About Andor, and lesser Star Wars things


If she were truly dead, no backsies, Iā€™d change my tune pretty quickly and give the show runner a lot of praise. It would be a Ned Stark style shocker, and it would then be cool to see how Sabine navigates the rest of the story on her own. But she gotta be ded ded, not simply visiting.

See, I agree that it would be gutsy, but I think this is where almost any Clone Wars/Rebels fan will break from you. That unceremonious of a true demise of Ahsoka Tano would be difficult to accept after spending so many hours with her.

If this is a death then itā€™s definitely just an impermanent Star Wars bullshit death. Itā€™s the only type they know.

Itā€™s really too bad that Rebels and Clone Wars were marketed to kids, since they have some of the best, most ā€œadultā€ stories in the entire canon.

I wish more folks would watch them, not because of these live action shows, but because they are truly great Star Wars content on their own merits.

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Ep4 was a banger!!!

The swordfighting choreography made this one of my favorite pieces of Star Wars media. Love the shots allowing us to follow their movements and progression of attacks without just kinda going yay light sticks are swirling.

The stuff in Phantom Menace was fun, but Iā€™m never going to do six backflips to avoid a swing lol. This choreography was a lot more relatable.

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I love the juxtaposition of Ahsokaā€™s more eastern style and Baylanā€™s obvious western/medieval knight style. You can see thru the entire fight how they are adjusting to each other, too.

Really well-choreographed, I agree. Helps that Ray Stevenson is a giant of a manā€¦really sells the armored knight parallels.

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YES!!! The medieval knight style felt like a breath of fresh air. In a weird way, this is the kind of dynamic I wish weā€™d seen in Attack of the Clones where we first saw Yoda draw a lightsaber. I wanted deliberate elegance. Instead this guy who can barely walk is suddenly catapulting off the walls? It got a great reaction from crowds and me when we first saw it, but I donā€™t think history has been kind to just how silly that fight scene turned out to be.

Agree that part of the pleasure of Ep4 was in the storytelling through the choreography as they adjust to each other. Thatā€™s a part thatā€™s easy to miss or just not even include when the fight is moving at prequel speeds.

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Ahsoka s01e04

I was proven right that Marrok was just cool-looking cannon fodder.

Iā€™m fine with Sabineā€™s decision. Itā€™s too much to ask her to lose both Ahsoka and Ezra within minutes of each other. Thatā€™s a very human and understandable response that she maybe wouldnā€™t have had if Ahsoka doesnā€™t go over the edge. Huyang said that Ahsoka and Sabine were better together. Sabine is better off not being alone.

In any case, given how the map ended up being destroyed, I donā€™t think she could have done it if she tried.

Baylen has some sort of plan that I suspect diverges from Morganā€™s. The title of the episode, ā€œFallen Jediā€, refers in part to him and we can still see the Jedi instinct of believing he is acting for the greater good.

Iā€™m not sure where they are going with Ahsoka. I might think that Force Ghost Anakin, given more substance in the World Between Worlds, has one final lesson for his padawan, but the Vader music is ominous. That they used that music should be a hint that this is the real Anakin in some form, but maybe from the past before he gets redeemed in death.

Killing Ahsoka permanently halfway through the series that bears her name would be a really dumb idea. If you have to kill her off, it needs to be a noble sacrifice in the last episode.

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Did some reading. Something something world between worlds. Basically Jedi purgatory. And sheā€™s been in there before. Have not watched Rebels

All the Jedi are fallen, Ahsoka literally, but Sabine for real.
I think they showed her strength in fighting Shin. Sheā€™s Mandalorian, not a Jedi. She should fight like a Mandalorian. But then, she doesnā€™t think about ā€œthe greater goodā€ like a Jedi. So her ā€œturnā€ or ā€œfallā€ isnā€™t too surprising.

Baylan was the real winner this episode. SciFi/Fantasy always lives and dies by itā€™s ā€œVillainā€. Baylan finally became interesting. Even if Ahsoka has never heard of him (loved that bit)

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I do struggle to get on board with this whole notion of Sabine becoming a Jedi after she spent several seasons in close quarters with a couple of Jedi and the topic of her becoming one never came up, even when she had a whole arc where she trained with one on how to use the dark saber (for live action-only fans, the same one from recent seasons of Mando) effectively.

But whatever history went on between Ahsoka and Sabine in between Rebels and this show is still a hole in canon that I have to think they intend to fill in through flashbacks or at least exposition at some point, so maybe the backstory will make it click better.

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Fine fine, Iā€™ll watch them!

Do i need to watch the first two prequels first? Seen them obv, but forgotten ~ everything.

Episode I seems pretty unnecessary to me. Episode II might feed into it a little, but thereā€™s the small matter of it being bad to consider (I find Episode I to be decent and slightly too hated on, but Episode II is one I may not revisit further after watching it twice). I wouldnā€™t say you really NEED to watch either.

The Clone Wars can be a bit of a tough watch at times. It has higher highs than Rebels but not nearly the consistency that Rebels has. I watched the whole thing, but man there are arcs that I could have skipped over entirely without issue. And the best stuff doesnā€™t start turning up until season 3 IMO.

Rebels is a tighter, more focused story that doesnā€™t spend all the time on filler that Clone Wars does. Of course, specific to Ahsoka, you would lose a lot of her long-term character arc by jumping straight to Rebels.

IMO the best course of action would be to try Clone Wars from the jump, but if it becomes too much of a slog then come back and field suggestions for specific highlight arcs to watch. And if you can stand a bit of hassle during the first couple of seasons, I would recommend a chronological watch:

I nearly always tell someone to watch ongoing works in release order rather than chronological, but this is an exception, because as far as I can tell there was absolutely no rhyme or reason to the release order; seems they were basically just spitting out episodes as they got finalized.

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I think thereā€™s also a list out there that gives each clone wars episode a rating based on how essential it is to watch, so you can combine that with the chronological list to narrow things down.

The trouble with that is Dave Filoni loves to make ā€œfillerā€ episodes that have payoffs (literally) years later, so the throwaway episodes about a beast that eats electricity and lives inside a planet in season 2 of Clone Wars come back around a decade later in a new show. Which means the episodes people rated as filler 5 years ago all of a sudden actually provide needed context.

I think they do a good job in the new shows of expositing just enough that new viewers can follow along, but the real strong emotional payoffs come to those who have grown to love these characters through the animated shows.

Like, in Mando season 2 when Bo-Katan first shows up, she introduces herself and gives a brief, plausible explanation about why she takes off her helmet and Din doesnā€™t, which is fine, and it worksā€¦but If you watched Clone Wars itā€™s like seeing an old friend and you know SO MUCH MORE about that back story.

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Right, I agree with you. I do think itā€™s the most fulfilling SW experience to watch the entire thing, but I did want to raise caution that probably nobody is endorsing every single episode.

I do have an appreciation for seemingly canonically meaningless episodes that are done well. New planet? New species? Weā€™re just playing in the sandbox and expanding the galaxy? Cool. I imagine that episode with the species with absolutist pacificist leadership might relate to ~nothing at all (yet, anyway), but I definitely enjoyed it.

This is a good expectations-setting tool, episode by episode, both inside and outside of Star Wars:

https://www.ratingraph.com/tv-shows/star-wars-the-clone-wars-ratings-21341/

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Disclaimer: you could probably stand to just YouTube the Duel of the Fates. Best scene in the movie and does inform Clone Wars a bit. But Iā€™m not trying to outright discourage you from just watching those movies in full. Just trying to answer the question of what might feel like an actual prereq.

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We havenā€™t talked much about The Bad Batch here, but itā€™s basically a Clone Wars sequel, and itā€™s one of the only pieces of on-screen canon that takes place in a super interesting time period: right after Order 66 during the actual establishment of the Empire. I think Solo might be the only other thing that happens around that time.

Itā€™s also fantastic, though it does have a lot of character development episodes (which is what ā€œfillerā€ episodes actually are)

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image

Itā€™sā€¦not ideal that the best Bad Batch episodes are the ones where the Bad Batch doesnā€™t appear. And that the next-best ones are reliant on single-episode cameos from characters from other shows. The actual main characters have zero personality and are impossible to care about. Excellent theme song though.

Do you follow any Star Wars recap people or shows? Iā€™m trying to think of any who are great storytellers familiar with all of it in the way Joanna Robinson was my go-to for Game of Thrones stuff.

When Iā€™m not sure what exactly to dive into versus skim, I sometimes find a good recap show to help me either get into it enough that Iā€™m watching it all regardless vs the hosts setting the mood for when I need to turn the recap off and 100% watch at least the episode or movie being discussed.

Star Wars Explained is a little wonky, but they tend to be pretty fair and cover a lot of content.

If you want a good recap of Rebels, New Rockstars just did a great 4-video series that covers the show and what you need to know going into Ahsoka.

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