Blackstar

Captain Rex and Ahsoka Tano in Ahsoka: Shadow Warrior (2023)

Rex - Ahsoka 1x05

During the Ahsoka series, we learn that Baylan Skoll was once a general, so I wanted to conceptualize him during the Clone Wars along with his legion.

Eman Esfandi as Ezra Bridger AHSOKA 1.08: The Jedi, The Witch, and The Warlord

There were moments about the Ahsoka finale that I very much liked (Huyang talking to Ezra about Kanan!! He saved a matching piece to Kanan's lightsaber and said, "Ahhh, it all makes sense now." when he realized Ezra was building based on his Master's teachings!! And so gave the piece to Ezra as he's done a thousand times before!!!) but it also reconfirmed that I don't think Felony can structure a story for shit. Was it somewhat emotional to have Huyang tell Ezra about what happened to the Wrens? Sure. But you know what would have been a good, interesting story that delivered on everything Rebels built before? SEEING THE STORY UNFOLD. This isn't a story, it's an infodump. It's the same thing with the show's central relationship--Ahsoka and Sabine--that how they came to be where they are with each other, how they vastly changed their dynamic, how they created this dynamic? Told to us in a split second infodump instead of actually delivering us a story. It's the same with everything that happened after Rebels' finale, we only saw a brief CGI bit of Mandalore being carpet bombed by the Empire, but that storyline is fundamentally important to both Bo-Katan's story and Sabine's story, yet we never even see it as a story. It's a split-second flashback or infodump. And don't even get me started on not seeing Hera and Ezra hug or Ahsoka's speech about how Anakin always stood by her, how her entire arc this season has been about coming to terms with his legacy and accepting the good in him, so when his Force Ghost shows up, she should smile and actually see him there, right? It would bring the thematic conclusion to a nice closure, right??? But, no, instead she doesn't even sense him there, Sabine half-senses him, and then Ahsoka is like, "It's time to move on." like are we supposed to tie that to her relationship with Anakin?? Or is that just Felony not knowing how to structure a written scene?? It's not even that his work is bad so much as it's just aggressively so much less than it could be. It's always infodumps to explain why we're suddenly three miles to the left of where we were before, instead of telling that story instead. We could have had a true Rebels sequel by showing us what happened with Mandalore, but instead we get whatever this was. And it wasn't even really about Ahsoka more than like 10% of the time. ;__;

I was so annoyed that I forgot to add in my frustrations with the entirety of everything with the Nightsisters and the Mothers and Morgan Elsbeth. Like, I was willing to overlook that we were never told why the Mothers were so loyal and grateful to Thrawn, I was even okay with the explanation being a throwaway line--that he was the one who woke them, it's a reasonable extrapolation of events from there!--but in the context of everything else, it's just One More Fucking Thing. Like, what is this show even saying about Nightsisters lore? Is it trying to say they all start out looking more peach-colored and human-ish without the markings like Morgan, but once they go through whatever Gift of Shadows the Mother did with her, they develop more of the bone white skin and markings, like Merrin and Asajj have? Or is is that Morgan isn't actually of their race, but is for some reason deeply loyal to Dathomir, or that they somehow recruited her? We can speculate on what the answers are, but once again the show doesn't actually show us much that's actually concrete and it feels like all the details are just there for looking cool or aesthetic callbacks, rather than because Filoni actually has an idea of what he wants to do with Nightsister worldbuilding.

I think Ahsoka has been overcooked and undercooked in Filoni’s brain at the same time, I think he’s spent so long thinking about this story he wants to tell that he’s no longer writing the connections that the story needs, that those of us outside his brain haven’t had the last ten years of simmering with to assimilate into our background noise, while also I think he hasn’t spent enough time really digging into the smaller details. Sabine’s character is the epitome of this for me–there’s clearly so much thought he’s given her in this show, the little details in that room that are so packed full you’d need to pause the video to see everything, where you can see Ezra’s helmet or Sabine’s helmet on the quick pan through the scene, where the scene she cuts her hair is a callback to Kanan cutting his hair as he’s ready to step back onto a new path, the Ezra hologram that was specifically for her, she’s allowed to be angry and messy, etc., you can’t say that Filoni didn’t give her a ton of thought! But she’s also undercooked in this show because there’s this entire relationship she had with Ahsoka that takes place off-screen and dramatically changes their dynamic without acknowledging that it’s a change for us, the audience. And there’s an entire motivation for “Why the hell does Sabine want to be a Jedi?” and “Why did Sabine set aside her Mandalorian armor?” that’s just not there because I think Felony has spent so much time thinking about Sabine’s journey, about her connection to Ezra and how to weave Ahsoka as a mentor (because of Ahsoka’s own issues with masters and apprentices, he wants to play on those themes), that he’s been writing this in his head since he first finished the Rebels finale’s script, that he’s no longer writing it on the actual paper for us the audience. I can’t shake the feeling that he’s spent too long with this story in his head, so he’s just made connections that have become part of the scenery for him, like, of course Sabine set aside her armor, of course Sabine was training with Ezra’s lightsaber with Jedi training, of course she’s Ahsoka’s Padawan, meanwhile I just finished watching Rebels and am going, “Dave, what the hell are you talking about, none of that was in the show I just finished speedrunning to watch this show!”

Having watched the entirety of the first season now, I have to say: I STAND BY THIS 100 FUCKING PERCENT. At most we get throwaway lines or infodumps about Sabine’s history, about Ahsoka’s history, about Mandalore’s history, about the Nightsisters’ entire lore, because Filoni wants to go from Point A to Point F without doing more than a quick moment of a character standing there, looking vaguely sad, and saying, “It was a rough journey when Point B happened, then C and D happened, and then E really took it out of us, but we’re at point F now, so it’s time to move on.”

Season 2 ended on a very suspenseful note that set up a lot of conflict for Season 3. It had us all wondering:

And the answer to those questions turns out to be:

Who needs drama and personal conflict amirite?

Don't get me wrong, shows return to status quo all the time, but like did always have to be by taking the path of least resistance?

Y'know, between the above choices in The Mandalorian Season 3 and new Ahsoka stuff such as...

... it really does feel like Filoni is just opting for the least dramatic option to portray these concepts, every time.

And, I mean... why?

What would it have cost to show us Hera hug Ezra, to see the Jedi try to cut a Night Trooper's leg off only for it to stop the blade? A few minutes off the nth totally-not-overdone homages to Kurosawa duels?

Like, would it have been so bad to see Ezra go absolutely feral on the stormtroopers with the Force, guerilla-style, so we see why Thrawn isn't touching him with a 10-ft pole? Or showing us Ahsoka lose her cool in a fight and get angry, so we get why she is afraid that she'll end up like Anakin?

This is storytelling 101 stuff. For best dramatic effect, you set something up and then you pay it off. If you're missing either one of these two components, it'll leave your audience unsatisfied.

Nah. Eff that noise. Extrapolate away, because crumbs is all you're getting.

Ahsoka 1.08 "The Jedi, the Witch, and the Warlord"

Baylan Skoll - 1x07 Dreams and Madness

Kanan Jarrus. He was my Master. AHSOKA S01E08 | The Jedi, The Witch and The Warlord / REBELS S01E02 | Spark of Rebellion

"Well done. Looks like you were a good student."

Eman Esfandi as Ezra Bridger AHSOKA 1.08: The Jedi, The Witch, and The Warlord

Ahsoka Tano, allow me to commend you on your efforts today. You've been quite a worthy opponent.

AHSOKA 1.08 THE JEDI, THE WITCH, AND THE WARLORD for @cohborikardok ♥

The Chimaera & the Eye of Sion in Ahsoka 1.08 The Jedi, the Witch, and the Warlord

Today, victory is mine. — Grand Admiral Thrawn in Ahsoka: "The Jedi, the Witch, and the Warlord" (2023)