I’ve seen most of The Clone Wars, watched all of Rebels this year, and I very much enjoyed Ahsoka so far. It’s a bit slow in places but overall I think it’s great. Much better than Obi Wan or Boba Fett (unfortunately.) I’d like more Chopper though. We need a subplot with him.
Speaking for myself I don’t need award winning performances, just less scenes where literally nothing happens for minutes at a time and dialogue above a third grade level. The bare minimum.
Hey we all have our tastes and expectations. I don’t think anyone is wrong for disliking it. But, I enjoyed myself watching the first two episodes, and that’s all I’m looking for.
Not a lot happened in episode three, and just when things did start happening, the episode was over at only half an hour.
This episode was an improvement but was super short. The training scene went on way to long and reminded me of something that has bugged me since the prequels.
In Star Wars, when Ben pops that helmet on Luke, it was clear he was improvising with what he had around to demonstrate the lessons he wanted to teach. But then in Episode 1 we see students using the exact same helmets in real lessons in Official Jedi training. That was always very annoying and stupid.
The same goes for the old robe Benny K wore in the desert becoming the official Jedi uniform. Like, way to be inconspicuous, Ben!
Especially since that’s what Uncle Owen & a lot of people in Mos Eisley wore. It was clearly intended by the wardrobe designer to be Tatooine desert clothing, not the Jedi uniform.
I am enjoying the show but I do find annoyances in it.
While I didn’t like the Yuuzhan Vong EU books storyline and am glad it appears to be out, I did think it was correct that they (Republic and Empire) hadn’t gone to another galaxy. So, not sure how I feel about that side of it. Or if this is one of those moments where they knew more at the height of the Republic, ten thousand years ago, and are only now rediscovering it? I have only seen Rebels once, so if the whales and this were mentioned then, it didn’t stick. Because of that, I found the ancient ruins having the current map to Thrawn to be dumb.
I found Ahsoka herself to be aloof. Maybe it was an attempt to contrast with her before but as I didn’t see Clone Wars, I’m not sure. Her “training” of Sabine is definitely strange. Ahsoka never explains what she is doing, she just expects Sabine to understand. Of course, that is par for the Star Wars universe.
Having nit picked that, I liked it. I like the greed of the bureaucrats. I think it was more greed than any loyalty to the Empire. I like that Ahsoka is good so we get some fun fight scenes. I like seeing Sabine and Hera, and Chopper, in more stories. I like having a past between Sabine and Ahsoka and them working to move forward now. I will definitely keep watching.
I was hoping to LOVE it, but I don’t. I don’t hate it or dislike it, so I’m counting it as a win… so far. I like it better than the last two new shows. Not as much as The Mandolorian, probably more than Boba Fett. And it’s not over so I’m trying to look at it as a slow-release extended movie and to look at it as a whole thing by the last episode. I did that with Secret Invasion and that did not work out for me in the end, however.
I don’t like the release-at-9pm-my-time thing. It’s a little too late for my kid on a school night. It’s not bedtime, but it’s turn off the tv, have some quiet time before actual sleep time. So I have to spend 20 hours browsing the internet with my eyes half closed and my scroll-fast, close tab fingers ready to go. If something HUGE happened, like if my beloved Rex shows up, I’m going to hear about it before I get to see it for myself and that sucks. Yes, it’s more like traditional tv, but ffs don’t start messing with the format now four years (five?) into Disney Plus
I thought that as well. Or maybe it just seemed like it went on longer than it really did, because it was so slow-moving. Much like Ahsoka’s exploration of the ruins to find the map in the first episode, it kind of poked along. Ahsoka’s teaching gets back to the question I’ve had all along–why is Sabine trying to become a Jedi? As she said, she can’t feel the Force. She never could in Rebels, either. Maybe Ahsoka is trying to make the Jedi order more inclusive, less of a club for “the special people,” but surely you’ve got to have some aptitude for it.
It was fun seeing the space whales (Purrgil, to give them their proper name). They were a pretty big thing in Rebels, although admittedly they didn’t appear in that many episodes. They can travel through hyperspace, and were connected to Thrawn’s disappearance (that’s all I’ll say, for the sake of possible spoilers).
Also fun to see Jacen, Hera’s son. Of course he wants to be a Jedi! How long until we get a mention/name-check of his father, I wonder.
I did enjoy the space battle, and the way that Ahsoka and Sabine had to learn to work together. David Tennant is bringing the funny. “About the object? No. I have several thoughts about everything else that’s happening.”
My theory has always been that everyone in the SW universe has at least some sense of the Force. It’s like having legs. Barring a major physical disability, everyone who has legs can use them. Some can just barely shamble along with the help of crutches, some can walk, some can run, and some are Olympic-level sprinters. Jedi would be the sprinters, but there would be a whole lot of other people who “Just use their legs” without thinking about it very much.
Think of people like Han Solo. He out-flies fighters in what is essentially a Space Truck. How does he do that? He unconsciously taps into the Force. In the “legs” analogy, he’s a person who can jog, but doesn’t think too much about how that gives him a slight edge over people who can only walk.
Now look at Sabine. Sure, she failed in The Battle With The Teacup, but look at her in the tailgunner position. She kicked ass at that. How? She was using the Force, she just didn’t realize it.
As with walking vs. running, becoming aware of what you’re doing, and training to improve it, you can get better. A walker can become a runner. But of course, most people will never attain the level of Sprinter, because that requires fall more natural ability. But while you might not reach the top of the heap, you can at least climb a bit higher with practice.
I think that may be what I was stumbling toward in mentioning Ahsoka trying to make “Jedi” a more inclusive group, but you said it better than I could. Those of us who saw the Clone Wars series know that Ahsoka eventually became disillusioned with the Jedi order, and left while she was still technically a Padawan. It would make sense that her instinct as a teacher would be to shake things up. In that one episode of Book of Boba Fett, she didn’t seem entirely on board with Luke’s teaching techniques, either.
What was it she said to Huyang, about Sabine? “I don’t need her to be a Jedi. I just need her to be herself.” Something like that. Maybe that’s the equivalent of turning a walker into a runner.
I loved that small moment they gave not simply showing Sabine walk away but cutting to a reaction shot of the cup sitting there smugly.
I thought it was giving off a bit of One Ring vibe. Just watch, the teacup will turn out to be some ancient Sith relic of great power, or something! 
I actually kinda like seeing somebody who’s not off-the-charts chosen-one in the force, but who just might get OK at it if they work their ass off. We’ve had plenty of the other thing.
A speculation (which I’m spoliering anyway) is that Thrawn will find some yosalamis (how I always thought of them) that will throw off the abilities of force-sensitives and inadvarently give Sabine an advantage, like a blind person having an advantage over a usually sighted one in a very dark room.
And that was explicitly confirmed. Everyone has a connection to it. Some have more talent than others but training and effort can bring all to the top of their own potential.
Context matters here: most of those with high degrees of natural talent have been hunted down and killed at this point. The kids in Jedi school were the result of talent hunts across the galaxy and they are dead as are most who demonstrated any talent.
A coach who doesn’t have young Michael Jordans to work with has to get the best out of the not gifted players they got.
Sabine, like a good high school player, may not become an NBA star but she can become a good player by getting to her own best.
I get that the original trilogy and the prequels had an undercurrent of elitism with how the Force was handled (much of that is because at its core Star Wars is Chosen One Fantasy dressed as Science Fiction) but this whole idea of Anyone Can Be a Jedi starts to get into “Who thinks I should be the one flying the Plane?” territory. Sometimes people have gifts and are better suited for things and others can try as hard as they can but aren’t good enough.
And were are around 10,000 Jedi produced by tens of millions of worlds. That makes them very, very, very, very rare.