we had yellow tilted text crawling up on a fixed star background, then the scene would pan down (except in Episode II) to include a medium to large ship in relative proximity to a planet. Here we had red not-tilted text crawling while the camera was slowly panning on the star background, and after the text ended a ship entered the scene with no planet in sight and the camera still panning. Not a huge difference, but I appreciated the effort.

 

[Zaukrie]

I loved the crawl. I can't imagine any reason not to like it.

 

[Clint_L]

I loved the crawl. I can't imagine any reason not to like it.

Show, don't tell. Same reason a lot of folks don't like the voiceover in Bladerunner (Harrison Ford hated it and resented having to record it). In general, text and voiceovers are considered lazy writing choices, but there can be stylistic or practical justification for them.

The original Star Wars text crawl was there to get the audience very quickly up to speed on a complicated backstory so they would understand the legendary opening shot that was about to happen - given the context (1970s audiences had no idea what was about to happen, and Lucas had a whole epic backstory no one could have known about) I think it's justified. And then that became a Star Wars tradition - basically, a meme. But it's not essential - I believe Ahsoka is the first D+ show to use one?

Here, you could make a case that we again have obscure source material, at least to the general public, so maybe you can make an argument for it on those grounds. However, I think in story terms a better opening would have been to show us the climactic battle between Ahsoka and the spy, where the audience could have got all the same information. So why not do that?

I think because using the text crawl was done for symbolic reasons, especially because it bleeds into an establishing shot that is very similar to that of the original movie (but inverted). Basically they were flagging that "this isn't like the other D+ shows, this one has the weight of the movies." It makes Ahsoka seem like a bigger deal, and also elevates its source material, the animated shows. So I get why they did it, and it wasn't the reason the opening episode irritated me so much.

The second episode is so much better than the first that I think the first had to be a "too many chefs" situation. In episode 1 the story felt really disjointed with a lot of stock scenes and a lot of exposition - basically, it seemed like they were trying to make an exciting hour that got in all the Star Wars tropes and covered a ton of backstory, at the cost of characterization. Episode 2 is much better paced and driven by character moments as much as plot exigencies. It's far better written and directed.

 

[Clint_L]

The Shuttle is continuing it's approach. Now what?

Fire warning shots and then, if necessary, shoot it down. Just like the US Navy would do (and has done) if a vessel keeps approaching without permission.

To illustrate why I think the opening of episode 1 was such a miss, compare it to a scene that is functionally very similar, but inverted: the opening of Star Wars (I will never call it "A New Hope"). In the original, the rebels are obviously woefully outgunned; this is apparent from the moment their tiny ship flies across the screen in a moment and the Imperial Star destroyer takes about 12 hours to do the same. But they put up a dogged resistance, with Leia doing what she has to and going down fighting, while the captain dies rather than spilling the beans to the terrifying Vader. Right away the audience knows that the Empire are not to be messed with, but that our heroes are resourceful and clever. The audience is immersed.

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. It was the equivalent of a pro wrestling squash match. You knew exactly how it was going to play out from the moment the captain said, "I'm going to call their bluff" (my spouse, who never talks during shows, actually said "what an idiot" out loud). And from that moment the audience is no longer in the story - we're more like the audience of a horror film, knowing that the teenager is about to die but watching for the voyeuristic thrill and hoping for an inventive kill (it wasn't).

 

[Clint_L]

deleted.

 

[billd91]

Fire warning shots and then, if necessary, shoot it down. Just like the US Navy would do (and has done) if a vessel keeps approaching without permission.

To illustrate why I think the opening of episode 1 was such a miss, compare it to a scene that is functionally very similar, but inverted: the opening of Star Wars (I will never call it "A New Hope"). In the original, the rebels are obviously woefully outgunned; this is apparent from the moment their tiny ship flies across the screen in a moment and the Imperial Star destroyer takes about 12 hours to do the same. But they put up a dogged resistance, with Leia doing what she has to and going down fighting, while the captain dies rather than spilling the beans to the terrifying Vader. Right away the audience knows that the Empire are not to be messed with, but that our heroes are resourceful and clever. The audience is immersed.

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. It was the equivalent of a pro wrestling squash match. You knew exactly how it was going to play out from the moment the captain said, "I'm going to call their bluff" (my spouse, who never talks during shows, actually said "what an idiot" out loud). And from that moment the audience is no longer in the story - we're more like the audience of a horror film, knowing that the teenager is about to die but watching for the voyeuristic thrill and hoping for an inventive kill (it wasn't).

I won't say that we're no longer in the story (as viewers), but I will agree that taking on the ship thinking it would be an easy arrest of Imperials truly was a dumb move. And it does suggest some writing weakness in the series (or at least parts of it). That said, it was over quickly and we were moving on. If I used a bad scene or two as justification to stop watching something, I wouldn't be watching ANY television.

 

[Nikosandros]

Fire warning shots and then, if necessary, shoot it down. Just like the US Navy would do (and has done) if a vessel keeps approaching without permission.

To illustrate why I think the opening of episode 1 was such a miss, compare it to a scene that is functionally very similar, but inverted: the opening of Star Wars (I will never call it "A New Hope"). In the original, the rebels are obviously woefully outgunned; this is apparent from the moment their tiny ship flies across the screen in a moment and the Imperial Star destroyer takes about 12 hours to do the same. But they put up a dogged resistance, with Leia doing what she has to and going down fighting, while the captain dies rather than spilling the beans to the terrifying Vader. Right away the audience knows that the Empire are not to be messed with, but that our heroes are resourceful and clever. The audience is immersed.

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. It was the equivalent of a pro wrestling squash match. You knew exactly how it was going to play out from the moment the captain said, "I'm going to call their bluff" (my spouse, who never talks during shows, actually said "what an idiot" out loud). And from that moment the audience is no longer in the story - we're more like the audience of a horror film, knowing that the teenager is about to die but watching for the voyeuristic thrill and hoping for an inventive kill (it wasn't).

You must hate the fact that the Imperials in Star Wars did not shoot the escape capsule with the droids...