Star Wars

I haven't watched any of the CGI Ahsoka stuff, so I came into the live action show without that.

My verdict is that I want to like it, and will watch a few episodes, but what I've seen has made me suspect it won't have the legs I was hoping for. I'm getting Book of Boba Fett feelings, basically.

I like how Ahsoka is played quite a lot, she has a screen presence I enjoy, but the vast majority of the supporting cast are played/written as too juvenile compared to her. Like, she's clearly a mature women, and the cast around her are, by and large, kiddies. Mentally, at least. They don't act or think like adults regardless of whatever war titles they gained.

I could tell they were playing on nostalgia for the animated show heavily. (Without having seen the animated show.)

Knowing nothing about Sabine or her history with Ahsoka, I just wanted to drop Sabine down a well. She runs off to decode the map, but then it turns out she doesn't actually have to go home to do it, given what's shown on screen...the two things she actually used were the two things she started with. You can argue she didn't KNOW that--but from a writer's perspective, something like this could've been written better, executed better. Sabine needed to earn sympathy from the audience, beyond having a cute "cat", and that could've been delivered here but it wasn't. (I do wonder if they lingered so much on the cat because they knew she had little else to make her likable in the first episodes.)

The map stuff would've been more palatable if she'd run off home--but just grabbed tools or something, then started back to the ship and got run into by the Apprentice THEN. Because at least it would have shown her THINKING and TRYING to correct her mistake. Like, still making the mistake because she's hot-headed, but then at least trying to course-correct before it bit her.

And the scene with the "general" patting her on her little dumb head and saying it's ok she disobeyed and fucked up didn't much give good character development/portrayal to a character who is supposed to be a general. I can only assume "General" is a vanity title at this point, she's not much acting like one.

Sabine fucking up majorly put them in a lot of hot water--and it's just really weird (as someone going into it without knowing the history of the characters) that despite what she did, she gets coddled and patted for it.

It's just very obvious plot armor--and the thing is (and I say this as a writer)...you can actually have a great show and great development when a character is correctly punished or correctly has consequences for doing something, you know? "Hurting" a character can lead to gigantic growth. It's actually ok to put a character through hard things.

So it WAS possible for her still to fuck up in such a giant way and have the story continue and grow--WITHOUT having to coddle her. You don't actually need to be gentle with main characters.

And having her treated as she should've been treated would have given a new show watcher who doesn't have background knowledge of the characters some trust in the storytelling. That's something you need to build early on when introducing characters.

There's also the issue with the exploding robot head--I can see it's an attempt to "show" she's a hot-shot, but it still feels a lot like telling (rather than "showing"). And as someone else said--it was false peril to raise the stakes. Or perhaps to redeem Sabine as being useful? But the peril of the exploding head just underscores that Sabine is out of control and stupid--and I already came into that scene not liking her because she was out of control and stupid with the map. So fucking around with the head after she'd already fucked around with the map made me feel MORE negative towards her, not less. Her getting the data didn't make me feel more inclined towards her--because I feel if she really was a hot-shot at this, she could've been hot shot enough to avoid the exploding head.

I know I'm ragging on Sabine a lot, but I feel it impacts the larger story too. Like, from bits and pieces I've heard, Thrawn is supposed to be really dangerous. And supposedly this character Sabine knows that in a very personal way.

Wouldn't even a hot-headed stubborn person TRY to get their shit together if something that big showed up on the horizon again? So Sabine acting like an idiot undermines the threat of Thrawn, too. Clearly even his worst enemies aren't even scared enough to get their shit together, so why should I care or be concerned as a show-watcher if he's coming back?

Anyway. I suspect this show isn't made for me, for someone who hasn't seen the animated shows. It's for existing fans of Ahsoka and Sabine who understand their backstory and sympathize with them enough that the things I talk about above don't undermine the threat of Thrawn, and the competence of Ahsoka's allies.