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psmith2.0
Mr. Vieira
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tennessee
 
2020-11-30, 03:18

Eight episodes, at ~40 minutes a pop, goes quickly. I do wish this was a 12-16 episodes-a-season show, for sure. About the time it truly revs up, gets going and hits its stride...it’s over. With only three episodes remaining, we know there’s no way they’re going to fully resolve/address all they’ve laid out and teased so far, so yeah...it goes by like a rocket, eight episodes.

My one legitimate gripe about the show.

As for Ahsoka, sadly I have no true longtime knowledge of/investment in the character, so I don’t have as much to go on, comparing her live-action, mature version to all her youthful animated appearances. I just liked what I saw, making allowances for age/maturity and the differences between stylized animation and slightly more grounded(?) live-action presentation. She was still quite spry and agile...that tree limb leap, while tied up, was quite a move! She is unstoppable, for sure. But it totally works...she’s had training, experience, failures and missteps that have all led to it. Fully able to buy this character being so awesome/capable in a way I, and many others, couldn’t with another. One is earned/believable, the other...wasn’t.

As for the episode itself, frankly I was happy to just get such a meaty, info-heavy installment. That’s the main reason I enjoyed it, all the backstory, references, hole-filling and revelations. Not every episode is like this, so the ones that are stand out for me. I like the ones that let you know “yes, this is Star Wars, the one you’ve known and loved for most of your life” (43 of 51 years, in my case). That was this episode, along with a handful of others.

When that little snippet of Yoda’s theme hit, you can’t fake the genuine, unexpected catch in my throat that hit me. I couldn’t have avoided/resisted it if I’d tried. It’s those little things, handled well, that I love. Those are earned, and carry true, decades-long weight.

If the property can’t/won’t deliver in large-scale, on the multiplex screen, I’m completely happy with it doing so in small-screen, episodic form.

As I said way upthread, this medium/format may very well prove to be the future of the franchise...it’s ultimately more sprawling, more time/space to tell a full story and I have to believe is a leaner, tighter and more budget-friendly undertaking than a feature film production. Whatever it costs to produce two seasons/16 episodes of this show has to be but a sliver of what it took to make a trilogy most don’t even talk about or really seem to remember/love. If they never make another big-screen SW movie again, fine...so be it. This show, and the animated one I’m currently working my way through, clearly shows that the property is well-suited for episodic, serialized TV production and can be just as fun and well-made as a nine-episode cinematic saga - of which only two installments were ever truly great and still fully deliver, 40+ years later.

The property hasn’t been this watchable/enjoyable in ages, going back to 1999, IMO.

Last edited by psmith2.0 : 2020-11-30 at 04:23.
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