We’re back with more space-flying fun! And hilarious callbacks to perhaps the most famous training sequence in all of Star Wars…
Recap
Huyang is putting Sabine through her lightsaber forms, and she’s doing passably. Ahsoka decides to give Sabine a blast shield helmet and has her try to sense where Ahsoka is. By the end, Sabine is frustrated and angry, which Ahsoka points out will not serve her in trying to connect with the Force. Sabine points out that Huyang said she had less ability that any initiate the Order trained, which Ahsoka pushes back on him for, though he defends the point. Ahsoka and Sabine talk about the importance of Force-sensitivity in Jedi training, which Ahsoka doesn’t believe is a necessity. She tells Sabine to start small. Sabine tries to move a cup with the Force, but doesn’t manage it.
Back at the fleet, Hera tries to get Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) and a group of senators, including Hamato Xiono (Nelson Lee), to agree to give her more resources to aid Ahsoka and Sabine. Xiono suggests that this is all the ploy to get New Republic resources to help her find Ezra, leading to Hera nearly losing her temper. She steps away and is confronted by her son Jacen (Evan Whitten), who is excited to hear that Sabine has resumed her Jedi training and wants to start his own.
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System Collapse
Hera contacts Ahsoka and Sabine, letting them know that she was unable to get aid in their mission. Her transmission cuts out, prompting Ahsoka to drop out of hyperspace at the edge of the system where Seatos is located, per Jedi standard procedure (which Huyang has been on her case for not following). They are found regardless and enter into a firefight with Elsbeth’s forces, led by Shin Hati and Marrok. Ahsoka and Sabine do their best to work together as they come up the Eye of Sion—the giant hyperspace ring that Elsbeth is working to power. As Huyang tries to scan the thing, their ship is heavily damaged and winds up dead in space.
Ahsoka puts on a space suit and goes onto the hull with her lightsabers to fight off the impending starfighter attack as Sabine works to get the ship back online. They are successful and Sabine get Ahsoka back on board while they dive into Seatos’ atmosphere. There, there discover a herd of purgill, hyperspace traveling creatures that may help to explain the planet’s significance in hopping to different galaxies. Huyang gives them schematics on the Eye of Sion and its purpose after Sabine sets the ship down on the planet under tree cover to hide them. Baylan tells his forces on the planet to go seek the group out.
Commentary
We’re placing bets now on who did the blast shield training method with Ahsoka. I know we see the younglings practicing this way in a group in the Jedi Temple, but doing it one-on-one like that feels like something Anakin would have done to her after Obi-Wan did it to him. (After all, Anakin was never tiny enough at the temple to be in the youngling mini-saber v remotes challenge.)
Having said that, I love how this training method is being used here—for Luke, it’s just a way of getting him to connect with the Force more readily than he’s been able to previously. For Sabine, it’s the opposite: Ahsoka is trying to frustrate her and fully illustrate the uselessness of that avenue. It’s a great followup to her initial Darksaber training at the hands of Kanan Jarrus, who believed he needed to be more like Ahsoka until realizing that his relationship to Sabine was far more paternal. (Kanan’s journey was ultimately coming to terms with the fact that being a solid Jedi mattered less than being a wonderful dad.) As a result, Kanan worked to unlock Sabine’s buried emotions while training. Now Ahsoka is showing her how to manage those emotions and find peace within herself. It’s a tall order for someone who heralds from a culture that’s never been big on peace of any kind, but that’s a problem for later.
We’re learning that Sabine doesn’t have much innate Force-Sensitivity at all, which makes Ahsoka’s desire to train her so much better: The idea that the one who walked away from the Jedi Order would see value in training literally anyone who wanted to learn about the Force is not only in keeping with Ahsoka’s arc, but a desperately needed shot in the arm to the Star Wars mythos. After all, it’s easy to feel as though the Force is “with you” when you’re busy doing gravity-defying flippy-kicks and deflecting laser bolts with the power of your mind. If Star Wars wants the Force to embody a true spiritual aspect that can stand up on a narrative level, it needs characters like Sabine, shepherded by Ahsoka Tano, to do that (arguably much harder) work. We got the beginnings of this idea with Chirrut Îmwe in Rogue One, but an ensemble player in a single film isn’t enough to develop the thought.
I’m stuck again on Huyang, who gets grief for telling Sabine that she has less ability than any initiate the Order ever trained when he’s just… stating a fact? Ahsoka’s like “you’re not helping” and I’m like I dunno, maybe if either of you were paying attention to the fact that you’re talking to someone who also has no Force-sensitivity and doesn’t seem to let that dampen his enthusiasm for the work—which he’s been doing for untold centuries by the way—you’d take his dismissiveness differently, but what the heck do I know…
I’m bothered, ignore me, I’ll go stew in a corner.
The space battle sequence is more way more fun than usual because it’s being used as a means for Ahsoka and Sabine to connect, to learn what they need from each other and figure out how to work together as master and apprentice. The whole episode becomes a trust exercise in that capacity, which is excellent. I’ve gotta give Filoni credit here (and for making this half-hour episode feel much longer than a similar-length episode of The Mandalorian because there’s so much more in it story-wise) because it’s a much better use of a space battle sequence than anything we’ve seen in the Star Wars television shows. Space battles for character development! Make it a thing, please.
Of course, now I need to take a moment for Ahsoka Tano, trained by the Galaxy’s Most Extra Boy Anakin Skywalker, deciding that the way she’ll defend their ship from oncoming starfighters while they’re dead in space is to put on a spacesuit and lightsaber fight them on the hull.
And it works, of course. I mean the only reason it does is because the two Force-users in their starfighters can’t resist the lightsaber candy on the hull instead of going for the ship and blowing it up, but Ahsoka knows that. She understands how these people think. And then she calmly requests her pickup while floating adrift in space.
They’re obviously holding out on giving us those flashback scenes with Anakin that were shown in the trailers, but part of the build up is giving us moments like this. The point is not that Ahsoka owes all she is to Anakin, but that her penchant for out-of-the-box thinking came from somewhere undeniable. Huyang talks of her being the product of a line of unusual Jedi, and when you go down the line, you can’t miss how true that is: It’s her to Anakin to Obi-Wan to Qui-Gon to Dooku to Yoda, every single one of them their own brand of oddity. (People like to think that Obi-Wan is a pretty typical Jedi and he is patently not on any level that counts—he just looks mild based on who he’s flanked by.)
And the line matters, but it’s especially relevant that Ahsoka was trained by Anakin Skywalker, and she is, perhaps, the best of them all. In the Clone Wars she literally becomes an avatar of the light side of the Force, and nothing about her life at present suggests that she’s relinquished the position. And that tells us something, about her certainly, but also about Anakin. But I suspect we’ll get to that later….
We’re getting some sense of how this weird map thing works: The purgill (the space whales) are the creatures that grabbed Thrawn and Ezra (at the young Jedi’s behest—he’s got a connection with animals, just like Obi-Wan) and disappeared with them, so this is all part of the puzzle. The idea that purgill can galaxy-hop is a helluva thing, though.
Bits and Asides
- Sabine asking how she can fight with the blast shield down is practically what Luke says to Obi-Wan verbatim when the same thing is done to him in A New Hope.
- Mon Mothma being Chancellor of the New Republic is in keeping with the Legends novels where she was “Chief of State” following the Empire’s defeat.
- Senator Hamato Xiono is father to Kazuda Xiono, who was the central character in the short-lived animated series Star Wars: Resistance. Yes, he’s always been like this. Kaz is kind of a mess as a result, but he learns a lot once he starts working for Leia and Poe.
- Jacen Syndulla is Hera and Kanan’s son, and this is his second appearance ever on-screen. He looks just like his dad (brb crying), and no, there has never been explanation for why his genes expressed themselves by giving him green hair when his mom has no hair. His name comes from the name of one of Han and Leia’s kids in the Legends canon, Jacen Solo, who was twin to Jaina Solo and turned to the dark side as an adult.
Next week: We’re approaching the halfway point!
It’s rather striking that this episode was so completely dominated by female characters. The only male-coded character with more than a few lines was Huyang. It’s a nice change from the early days of Rebels, when I felt Hera and Sabine were getting less attention than they deserved.
On the other hand, it felt very much like a budget-saving bottle episode, taking place entirely on a few standing sets, and mostly on Ahsoka’s ship. Hopefully they’re saving up for some big stuff later on.
This was the first episode where Mary Elizabeth Winstead came close to capturing the strength and intensity of Vanessa Marshall’s vocal performance as Hera. I still feel she’s the least successful recasting, but she’s showing some promise now.
Incidentally, Twitter/X informs me that the New Republic command ship is apparently supposed to be the same ship that commanded the Rebel fleet in Return of the Jedi, and its sets are reconstructions of that movie’s sets.
I didn’t get why Ahsoka needed Sabine’s help when she was drifting in space. Couldn’t she use the Force to pull herself back in to the ship? (Come to think of it, if the Force is a connection between all living things, why does it work on inanimate objects? Or is that the Cosmic Force?)
I wonder if there’s any point to including Hamato Xiono beyond the continuity nod.
Speaking of continuity, isn’t it a bit of a continuity error that Sabine is skeptical of her ability to fight without being able to see, when Kanan was blind for nearly half of Rebels, including when he trained her to fight with the Darksaber?
Not a bad ep. Ahsoka Annakining it outside the ship was a nice touch.
Also I appreciate that the episode length was just as long as it needed to be to tell this bit of story.
Ahsoka training someone who is not force sensitive sure is something new. Definitely breaks with what Luke does with his School. Having different denominations of Jedi is something sorely needed and would be a fair reaction and correction to the Order failing and will add some much needed depth to the politics of the Star Wars universe. Very curious to see what the resolution will be to Sabine’s training. I trust Feloni to end it at an interesting place.
Really good episode. I’m loving all the connections back to Rebels.
And that being said, the only thing that threw me off a bit was Sabine’s excitement at scoring a hit with the turret. Sabine is an experienced war hero with demonstrated combat skills. It seemed very odd that she was acting like this was her first rodeo.
I think Asokha getting snippy (heh) with Huyang is, unfortunately, just a side effect of how Star Wars USUALLY treats it’s droids, especially ones that look like protocol droids. You will find that a lot of characters usually treat droids as just mere property or a nuisance unless you’re an astromech droid, because they are the most useful I guess. it’s something that Star Wars always had a problem with, and one that should be addressed one of these days
We’re learning that Sabine doesn’t have much innate Force-Sensitivity at all, which makes Ahsoka’s desire to train her so much better: The idea that the one who walked away from the Jedi Order would see value in training literally anyone who wanted to learn about the Force is not only in keeping with Ahsoka’s arc, but a desperately needed shot in the arm to the Star Wars mythos.
Seems rather pointless that they had Ahsoka mouth the same stuff from the Old Order about attachments in TBOBF, then.
Seriously, if they’ve wanted to have a discussion about non-traditional or unconventional padawan training, that was a great opportunity to at least lay some foundation! It seems like a huge whiff from that show and scene, and that she just stood by with no real input to Luke. But then they’d have to retcon or move away from the sequel outcomes and characterizations and I guess we can’t have THAT.
Neither Clone Wars nor Rebels really appealed to or left an impression on me, but I’d had hopes the live action would draw me in. So far, I’m still not really feeling it, but I’ve made my peace and accepted that I’m really not the audience for this.
@3/CriticalMyth: “And that being said, the only thing that threw me off a bit was Sabine’s excitement at scoring a hit with the turret. Sabine is an experienced war hero with demonstrated combat skills. It seemed very odd that she was acting like this was her first rodeo.”
Earlier dialogue in the scene established that she was out of practice.
Although I’m always disturbed for a different reason when characters act cheerful and happy that they just killed somebody.
@@.-@
Well, it was addressed a bit in the Solo movie. But yes, sometimes I wonder if the shot in the arm Star Wars really needs now is to address slavery, droid and otherwise, with another “time of civil war.” And make it complex. Have some characters you’d normally think of as heroes come down on the side of droids as property with compelling arguments.
Maybe such a thing would be more Star Trek than Star Wars, but I’d certainly take that over this endless cycle of Jedi vs. Sith, Rebels vs. Empire.
Good episode. I’m liking Sabine’s arc, and the good old blast shield helmet training. She and Ahsoka are starting to heal their differences.
The space battle was fun, and I liked the clunky retro look of the enemy fighters. The reminded me of the radial-engined P-47s and Gee Bees of the mid-20th Century. Even their blasters sounded retro.
I thought purgills were zero-G creatures, and was surprised to see them in the planet’s atmosphere.
This series is unolding in a very satisfying way.
The training segment seemed a little off to me because it came across as an initiation into the force — like the Obi-Wan/Luke initiation it calls back to — rather than as a resumption of an interrupted teacher-student relationship. Ahsoka and Sabine should have had these discussions a long time ago…
There’s something quirky with the way Ahsoka is always closing the door behind her when she goes into that kitchen and the other cubbyhole room. I mean, it makes sense for vacuum safety on a spaceship, but I don’t recall seeing it this much in live-action Star Wars.
@8/Alan Brown: “I thought purgills were zero-G creatures, and was surprised to see them in the planet’s atmosphere.”
Well, the first time we saw them in Rebels, they were diving into gas pockets on a large asteroid to feed on the gas. And Thrawn’s Chimaera Star Destroyer was in Lothal’s atmosphere, hovering over the city, when the purrgils attacked it in the finale.
I quite liked this episode. I’ve seen some people online complaining about how it didn’t really move the plot along enough for them, but I’m fine with that. I enjoy my scifi slow-moving. I think the character work here was very good, and hopefully after these first few episodes the casual viewer should be caught up enough to follow along with what’s happening.
@1 “I wonder if there’s any point to including Hamato Xiono beyond the continuity nod.”
I think they just needed a senator who was a jerk and somebody noticed they already had one available so they used him.
@1 The single best explanation I’ve heard of the relationship between the Living Force and the Cosmic Force was given by Qui-Gon Jinn to Yoda in the Clone Wars episode “Voices.” Jedi powers, generally speaking, come from connecting with the Cosmic Force. That’s why they can manipulate inanimate objects.
As to blind fighting, I don’t think there’s a continuity error at all. Of course she’d remember that Kanan “saw” through the Force and wasn’t limited in combat; I think she simply doesn’t believe she can do it because of her dearth of Force talent.
@12 Exactly. She doesn’t have to confidence in any Force-related powers, so she thinks she can’t fight blind. (Though I think the reality of fighting blind is a blend of Force powers and creative use of existing senses…)(Hm. Wonder if that’s how Ashoka gets Sabine to move into Force territory….)
@12/Chase: I guess that makes sense as an explanation. Still, training to fight blind by relying on your other senses is a pretty standard martial-arts trope, no Force required. (The Bendu taught Kanan to rely on hearing and scent as much as his Force sense.) I’d actually expect it to be a basic part of Mandalorian training, considering that those helmets’ eye slits don’t really seem to offer a lot of visibility. Well, Wookieepedia says the T-shaped slits are actually “macrobinocular viewplates,” so I guess there’s actually some kind of video display inside, but still, there would often be battlefield conditions that would impair visibility, so you’d think that this supreme warrior culture would train its warriors to get by without vision.
Really appreciate the helmeted blind training has been dubbed Zatoichi.
@12, @13, @14 Well, we do have proof of a character that cannot see and fight,yet wasn’t force sensitive. Chirrut didn’t have jedi abilities to help him see or fight, so we know it is possible. Sabine may just have low self esteem. The blind training also seems to be just a technique that jedi learn as one of their first lessons in the force in general.
I’m so excited that you mentioned Chirrut as a few of the breakdowns/commentaries I’ve watched really seemed to have neglected him. He’s one of my top 5 characters! Since the first episode, I’ve wondered if Sabine’s training was more along the lines of that – anybody can theoretically be in tune with the Force (although it would take some very intense meditation/mindfulness) even if they can’t manipulate it. Not to mention that to be a Jedi is more than just lifting rocks – it’s a way of life, a philosophy.
@16 – Chirrut wasn’t Force sensitive in the sense that he could manipulate the Force, but he was ‘one with the Force, and the Force was with him’ so his skills do have to do with being connected with the Force. We actually see Ahsoka say that in the season 7 finale of CW, so maybe she is familiar with the Guardians of the Whills). He also knew Andor’s intentions as he could sense the Force was moving ‘darkly’ around him.
The Senator Xiono cameo was kinda fun, because my son was actually watching Resistance earlier that day and I joked to my husband maybe one day we’d even get some live action Resistance characters! And there he was!
Ahsoka spacewalking kind of reminded me of that balls to the wall crazy episode of Visions, haha. (The Twins)
Regarding crappy New Republic government – I’m trying to play at least a little devil’s advocate in that it’s possible Hera has cried wolf a few times before. And there’s the whole trope that a ‘wartime’ leader isn’t necessarily the leader you want during peace, so in some sense, their decision to distance themselves from their more military minded leaders may make sense. I can understand the impulse to not want to turn into just another version of the Empire; a revolution is always a bloody interest, and I can see fearing becoming too overzealous in their own way, and wanting to leave the war behind. We know Hera is right, but from some other point of view, she’s the fear mongering conspiracy theorist.
Along with that would be the types who were more or less neutral (not wanting conflict and just waiting to see ‘who came out on top’ or fine with whatever as long as they are still profiting – or, from a less sinister point of view, the average citizen who is just trying to make a living and support their family). And there were enough loyalists out there willing to take advantage of that apathy and actively undermine it. The question is how many of the Senators present at that meeting were actively pro-Empire, or really believed the threat was over (or at least convinced themselves it was because the prospect of it was too terrifying, kind of like Fudge’s mentality in Harry Potter regarding Voldemort’s return).
@17/Lisamarie: “I’ve wondered if Sabine’s training was more along the lines of that – anybody can theoretically be in tune with the Force (although it would take some very intense meditation/mindfulness) even if they can’t manipulate it. Not to mention that to be a Jedi is more than just lifting rocks – it’s a way of life, a philosophy.”
I’ve been thinking the same thing. It would be cool if that were the real point of Ahsoka’s training of Sabine — not to teach her to levitate stuff, but to help guide her spiritually to wisdom and peace of mind. Like she said to Huyang, she’s not trying to teach Sabine to be a Jedi, but to be the best Sabine she can be.
“I joked to my husband maybe one day we’d even get some live action Resistance characters!”
Hmm, I could see Captain Doza or Yeager showing up at this time.
“We know Hera is right, but from some other point of view, she’s the fear mongering conspiracy theorist.”
Come to think of it, this feels kind of like a rehash (or prehash) of Leia’s failure to convince the New Republic about the First Order.
My only complaint about this series is that I’d like to see Ahsoka show a little more emotion. Her characterization feels a bit stiff at the moment. Maybe that’s her MO, but I’d certainly like to see her express her feelings a little more strongly. Otherwise, I’m digging all of it.
@19/Robert E Waters: I think Ahsoka’s stoicism is a logical continuation of her evolution from TCW to Rebels. She was definitely more serene and stoic in the latter series. And she’s been through a lot since her younger days. Betrayal by the Jedi Council, the Siege of Mandalore and Anakin’s fall, Order 66 and being forced to fight the Clone Troopers she’d grown so close to, her years in hiding, becoming Fulcrum in response to Imperial oppression, facing Vader… it makes sense that she’d be more solemn and less jokey after all that.
But I think Dawson still conveys her personality in those moments when her bright smile comes out in response to something. I’ve always felt that Dawson really gets Ahsoka and captures the essence of the character Eckstein and the animators created. (Except for not using Ahsoka’s reverse saber grip often enough, but that’s on the fight choreographers.)
@18 – I actually would not mind that! While there are some elements of Resistance that just didn’t work for me, that show got a bad rap and never really got a chance to find its footing. I think I recall that part of the issue was that the scripts for TLJ and RoS kept changing so much they couldn’t really ‘keep up’ with what was canon. But I think there were some interesting plot elements they could have kept exploring, both in context of the larger conflict, and outside of it (in some ways I actually thought it was more interesting when it was just about the going ons at the station). Tam’s arc was interesting to me in that it showed how somebody might end up sucked into the First Order’s mindset and how a person could become radicalized.
I also want to know more about Griff, the “Imperial” ace, who didn’t seem particularly sympathetic to the First Order if I recall, so I kind of wonder what his deal was.
My understanding is that this is pretty similar to what Leia went through in the Aftermath books – they’re still on my TBR list but my general understanding of the gist is that after the war she was kind of pushed out (in part due to it getting leaked that she was Vader’s daughter) and basically seen as a troublemaker.
@19 – In last week’s article, I described Dawson as lethargic. Every movement she makes, even with her eyes, feels so devoid of energy that I get sleepy just watching the show. There’s a difference between stoic and low-energy and I don’t think she’s nailing it.
It kind of annoys me that people are saying that Ashoka going out into space like that is cool, but still complain about Carrie Fisher in space.
Thick plot armor is to be expected, but in the matters of the lightsaber stabbing in the first episode and the entire starfighter chase in this episode, the plot armor worn by Our Heroes is remarkably thick.
@21/Lisamarie: Resistance had a few points of interest, mainly Tam’s arc, but it didn’t work for me overall. Kaz was an annoying lead character, and the animation style was really ugly. I’ve never been fond of cel-shaded 3D animation, but there are some shows in recent years that manage to make it look almost as good as traditional 2D, like Netflix’s The Dragon Prince. But Resistance‘s cel-shading looked as bad as the MTV Spider-Man series from 20 years ago. The character models were too stiff-limbed, like wooden dolls, and the brightness and contrast were way too high, making it ugly to look at. Plus the budget must have been very low, since they couldn’t afford to create more than one or two costume models for the characters, leading to ridiculous things like Torra Doza wearing her full flight suit while lounging in bed in her quarters. It’s such a startling step down from Rebels. I didn’t care for that show’s animation when watching it on my old standard-definition TV, but in my recent rewatch online in HD, I realized Rebels really had terrifically detailed and nuanced animation, and had no trouble with multiple costume variants and redesigns for its characters.
@18 @21 I have also seen comparisons drawn between the scene with Mass Effect’s Citadel Council dismissing Shepard’s concerns about the Reapers.
My own theory about Jacen’s green hair is that some of the genes for skin pigmentation in Twi’leks translate to the genes for hair pigmentation for humans.
@23 I liked Leia in space, although I think they could have foreshadowed her abilities to use the force powers a bit better. And I liked Ahsoka in her space suit, too.
Part of the difference between Ahsoka in space and Leia in Space is the former was in a space suit and the latter wasn’t. While I wasn’t fond of the sequel trilogy at all, this particular issue didn’t bother me. We knew Leia was force sensitive, and likely could manipulate it because of her relationship to Vader. That she’s learned something over the years makes sense. Using it to maintain her bodily integrity in the vacuum for a limited time and move back to the ship works for me.
@27/AlanBrown: “I liked Leia in space, although I think they could have foreshadowed her abilities to use the force powers a bit better.”
I dunno, I thought it worked better as a surprise. I was convinced she was a goner, and I wouldn’t have been if I’d had reason to think she could save herself with the Force.
And really, hasn’t it been foreshadowed ever since we learned Leia’s true parentage in 1983? If Luke inherited his father’s Force powers, it stood to reason that Leia could have too. Plus there’s Yoda’s enigmatic “No, there is another” line, which was often interpreted as referring to Leia. If anything, it’s been implicit all along that Leia might have undeveloped Force capabilities. (And it’s been credibly argued that she wouldn’t have had the strength to strangle Jabba without a little help from the Force.)
@28/costumer: “Using it to maintain her bodily integrity in the vacuum for a limited time and move back to the ship works for me.”
There is no risk to “bodily integrity” to being in vacuum. The idea that people explode in vacuum is a really stupid myth. The sacs in your lungs could rupture if you try to hold your breath, but otherwise all that happens is that your surface moisture would boil away, your tissues swell up, you pass out from the lack of pressure, and finally you suffocate after a few minutes. The amount of time Leia was exposed to vacuum was less than 2 minutes, which is survivable without a spacesuit.
If anything, the implausible part in that scene was that she got sucked out of the bridge at all. Air has very little mass, and the amount of air in a room that size would probably be less massive than the people in it. And most of it would go around them as it was sucked out. A cannon won’t fire if the cannonball isn’t large enough to seal the barrel. So realistically, the occupants of the bridge should’ve just been left to suffocate inside the airless bridge — if the shock wave from the explosion hadn’t killed them instantly.
@6. CLB: “I’m always disturbed … when characters act cheerful and happy that they just killed somebody.”
I don’t have any prior experience with Sabine but this was my reaction too since she doesn’t appear to be an utter sociopath. While they’re in mortal danger, admittedly, it was just very jarring in the moment, especially for such an immediately crushable-on new (to me) character. My wife felt the same — although we’re split on the pixie cut vs. long hair, in part because the shorter ’do somehow looks more like a wig to me.
@15. davidjcochrane: “Really appreciate the helmeted blind training has been dubbed Zatoichi.”
Yes!
@17. Lisamarie: “kind of like Fudge’s mentality in Harry Potter regarding Voldemort’s return”
I had a weird but wonderful Judy Blume / J.K. Rowling mashup in my head for a moment there. Now I want to read it; Tales of a Fourth-Grade Muggle or something.
@30/Arben: “I don’t have any prior experience with Sabine but this was my reaction too since she doesn’t appear to be an utter sociopath.”
Well, she is an experienced combatant who’s survived many battles, and she was raised in the Mandalorians’ warrior culture. But it’s not about her specifically; her reaction was no different from how Luke and Han cheered at blowing up TIE fighters in the original movie, never mind how happy everyone was that Luke blew up a space station with tens of thousands of people aboard, probably including innocent laborers and Rebel prisoners. And every other Star Wars hero who’s gunned down dozens of Stormtroopers or blown up multiple TIE fighters has reacted pretty much the same way. It’s just part of the conceit of action productions like these to gloss over the moral questions. It’s the trope in general I don’t care for, not anything specific to Sabine.
@31 said: But it’s not about her specifically; her reaction was no different from how Luke and Han cheered at blowing up TIE fighters in the original movie, never mind how happy everyone was that Luke blew up a space station with tens of thousands of people aboard, probably including innocent laborers and Rebel prisoners.
I’ve always viewed the cheer as a celebration of surviving overwhelming odds as opposed to being happy at having “made kills.
@32/twels: “I’ve always viewed the cheer as a celebration of surviving overwhelming odds as opposed to being happy at having “made kills.”
Sure, but that’s exactly the point — that storytellers often choose to focus only on the heroes’ victory and ignore the cost in lives. It’s understandable in something like Star Wars, where Lucas only wanted to make a fluffy popcorn movie for fun, and the loss of life isn’t meant to be taken too seriously because it’s just a story and nobody was really hurt. But it’s still not a trope I’m fond of. And even Lucas seemed to decide later on that it was an issue, since in the prequels he made a point of setting things up so that the heroes were mostly destroying droids and only the villains were killing living people. (Although there you get into the prickly issue of droid sentience in SW.)
Rebels had kind of an inconsistent take on it. Being a kids’ show, it tended to minimize the heroes’ lethality, often showing that the Stormtroopers they shot were only wounded or knocked out (apparently their armor actually worked for a change), and having characters on both sides use stun settings a lot more often than you usually see elsewhere in the franchise. There was one episode where an Imperial received a report that a rebel cell had carried off a raid with no fatalities, which tipped them off that it was the Ghost crew because they were less lethal in their tactics than some rebel cells. Yet the heroes still blew up a ton of TIE fighters and Imperial cruisers over the course of the series, so the show was fine with them killing literally thousands of people as long as you didn’t see them die on camera. (It bothered me in the Rebels finale that they paid lip service to the idea of letting the Stormtroopers trapped in the Imperial base evacuate before they blew it up, but then ultimately didn’t follow through and implicitly killed them all.)
@33 – interestingly, I’m watching a reactor go through the show for the first time, and Season 1 actually had quite a few lethal kills (ETA: heh, as opposed to those non-lethal kills ;) ) by the heroes, and they commented on that.
And then of course you have Chopper the war criminal, who has one of the highest body counts in Star Wars. (Although I’m not disagreeing with your main point either, it always makes me feel a bit weird too. I suppose it speaks to the human mind’s ability to compartmentalize, for better or worse)
Christopher,
I was trying to be … diplomatic. The only intent I meant by maintaining her own bodily integrity was not dying and moving back to the ship. That’s all. I didn’t mean to imply she would explode, swell up, or anything else. Just that she could remain alive long enough to use the force to move back to the ship when, without it, should would have died.
I would believe that that application of force would be of limited duration, which is why Ahsoka wouldn’t choose to use it here. First, she would be out too long and second, she would need to concentrate on the actual fight. She didn’t want to be distracted by keeping herself alive in a vacuum.
@35/costumer: “Just that she could remain alive long enough to use the force to move back to the ship when, without it, should would have died.”
Only in the sense that she needed the Force to physically propel herself. As I stated, Leia was in vacuum for less than two minutes, which is within the time frame that an unprotected human could realistically survive in vacuum. It’s unlikely that she could remain conscious that long, but she was shown as barely conscious, and once she got back in, she needed immediate medical attention. So it’s not that great a stretch, and there’s no need to attribute her survival in space to the Force.
“I would believe that that application of force would be of limited duration, which is why Ahsoka wouldn’t choose to use it here. First, she would be out too long and second, she would need to concentrate on the actual fight. She didn’t want to be distracted by keeping herself alive in a vacuum.”
What are you talking about? Ahsoka was in a spacesuit, so that’s not even an issue. I was referring to the part where she was floating in space and asked Sabine to maneuver the ship to retrieve her. She was close enough to the ship that it seems she could’ve just used the Force to pull herself back to it, the same way Leia did. I mean, it’s simple Newtonian mechanics — if you can pull an object toward yourself, then you can pull yourself toward an object heavier than you.
@36 It wasn’t necessary for Ahsoka to use the Force to get back to the ship, though. Sabine was perfectly capable of picking her up. Jedi aren’t supposed to use the Force willy-nilly, and I feel like Ahsoka believes that.
@37/Chase: That explanation doesn’t fit the scene. They were still under threat at the time, and it would’ve made no sense for Ahsoka to leave herself vulnerable longer than she needed to. It took far longer to ask Sabine to go to the cockpit and rotate the ship than it would’ve taken for Ahsoka to give herself a quick Force tug back to the ship.
One possible explanation is that the scene was scripted with the assumption that she’d drifted significantly further away and needed Sabine to come get her, but it was shot with her only a few feet out, making her seem helpless. These days, with studios discouraging writers from being on set during filming, it’s harder to set the filmmakers straight when they’re missing the intent of a scene as written.