There’s always a way to avoid a court-martial when you need one, eh?
Recap
Hera is at a disciplinary hearing with New Republic officials who are taking her to task for disobeying their orders. Hamato Xiono recommends that Hera be courtmartialed when C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) suddenly arrives on the scene. He has a message from Leia Organa, which states that she sanctioned Hera’s mission, not realizing that she was countermanding anyone else’s orders. She tells the group that all further issues should be directed toward her. Mon Mothma takes Hera aside, knowing that Leia did not sanction her mission and asking how serious she truly believes the threat to be. Hera tells her to prepare for the worst.
Ahsoka and Huyang emerge from hyperspace only to find the purrgil being buffeted by a minefield. They leave the purrgil’s mouth and the whales jump away before they’re all killed, leaving Ahsoka to pilot them into the debris field and hide. Thrawn asks the Great Mothers to pinpoint her location so that they can drive her out. Meanwhile, Ezra is getting information from Sabine on what’s changed since he’s been away and learns that Ahsoka took Sabine on as an apprentice.
Baylan and Shin catch up to the Noti caravan with the bandits, and Baylan tells his apprentice that she should capture Sabine and Ezra and take her place in the Empire—he has other plans here. Shin and the bandits proceed to round up the caravan, and Ezra and Sabine fight, though Ezra refuses to take back his lightsaber, insisting that it belongs to Sabine now.
Discovered by Thrawn’s forces, Ahsoka has Huyang drop her off close to Baylan and they have another duel, but this time Ahsoka merely steals his ride and heads to Sabine and Ezra. Thrawn notes that Baylan has veered off and decides that he doesn’t want to waste anymore time on capturing Jedi, seeing as their plan to leave is nearly completed. He withdraws his forces, leaving Shin alone. Ahsoka offers to help her, but she runs away. Ahsoka then has a proper reunion with Ezra and he says that it seems like he might finally get home.
Commentary
There’s a small extremely large gaping maw of a problem with rendering Grand Admiral Thrawn in live-action: No Star Wars scribe at present can write him as well as his creator, Timothy Zahn. And it shows in this episode because his dialogue doesn’t match what he’s doing at all—he makes comments about needing to manipulate the scenario so that no matter what choice Ahsoka makes, they’re always one step ahead, but that’s not what’s happening here. It would have been far more menacing if he’d made it sound like he was committing his forces to tracking her and taking her out, and then later let Elsbeth know that the whole point was to divert her.
Buy the Book
The Jinn Bot of Shantiport
You know, just like Ahsoka does in her fight with Baylan? You’ve even got parallels working in your favor, this could’ve seemed so cool. Also it’s, uh, kind of a big deal that he didn’t know Ashoka was Anakin’s Padawan? Seems like a thing he would have heard about ages ago, but I digress. As mentioned, Thrawn knew Vader and didn’t much like the guy, so he’s probably got a lot of ideas about Ahsoka now—some useful, some not.
But getting back to the point, Thrawn believes the greatest weakness of his enemy is how much they all care for one another. His entire goal is getting back to his home galaxy, and all he seemingly needs in order to accomplish that goal is for Ahsoka Tano to be otherwise engaged. He shouldn’t be saying that they need to stay one step ahead—he already is. Thrawn, when he’s done right, should be pure competence porn, and we’re not getting that on this show. This was a problem on Rebels as well, but it was more easily explained by the rest of the Empire’s generalized mess getting in his way. They don’t have the excuse here, and it’s glaring.
Speaking of which… bets on whether or not the cargo he’s carrying is just Nightsisters in their stasis chambers that are totally not vampire coffins? I’m really hoping that’s the deal because their entire civilization’s dispatch in The Clone Wars series was a mistake that I’ve never forgiven. If Star Wars plans to give the Dathomiri back to us for the foreseeable future, we can ignore a multitude of errors.
Granted, I’m not sure how a small army of Nightsisters would help the Empire coalesce and return, but that’s the problem for future Grand Admiral Thrawn.
As for the New Republic, Hera’s hearing is promptly derailed by the appearance of one gorgeous golden droid, which is mostly fun because this was a gambit that turned up in Rebels as well. While a teenaged Leia Organa shows up on that show, Threepio and Artoo were accidentally responsible for the recruitment of Hera’s team when Artoo let the Ghost crew capture them during a covert mission and later relayed info on their activities to Bail Organa. Which is to say, Leia and her family have always had a vested interest in Hera Syndulla’s good work, and will continue to protect her wherever possible.
I am assuming they’re not making Anthony Daniels don that golden suit anymore—I sincerely hope so, he’s in his late seventies, he’s done his time in that curséd rig—but the person currently in it is doing some strange postural things that made my back ache just looking at them. Sure, Threepio is a little sway-backed compared to other protocol droids (because he’s that uptight), but there was some weird overcompensation happening there. Maybe the suit just didn’t fit right this time around? Also, Daniels’ voice is sounding a little different for the first time in his… gosh, forty-six years playing this character, and it made me far too aware of the fact that we won’t have him forever, and I am psychologically incapable of handling that.
Take care of him, Senator Organa.
We’re getting close enough ask the question of where this is all headed. We’ve only got one more episode, but we know that this series is supposed to dovetail into a set of films that Filoni is meant to direct that will tie up this particular era—being the Mando-pre-sequel-trilogy point following that OG trilogy. Obviously, this is not going to fully wrap up in the next episode. We’re at a “this is only the beginning” point in the narrative, which is simultaneously exciting and frustrating because… well, there’s a lot that we’re not really close to wrapping up yet.
One of the bigger questions is what the hell Baylan is going to hang around on Peridea for, and if this is ultimately just a way of writing him off, since Stevenson is gone. I’m hoping that there was a plan here instead of them having to handle this on the fly, but it’s a big gaping hole at the moment. Fingers crossed that they’ve got a good way of filling it. But I did need a lot more of him and Shin as a pair if he was just waiting to abandon his apprentice this whole time. Kid deserves much more prep than that.
Despite the usual roughness of the dialogue, Ezra and Sabine truly make this episode. (Well, them and Huyang. It’s always Huyang.) It’s strangely gratifying to see that even in his isolation, Ezra hasn’t changed so much as to become unrecognizable. He’s giving Sabine a hard time over her training. He’s trying to give bravado (“It’s not looking good for you”) and mostly giving in-over-his-head. He eschews his old lightsaber in favor of shoving stuff with the Force, and actually does a pretty stellar job of that.
Sorry, just the dynamic of “my big sister/BFF does the killing around here” is sending me. (Also that master-apprentice bond connection actually working out for them, good stuff, keep going with this please.) As is Auntie Ahsoka showing up to send Shin packing, though she and Sabine clearly aren’t done yet. You could see Ezra looking between the two of them and going sooo, this is a thing. Do you need nemesis advice? I’ve never actually had a proper one, so I’m probably the wrong person to ask…
Of course, now that Ezra’s said he’s definitely going home, I’m terrified that it’s never going to happen, so the episode could’ve just not ended on that.
Bits and Asides
- There’s some labeling within New Republic ranks that I’m not a fan of because it seems to be… entirely militarized? Even accounting for the fact that the war against the Empire is fresh in everyone’s minds, if your new government is labeling itself in terms of force, that’s not even a little stabilizing. The big thing that bugs me is the idea that maybe they want the audience to feel okay that all of this got blown to hell in The Force Awakens. Which is… not great.
- The way Chopper was about to throw hands at a disciplinary hearing over how Xiono talks about droids. Let him do it.
- What’s the deal with the title of this episode, it has literally no bearing on anything that’s happening in it?
- Not me crying over the idea of Ahsoka having a couple dozen recordings of Anakin that she kept on her person during the war to shore up and get a pep talk whenever they were on separate missions, and then forever afterward. Huyang’s surprise over the thoughtfulness of this kind of says everything. No other Jedi were doing this kind of thing for their students.
- Glad that the purrgil survived the minefield, at least. Really didn’t need to watch mass space-whale death.
- Okay, so Sabine finally explains to Ezra that Garazeb Orrelios is training New Republic recruits, which is… fine, I guess, but not nearly enough information. Particularly because it does nothing to explain why Zeb didn’t show up with the squad Hera took to Seatos; I guarantee he would have happily dropped everything for her, they just probably didn’t want to CGI animate an angry lasat at that disciplinary hearing. Also, per my last missive on the subject, Where. Is. Zeb’s. Husband?
- The section where Shin’s forces round up the Noti is straight out the Western Native-Americans-surrounding-the-circled-up-caravan trope, and while I’m glad that this iteration is showcasing less overt racism, it’s still weird watching them deploy that stuff. Filoni has a better track record than Favreau does with it, though, for my money. There seems to be just a tiny bit more thoughtfulness with his reuse.
- Huyang being like “ah good everyone’s back together like I wanted… I hope I live long enough to witness the results” is Peak Droid Moods. He’s basically doing Threepio’s usual worrying shtick, but giving exhausted proud uncle instead of neurotic wired gay uncle. There’s a droid uncle spectrum, if you will. Chopper is on the far end as likely-drunk bar-brawling anarchist uncle.
Next week is the end! Kinda! See you then!
Also, Daniels’ voice is sounding a little different for the first time in his… gosh, forty-six years playing this character, and it made me far too aware of the fact that we won’t have him forever, and I am psychologically incapable of handling that.
What with the evil nature of Disney and our current technological terrors, I’m more afraid that we WILL have him forever.
Grand Admiral Thrawn: “I haven’t been able to find Ezra.”
Also Grand Admiral Thrawn: “Witches, find Ahsoka!”
Horrible.
It’s Hamato Xiono, not Hatamo. And it’s purrgil, not purgill.
I got really upset and worried that Thrawn mined the purrgil’s elephant’s graveyard. That was one of the cruelest things the Empire’s ever done. I was relieved that the purrgil survived and escaped.
I love it that Ezra’s grown so much in the Force that he doesn’t need the crutch of a lightsaber anymore. Seeing him actually Force-push Hati’s saber blade and make it tremble like a flame in the wind was one of the most badass Jedi moves I’ve ever seen. It was as much a wow moment as seeing Kylo Ren hold a blaster bolt in midair.
Glad to see I wasn’t the only one who thought Threepio’s suit actor had a weird posture. I wondered if it was just that Threepio was looking up at Mothma.
I wondered if “Dreams and Madness” was a reference to something, and all I can find is The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness, a 2013 documentary about Studio Ghibli. Not sure what the connection is there, aside from Dave Filoni generally being a big Miyazaki fan.
Oh, and we finally know where this season falls relative to the other shows, as Carson and Xiono discussed Gideon’s actions on Mandalore in season 3 of The Mandalorian. I guess we can assume all the shows set in the New Republic era are being released in chronological order.
I did like how Filoni structured Thrawn’s reaction upon learning Anakin was Asohka’s Master to play to two different audiences.
In the context of this episode, Thrawn obviously knows of Anakin’s legendary wartime reputation and recognizes a former Padawan who was trained by him will likewise be unpredictable and dangerous. It’s enough for general audiences.
But for those of us who’ve read Zahn’s Thrawn: Alliances, we know damm well there’s additional context behind his shock: Thrawn encountered Anakin during the Clone Wars… and he’s one of the few in the Empire who knows (or in his case, correctly deduced) Darth Vader’s true identity.
I’m just going to ascribe the title to “I don’t know what else to call it.” This episode was basically a bridge to the next episode which is basically a bridge to (presumably) a Dave Filoni version of Heir to the Empire. Much like Mandalorian gave us peak Skywalker, I imagine this will be a series before the New Republic got stupid enough to let the Empire First Order blow them up.
My one thought is that this episode worked better than previous ones because everyone was doing something. I agree the Live-Action Thrawn doesn’t come across quite as well as book Thrawn, possibly because we don’t have cut to scenes of his enemies going “How did he know!”
S
@2/Susan Paxton: Thrawn wasn’t unable to find Ezra. He flat out gave Sabine directions to the area he was last seen. They made it pretty clear that Thrawn had been keeping tabs on Ezra all along.
I found the Court Martial profoundly stupid. Disobeying orders is fair enough reason for a hearing, but what is the logical reason for Hera exaggerating/straight up lying about what she discovered, beyond nasty Senator is nasty and doesn’t like Hera.
Hera is a general, they should at least be taking her claims seriously just as a sensible precaution, as they all seem aware that Thrawn is a serious threat. That, and in the court martial only two people on the council even talked or asked questions just made the whole thing seem a bit odd. It’s continuing the “New Republic Leaders are a bit dumb” trope.
@3 – Fixed, thanks.
Ezra’s and Sabine’s actors’ chemistry works so well together, whished we could have spend some more time with them. Even Ahsoka can do with some more screen time, because it feels like Rosario only managed to find the character near the end. To bad there is only one episode left.
@7/Joe Clark: “I found the Court Martial profoundly stupid. Disobeying orders is fair enough reason for a hearing, but what is the logical reason for Hera exaggerating/straight up lying about what she discovered, beyond nasty Senator is nasty and doesn’t like Hera.”
It’s nothing we haven’t seen in real life, e.g. climate-change denial or COVID denial. Politicians often have a vested interest in the status quo and will vehemently deny any reality that would threaten it, no matter how illogical their denial is. In that context, Xiono’s refusal to admit the reality of the Imperial Remnant is perfectly plausible.
Plus, of course, it’s consistent with Xiono’s personality as established in Star Wars Resistance, where the character debuted. In that series, he considers Leia’s Resistance to be a dangerous extremist group and doesn’t take their concerns about the First Order seriously.
@/10 ChristopherLBennett
“
It’s nothing we haven’t seen in real life, e.g. climate-change denial or COVID denial. Politicians often have a vested interest in the status quo and will vehemently deny any reality that would threaten it, no matter how illogical their denial is. In that context, Xiono’s refusal to admit the reality of the Imperial Remnant is perfectly plausible.
Plus, of course, it’s consistent with Xiono’s personality as established in Star Wars Resistance, where the character debuted. In that series, he considers Leia’s Resistance to be a dangerous extremist group and doesn’t take their concerns about the First Order seriously.”
Those are good points, I’ve not expressed myself well, I had less of an issue with Xiono himself, more the fact that there were no real dissenting voices against his position until Threepio intervened. Even if was just someone pushing back against Xiono because they were a political opponent of his, it would have seemed a bit more believable.
Or somebody trying to add a rider to the judgement to tack on 30 million credits of taxpayer money to support the perverted arts.
I’m really having a hard time suspending my disbelief with these repeated Shin/Sabine fights. Why does Shin not use any force powers on Sabine?! She would be powerless to stop it, unlike Ezra, who Shin did try to use her powers on!
I’m surprised by how many viewers came into these post ROTJ shows expecting competence from the New Republic when it had alreay been established that they were so incapable of taking threats to their existence seriously that they ended up being destroyed by the First Order. The shows are just running with this.
Put me in the column of being glad Thrawn is not “pure competence porn.” That was the major misstep of Zahn’s trilogy and sent the EU in general down a bad road, imho — “fixing” the mistakes of the movies by inserting a bad guy who was smarter than the Emperor, smarter than Tarkin, all the Imperials who were supposed to be overconfident and bumbling. The Zahn trilogy kept showing the Rebels doing swashbuckling Rebel things that should have worked under Star Wars logic, then Zahn’s Holmesian Mary Blu waggling his finger and saying “Well, actually…” Zahn wanted to write milSF, not pulp fantasy, and his books never felt like Star Wars to me; I always felt he was critiquing the tactics of the movies by showing what would “really happen”, which rather missed the point. I much prefer the Thrawn of Rebels, who is defeated by a kid and his space whales, than the book Thrawn who can never make a mistake.
@1: George Lucas wanted to create a digital double of Peter Cushing for Revenge of the Sith, but was stymied by technology until the makeup artist said he could do it. It’s not so much Disney as ILM continuing George’s vision.
@10 / CLB:
Yeah, given the Zahn influences, Xiono is basically the Borsk Fey’lya of this era.
Xiono’s doing the exact same thing: ignoring the larger concerns of the New Republic to pursue his own agenda and harass and punish his political enemies.
I’m going to be honest – I was dissapointed with this episode. Aside from resolving (mostly) the Hera subplot and getting a Sabine/Ahsoka/Ezra reunion, not much plot-wise happens. This would normally be fine, but this is the penultimate episode, and I’m not feeling particularly pumped about the finale. This is most notable in the Baylan story, where all that happens is he doesn’t help Shin fight Sabine, Ezra, and Co.
Various thoughts –
I hope whoever is in the 3P0 suit fixes his posture; I never recall him having that much of a tilt.
A bunch of online commentaries were claiming that Thrawn’s troops were either reanimated dead troops or weird ghosts like Merrok. I’m glad to see they appear to be regular stormtroopers based on their non-smokey deaths in the battle.
So… the Great Mothers work their magiks only through those weird spheres? Seems strangely limiting. And they can only accomplish things working as a trio?
Thrawn ended last week by saying “I will once again require the aid of your dark magiks.” But…it appears he didn’t make use of them until he needed to find Ahsoka in the debris field. And if they can find people so easily, why has he allowed Ezra to live?
If Baylon’s arc doesn’t conlcude next week, I hope they recast him and continue without any CGI effects.
Why are we still avoiding telling Ezra about the Situation? And why hasn’t he even mentioned Thrawn?
#14.
Then it’s a terrible vision, and Disney/ILM appears all too happy to carry it forward. That’s on them.
Look, just recast the roles. Give other actors a shot at success, and employment. That’s a much better vision.
@9/Adamus: “Even Ahsoka can do with some more screen time, because it feels like Rosario only managed to find the character near the end.”
She’s understood the character just fine all along. Remember where Ahsoka was at the end of Rebels. She was already more serious and subdued throughout that series than she’d been in The Clone Wars, because she’d lived through her rejection by the Jedi, the Siege of Mandalore, the tragedy of having to kill her clone friends during Order 66, and the subsequent decade and a half watching the Empire’s growing tyranny. And then she battled Darth Vader, learned he was Anakin, and was almost killed by her former master. The solemn, withdrawn Ahsoka we’ve seen Dawson play up to now is a natural outgrowth of where Ahsoka was when we last saw her in animated form. She didn’t “find” the character — she’s been playing the character just right all along, but the character has evolved. Facing Anakin in her near-death experience brought her renewed peace, and she’s finally able to open up and become warmer and happier again.
@16/Ecthelion: “So… the Great Mothers work their magiks only through those weird spheres? Seems strangely limiting.”
No more so than magic wands.
Thrawn almost looked a little worried when he realized who Ahsoka’s master was. I would not be surprised if he uses this knowledge to try and turn Ezra and Sabine against Ahsoka because she never told them.
@14 – exactly. Thrawn is dangerous but not perfect. It’s like the version of Megatron in the “Transformers Animated” series. A much more competent and deadly foe than the OG series that still has flaws (megalomania, overconfidence, poor allies, etc) so it’s more satisfying in the end when the good guys win. The Thrawn of Rebels was the same way for me.
Another thing: that training sequence with stored holos of Anakin, left me … I’m not sure how to describe it. I grew up with the original trilogy. I first saw Star Wars the day before the hype of the Time and Newsweek covers broke – the theater was almost empty. Two days later the line was around the block. < smiling at the memory >
The Prequels were my son’s (he’s 21 now) and I didn’t hate them but they weren’t as good to me. Really I didn’t care about Anakin’s fall until I watched the Clone Wars animated series with him and THAT show salvaged the character. Only then could I believe in the tragedy of it. I dearly loved how Rebels built on it after that.
Seeing Hayden walking around, teaching her, in that outfit, with that attitude rather than the whiny snot-nosed brat of AOTC, left me close to tears. That, what, minute and a half? made the whole series for me. Your mileage will vary, obviously, but that moment when they gave small nods/bows to each other as master-apprentice was the moment this fat old Star Wars fan needed.
@18/CLB – Perhaps, but the nightsisters from Dathomir in TCW didn’t use anything but their hands to cast their spells, and performed much greater feats on a regular basis than we have seen from the Great Mothers so far.
I enjoyed the episode in general, but I did feel a bit like it was spinning its wheels and basically just setting up for the finale (which is itself setting up for the movie).
-Loved the little Threepio cameo (and while I get it’s probably a budgeting issue, or perhaps a desire to not re-cast/CGI her) and love the pettiness of Leia sending her droid to testify, haha.
-Others have already commented on how obstructionist Xiono is but how it is also sadly in character. It does feel a little frustrating that in some ways they have to pave the way for how we got to the sequels, but it’s unfortunately all too realistic. I maybe wouldn’t have believed it quite as much pre-covid, but here we are.
-LOVED Ezra saying, nah, I don’t need a lightsaber. I’ve seen some people complaining about it, but to me it makes perfect sense. He’s lived several years on this planet having to rely on ONLY the Force and in some ways that makes him the purest kind of Jedi.
-Sabine really needs to come clean with him soon though.
-Ahsoka is definitely feeling more like herself now. I teared up a little at her watching Anakin’s hologram and saying he was a good master. Getting more Hayden was such a fun treat.
-Baylan’s dismissal of Shin was a bit odd but he clearly has some other agenda. I was a bit sad to see them parted though and I really wish we knew more of both of their backstory and what brought them together.
-I admittedly do think Shin should have been able to defeat Sabine more easily, but oh well. I did really enjoy Baylan and Ahsoka’s fight though.
-The opening mine sequence gave me huge Galaxy Quest vibes, haha. Glad the whales got away!
-I feel like Thrawn’s big MO is to cover up any loss with, ‘well, that was ACTUALLY the plan’, haha. Granted, he may also just be savvy enough to not waste time fighting her if he really does just want to get off the planet. It would be interesting if the show just ends with him having at least a temporary victory and leaving them there (which might also neatly explain why they aren’t around for the sequels…and then maybe they can show up later in Rey’s movie or something…)
-I agree the title was a bit over-selling! I wanted more dreams and madness (and specifically, more of Baylan’s story).
-Throwing out loony predictions for the finale – we’ll see either the Bendu (heh, then we could have TWO Doctors in the episode) or some ancient Zeffo as the ‘beginning’ he seeks. The Bendu IS connected with Thrawn, and there are also some Zeffo/Fallen Order related Easter eggs that have been sprinkled in throughout (and anything that teases the possibility of live action Cal is a win in my book, haha).
@15 – hah, that is a perfect analogy!
And I agree with @18 that Ahsoka’s supposed “stiffness” is totally in line with where her character was at the time and part of her arc for this show involved making peace with Anakin’s fall/redemption. At any rate, it’s certainly not Dawson’s fault, even if you don’t care for that decision, but an intentional thematic choice coming from Filoni (who I will grant likely knows the character better than any of us).
@18 ChristopherLBennett
“She didn’t “find” the character — she’s been playing the character just right all along, but the character has evolved”
I think we agree, but I also disagree because I was talking in terms of production time of the show. I do feel that it takes time for an actor to get comfortable portraying a character. If you go back to Rebels, it took more than 8 episodes for the actors to find their characters’ voices. You are right about the character of Ahsoka. But we are currently in streaming hell and we are getting very condensed stories that rely on alluding to events offscreen, rather than actually showing them. I do feel that we should have spent more time to get to know the Rosario’s version of the character. Us as audience need that time too. Although I do also think it is a case that the production crew finally also figured out how portray her better on screen.
I enjoyed the episode mostly. My biggest emotion was fear that a space whale was going to die, then fear that a hermit crab was going to die. The sapient characters? Not so much
The court martial scene left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth because yeah you’re rooting for Hera and the ‘good’ guys won the day, but they won the day by knowing someone powerful in government. If Hera had acted in the same way with the same good intentions but not been politically connected she’d probably be in jail. (her violation of a direct order lead to several pilots deaths, how different would the scene have been if their families had been in the room?) This sort of political cronyism and nepotism is too big a problem in the real world to be made lightly of. And isn’t this sort of corruption partly what lead to the fall of the new republic?
Maybe it’s deliberate, maybe it’s more of showing the New Republic is a doomed experiment so we don’t feel bad for it’s fall in Force Awakens as mentioned in the review.
@22/Ecthelion: “Perhaps, but the nightsisters from Dathomir in TCW didn’t use anything but their hands to cast their spells, and performed much greater feats on a regular basis than we have seen from the Great Mothers so far.”
Correlation does not imply causation. It could simply be that they haven’t been called upon to perform such feats yet in this particular story. We’ve only seen them in two episodes so far.
If anything, I’d think a magical item like a wand or orb would be analogous to a physical tool, something created for the specific purpose of being a force multiplier and enhancing the user’s own power. It could be that the Peridea Nightsisters have retained an instrument that the Dathomirians lost.
@23/Lisamarie: “Baylan’s dismissal of Shin was a bit odd but he clearly has some other agenda.”
Baylan wasn’t dismissing Shin. He was telling her she was ready to be on her own. Gotta take the training wheels off sometime.
@25/Adamus: “I do feel that it takes time for an actor to get comfortable portraying a character.”
Whereas I feel Dawson captured Ahsoka quite well in her debut on The Mandalorian. She is a longtime fan, after all, so she’d already internalized how Eckstein played the character and was able to channel it well.
@26/PariahtheOpossum: “My biggest emotion was fear that a space whale was going to die, then fear that a hermit crab was going to die. The sapient characters? Not so much”
What makes you think they aren’t sapient? The Noti obviously are, since they have language, clothes, and hoverwagon/houses. And if space whales are analogous to Earthly whales, the purrgil are probably sapient too. (Reinforced by the fact that they have a favored graveyard like elephants, another sapient mammal.)
Just curious as to what you mean by this is the first time 3PO’s voice is sounding a little different. The difference in his voice between the prequels and the originals is staggering (one might also say there is a small jump between ANH and Empire). His voice in all the more recent shows/movies have made 3PO’s voice in the OT seem oddly incongruent for this section of the timeline in the middle (to be fair, as much as it pains me to say, there are a lot of things that make those movies seem dated while sandwiched in the middle of newer production technologies).
Several times in the recap, Emmet uses the word “capture” instead of “destroy” and it really stood out to me. If this was Rebels, the bad guys would be wanting to capture. But Thrawn, Baylan and Shin all use the word destroy.
Quoth Emmet: “There’s a droid uncle spectrum, if you will.”
DAMMIT, EM, YOU MADE ME SNARF MY COFFEE!
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Ezra’s comment is concerning, no two ways about it, but I’m not freaking out as yet. Star Wars runs on a power greater than the Force: Narrativium. Killing Ezra before he reunites with the full crew and meets his surrogate little brother wouldn’t satisfy the Narrativium. Afterwards, OTOH…
@27 – oh, I actually got the impression from that exchange that Baylan was essentially ‘releasing’ her from his service. Something about the way he told her to go ‘take her place in the new Empire’ but said he had his own quest made me feel that he was assuming (or perhaps sensing through the Force) it would be a permanent separation. I don’t know – could just be my read on the scene. Maybe in part, subconsciously influenced by the fact that I know the actor has died. :(
And yes, the Noti are definitely sapient and have a full culture. It’s possible/likely the whales are too.
@26 Regarding Hera, i actually did wonder if they were going to bring up that her disobedience got several pilots killed (and ships destroyed). I kind of know what you mean though. We trust Hera as the viewer (and Leia) and I don’t so much mind that Leia helped her, but I can see a legitimate, well meaning argument that Hera is a war hawk creating fear mongering conspiracies of shadowy threats to maintain her own power, or an example of a wartime leader who doesn’t know what peace is. (I don’t think Xiono is one of those, but I could see others siding with him for that reason.)
But, yes the challenge of a post-revolution government is shown here in that clearly the New Republic went so far in the other direction of wanting to be a ‘peaceful government’ as little like the Empire as possible that they completely knee capped themselves (but then also had some rather creepy brainwashing). I’m not saying they should have rounded up everybody tangentially related to or sympathetic to the Empire and executed them, but they were quite naive. Does anybody who has read more of the supplementary material know if there is any speculation that part of that plan was in part secretly influenced by Imperial moles in the government with the express purpose of undermining the new government?
@32 / Lisamarie:
Does anybody who has read more of the supplementary material know if there is any speculation that part of that plan was in part secretly influenced by Imperial moles in the government with the express purpose of undermining the new government?
Yes, this is a major part of Claudia Gray’s 2016 novel Bloodline.
Prior to TFA, there are two major factions in the NR Senate: The Populists (who favor decentralization and greater planetary sovereignty) and the Centrists (who favored stronger central authority and military).
Unsurprisingly, the First Order had their tendrils in the latter and used them to cause gridlock and internal problems.
It didn’t hurt that the Centrists Senators in question were Imperial sympathizers — or at least, they think the Empire wasn’t entirely wrong. Yes, they all agree Palpatine, Vader, Tarkin, and the rest were monsters — but they felt that those sins and actions overshadow what they see as the real good and benefits the Empire brought in the wake of the Clone Wars.
Naturally, Leia sees them as the generation that grew up after Palpatine and thus can’t understand what the Empire was like at its worst.
@32/Lisamarie: “I actually got the impression from that exchange that Baylan was essentially ‘releasing’ her from his service.”
Yeah, but I mean he did so in the good “There is nothing more I need to teach you” way than in the bad “You’re fired” way. It wasn’t dismissal, it was graduation.
@@@@@ 32 / 33:
The other thing with the Centrists is that many of them are also Imperial veterans.
Basically, the NR ran into the exact same problem their Legends counterpart experienced in the pre-Disney era.
While the worst Imperial war criminals were pursued, there were simply so many people in the Empire’s government and military that punishing all of them was both impractical and unethical (esp. if guilt couldn’t be established).
So a lot of them skated by and wormed their way into the new Senate — which of course allowed Imperial policies to take root again rather than die out and gave the First Order friends and sympathizers to recruit and deploy.
This one depends on how next week’s finale pans out. A lot of pieces are obviously in motion. The thing about Thrawn’s chess moves is that it depends on the outcome. Him distracting Ahsoka and the others with the skirmish while he replenishes the Chimaera with whatever cargo that is. Well, that’s only a piece of the puzzle. It feels unsatisfying because we don’t know the whole puzzle just yet.
But there’s also this sense that Thrawn was somehow this infallible master player, and that’s just not true. Even Timothy Zahn made him overlook details and make rookie mistakes. Let me point out a few from the EU. The first one was obviously not killing Joruus C’Baoth in the first novel. Even Pellaeon could see the man was a major unpredictable threat. And even though Thrawn had the foresight to produce and leak a false accusation against Mara Jade to Republic authorities in order to prevent her from leading the Republic to Mount Tantiss, he failed to realize that Luke Skywalker and Han Solo would be more than willing to break her out of prison, violating New Republic law, in order to achieve their mission.
The one thing I wish the current SW shows would ‘borrow’ from Zahn’s work is possibly Thrawn’s uncanny ability to eavesdrop on enemy intelligence – I’m thinking of Delta Source, the organic microphones he had installed on the Imperial palace prior to the Empire’s fall.
As for the episode, it didn’t hit the emotional highs of the last two, but that’s partly by design. Too many things going on at once. I’m also glad the whales made it out before the minefield trashed them completely. Absolutely LOVED Ezra’s new mode of action. For all of Obi-Wan’s preachings about holding on to your lightsaber (“this weapon is your life“), there’s something to be said about not overrelying on it. Ezra showed us it’s more than possible to even take on a Sith apprentice without one. That brief, but messy duel against Shin was a masterclass on using the force for defense.
Baylan’s last-minute withdrawal didn’t quite feel out of place with what we know about him, but it also didn’t feel quite right either. Why travel to another galaxy with plans to rally Thrawn and end the good/evil cycle if he’s not getting his hands dirty and letting Shin do all the work? Does he assume they’ll just wipe each other out and he’ll step in once the dust is clear? Either he has another hand to play, or this was clearly a way to write Stevenson off (sadly).
On a better note, I adored seeing 3PO again. I have plenty of issues with Rise of Skywalker, but C-3PO wasn’t one of them. In fact, he was one of that film’s highlights, seizing every scene he had lines (even the groan-inducing “They fly now?” sounds funny coming from him). A character who was rarely given a chance to shine as the dedicated protocol droid he is. Him appearing on the NR Senate feels right. And if Filoni is trying to recreate some EU beats in this Mandalorian/Ahsoka TV era, I think it’s safe to say Senator Xiono is Filoni’s take on Borsk Fey’lya, as pointed above (I’d forgotten he was related to Resistance’s Kaz).
@36/Eduardo: “Baylan’s last-minute withdrawal didn’t quite feel out of place with what we know about him, but it also didn’t feel quite right either. Why travel to another galaxy with plans to rally Thrawn and end the good/evil cycle if he’s not getting his hands dirty and letting Shin do all the work?”
Because he’s after something else, of course. I thought that was clear — he’s just piggybacking on Morgan’s plan to get to Peridea and find something else unrelated to Thrawn, something that will serve his own distinct mission to end the cycle. That was never about Thrawn or Morgan, since they’re both serving the cycle he’s trying to break. Everything with Ezra, Sabine, and Ahsoka is just a sidebar to him, which is why he wasn’t unhappy to see that Ahsoka had survived. Presumably next week we’ll finally find out what he’s really after.
Incidentally, Anthony Daniels has posted on Twitter/X/whatever saying that he was on set in the Volume in the filming of this episode. So either that actually was him in the suit, or he was delivering the dialogue from offscreen for the actors to play off, or maybe he was standing there in a mocap suit and they replaced him with a digital Threepio.
@34 – yeah, I get she had ‘graduated’ but it also felt like he was recognizing they clearly had different goals/priorities. As you say, he is looking for that solution to the cycle, where Shin still seems somewhat invested in it. I wouldn’t say they parted on bad terms, though.
@33/35 – so, I was actually wondering if there were secret Imperials in the Populists since part of their vast demilitarization is part of what left them vulnerable. Which, I kind of hate to say because it sounds a bit like anti-gun control conspiracy rhetoric (they just want to keep you unarmed!) etc.
I do wonder what an ‘ethical’ Empire could look like (in some ways I think that’s what Legends tried to do with Palleon’s remnant)…I think it’s feasible from a good faith point of view to argue in favor of preferring that style of governing or to find its tradeoffs worth the benefits or at least better than the kind of power vacuums that can result in its absence. (Which, again, in some ways gets shown by how ineffective the NR is shown to be, although I don’t think it’s worse than the Empire. Low bar!) Like the guy in Kenobi, I guess – in his mind the Empire has potentially cleaned up some of the lawlessness of the area which for all we know was a huge issue. He may not even know who Vader is or what crazy things Palpatine does – so that’s where it becomes tricky in how we treat pro-Empire/sympathizers, I guess. At what point are they a legitimate threat? And what types of policies under the Empire are policies that – with actual checks and balances – could be implemented in a reasonable way?
Or is a unified galaxy a pipe dream? The Old Republic managed it, in a way, but there were clearly neglected pockets, things like a blind eye to slavery/crime in the Outer Rim and nepotism/corruption/indulgence after they peaked. I guess it’s like Baylan says, it just keeps happening again and again and again…
@32 Lisamarie & @32 ChristopherLBennet: I’m leaning more toward Lisamarie’s interpretation. For me personally, it didn’t feel like a graduation. His comment about them being on a different path felt more like an excuse. I don’t think the show has done much to establish that Shin has the ambition Baylan spoke of. At most, she’s seemed unsure of why Baylan was getting them involved with Morgan in the first place. She’s very much to been following her master’s lead. It felt like Baylan was protecting her by not allowing her to come with him. His demeanor this episode was odd. Almost wistful. I think he knows that he’s likely not coming back from wherever he’s going.
@27 ChristopherLBennet: I agree. I think we just haven’t seen all the magic of which the Great Mothers are capable. This trio of Great Mothers seems a bit different to Mother Talzin. They are clearly styled after the Greek Fates & the Norse Norn, with powers that involve divining the future, which may manifest in a visually distinct way from the more necromantic magic we’ve seen. And they often speak in unison, so it seems clear they’re connected in a more metaphysical way.
Maybe their magic has evolved beyond the green flames, since the show is implying that they are ancient and more powerful. I don’t even think the orbs are necessarily magical in and of themselves, though they clearly use their magic to utilize the orbs. I think perhaps they’re more of a multi-tool they find helpful. The way the orbs pinpoint Ahsoka’s location on the map reminded me of how other magic systems use a pendulum suspended over a map for divination purposes. The pendulum isn’t magical, its just the medium the magic influences to so it can be read.
I’m mostly enjoying the show, but I find it suffering from some of the same issues as recent shows like Willow and Star Trek: Picard: A lot of the elements that would make it a compelling story in itself — such as a solid story and dialog related to the circumstances the character is actually in — have been sacrificed in favor of nostalgia and looking cinematic.