SPOILER Ahsoka - Part 1, Master & Apprentice

Random thoughts:

I'm watching it again too... Ty Yorrick is a monster hunter, Ahsoka Tano is the Tomb Raider...Uncharted, she found the map!

Sabine is a true Rebel!

Ewan McGregor is a lucky man, Hera Syndulla is a hot Twi'lek, she got a bountiful future behind her...hehehe.

Baylan and Shin grey Jedi or Sith & apprentice?

Wow, I was soo wrong... best Star Wars show/series so far... chop, chop...

What a cliff hanger... Sabine what have you been doing??? you must train Padawan....

I hope the rumors of Ezra being some acrobatic Jedi without a Lightsaber isn't true... but Sabine got his Saber... so damn...

Overall, if you are a Rebels fan this show will really resonate but if you didn't watch Rebels it really doesn't matter you can follow along but for me this show pulled on the heart strings... REBELS SEASON 5 INDEED.... I WATCHED REBELS WHEN IT WAS FIRST RELEASED, EPISODE BY EPISODE.... DID YOU???.... HAHAHAHAHHEHEHE.... SORRY I GOT A GLASS ....PEACE MTFBWU....always.

 

1. My nine-year-old was into it. That's saying something.
2. If you're a SW Rebels fan you'll love it. If not, I feel like you'll be a bit lost. (When is this taking place in the timeline? Who exactly are these folks?)
3. Another lightsaber-survived skewing? Ehhhhhh..... Let's stop this trend.
4. I loved the "cinematic" pacing of Ep. 1. Sometimes slow and steady wins the race.
5. Weird that the first ep was an hour and the second was roughly half that. Strange in the pacing department.
6. Scoring was excellent.
7. Casting: Mostly great. Ray Steveson brought the gravitas. Excellent performance; Shin was electric. No complaints; I'm not sold on Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Hera but I can live with it. She'll grow on me; Sabine was true to the Rebels version. Overall, well cast and acted.

I have other nit-picky thoughts that really zero in on certain nerdy things, but I'm sure we'll get there. That said, I really enjoyed it overall. Someone on this site or elsewhere (don't remember) said that there are certain elements that don't translate well from animation to live-action. I agree with that assessment. But I'll go 8.8/10. Lookin forward to next week.

 

THAT'S the problem with animated material... can't watch it by yourself gotta watch it with your kid/s cause its really for children? ...oy vey... sickens me to no end... I have no kids so I don't understand...

I agreee...

Shin's form and stance beyond great I felt bad for Sabine as she crept closer... In Filipino martial arts (FMA) I love toying with sparring partners, disarming them when I'm done toying with them. Shin was standing at an angle ( standing at an angle is hard for an unexperienced opponent to to attack you), as Sabine walked unsure toward her... great martial arts!!! Great stunt coordinators!

Excellent choice indeed! for me that is... hot and can act...

Sabine is an artist, Mandalorian, and a warrior, one of my favorite Star Wars characters so KOOL!

I loved the opening crawl, red and dark... I wish they went with the traditional crawl in red, rather than a similar crawl like the Solo crawl.... but this is Disney era Star Wars so I fully inderstand.

 

This exceeded my expectations in just about every way it could. I'm glad that, after a lot of personal conflict in regard to this show, I was able to go into it excited... because that excitement was rewarded with a pretty great first two episodes.

Sabine is the absolute standout so far, and while I don't know how the rest of the series is going to go... it almost feels like it's more of her show at the moment than Ahsoka's. It'll be interesting to see if that holds true as we get further along.

It also looks far better and less cheap than it did in the trailers and spots, I don't really know what happened there. That was one of my biggest reservations heading into it (even though I'm pretty certain there's a post from me on this forum that states the exact opposite), but I never felt that once through these first two episodes. With the exception of Andor and maybe the first season of Mando... it's probably the best-looking Star Wars D+ series.

 

Really good first episode! It wasn't too slow, wasn't too fast, and set up things perfectly. Filoni gets Star Wars (one of the maybe three people I'd say actually does*), and this is a good sign that maybe he can create masterpieces without the push-pull he previously required.

Gotta say though, my favorite part was @MBWilson's theory about Morgan being absolutely spot on! I nearly screamed and had to take a victory lap for him when they mentioned it in-universe.

I wouldn't call this a 10/10 personally, but I'd give it a 9 or 9.5/10 on what it set out to achieve and how well it could have accomplished it.

*Filoni, RJ, and I'd give space for one more person. These are all people outside of Lucas and Kasdan, of course.

 

I was just saying that she's not usually into SW but she really liked this. Especially Sabine.

 

Fantastic episode!

I think they did a really fantastic job of bringing Rebels into live action and catching up the non-animated fans, while not talking down to those who have watched all 4 seasons multiple times. I saw an IGN review that claimed the series spent too much time rehashing stuff, but I totally disagree- really seems like the kind of review someone would've written before actually even watching the thing.

The first scene with Balan and Shin was fantastic. Real "Vader at the end of Rogue One vibes", great way to establish villains as a threat... all while taking Ahsoka's "I am no Jedi" line and twisting it into something more sinister!

Sabine seems exceptionally well cast. Hera took me a while to warm up to, but I'm starting to appreciate this portrayal. I think part of it is that it's one thing to make animated versions of characters from live action... Anakin and Kenobi in Clone Wars, for instance. It's a much less common thing to have live action versions of animated characters. The issue is that the mediums are so different- acting can be a really nuanced thing, while animation (through both visuals and voice acting) is often a bit more expressive. That's not a bad thing, in my opinion, either way. It's kind of like how live action theater tends to be a lot more expressive than film, too, given the absence of a camera means that some things need to be portrayed through emotion rather than framing. Anyway, that's a lot to say that I think I'm starting to like these characters, but I do think there's a logical reason that they seem a little different (and it has nothing to do with "bad acting" or "bad writing").

Shin Hottie, amirite?

 

Reviews be damned, that was
.

Excellent pacing and great music.
Heads being removed by lightsabers.
Sabine and Baylan, and Morgan were excellent for me.
Great to see Gov. Ryder back in the saddle.

Nitpicks:
Hera did not make me feel like she was a leader. I can't really explain it better than that.
Shin standing there looking creepy a couple times. It was like the director told her to look menacing and she ended up looking like a coked-up zombie. Keep the lasses hood up Dave!

Biggest takeaway for me: Pathway to Peridea. Filoni seems to be literally building a Class 1 hyper drive to blast away from the current GFFA.

 

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A critic I follow said its like a GoT opening credit and should be at the beginning but this is Star Wars we need the CRAWL... also the 9pm slot is also a GoT/HBO format:

 

Pacing and look is very SW. Hera is not convincing, tho. She seems nothing like the animated Hera in look, voice, or demeanor. Almost as if she got younger. Sabine is ok. The actress is a little stiff and reminds me of Luke in the sequels...lost her spark, but why, who knows? Her acting is limited. No emotion, whereas animated Sabine was quite emotional. Whatever, at least she looks correct, I guess. The Ezra holo was pretty good. He sounded just like Ezra. Chopper is spot on. The dark side apprentice feels pointless. Stiff acting. No soul to the character. Boring look. Overall uninspired. Asohka is decent, but I'm not a big fan of her demeanor either. She just doesn't feel much like Asohka to me, but she looks alright. The story is somewhat lackluster, but it has moments. Why Sabine got stabbed is a mystery. It makes no sense and is just more of the same crap where people get stabbed and live. Why? The whole map thing is kinda cheesy too. Didn't they already do this in the sequels? It was stupid there and this is only a little better. The inquisitor was cool. I like the dark side guy. He's got a noble vibe, almost like Dooku, and a great look. The dark droids are great. They look cool and move good as well. All of the droids are great really. I really like the sets and Filoni touch on most the aesthetics.

 

Have managed to watch both on my vacation in another country
I can't do the screenshot section until monday. Sorry guys

My first and quick thoughts:

Love the opening crawl. I would love a show with a crawl in every chapter. But I guess should be something like Andor season 2 with timejumps.

Definetly Rebels 5.0. Who doesn't know it maybe will miss some aspects but overall seems a clear story to follow.

Love the ampliation of the lore and worldbuilding between OT and ST. Seems pretty clear where Filoni wants to go, also tying other projects.

Loved the music. A lot of curious and different instruments. 2 notes: one, the theme in Sabine's chase was a surprise. Can seem weird but really liked it (another one to add in the SW rare music mix). And two, the same notes of Boba Fett sounded somewhere. I think Ashoka being in the first temple. Minor detail, but I didn't liked it cause remembered the weak show..

The show is good in action sequences. We need more.

Loved Baylan and his apprentice relationship. Is what I expected. Love both characters.

A couple of scenes the cgi seemed poor but overall ships, robots, animals were really good.
Some aspects were too clean. Was not the dirty galaxy we know but not a problem.

agreed, but as you said, overall a good episode (his one in Mandalorian still his best).

I agree, but my thought were some of the dialogs were slow. Not the story per se. But some interactions between characters were weird, but a bad editing or bad tempo.

Absolutely. Great character.

All the cast is good. Ray without a doubt was who sounded more natural. Great actor and character.


A lot of little details to discuss.

That was the Ezra biker scout orange helmet in Sabine's home?

 

I heard that complaint in a review I partially watched yesterday as well (Perri Nemiroff) and I was looking for that complaint when watching. I can definitely see it, but I ended up interpreting it as the characters pausing and thinking about what they wanted to say before they said it. It felt measured rather than stilted most of the time. Granted, the stiltedness I think did come up, but not enough to bother me.

 

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Finally, I’m able to watch Ahsoka, too!

The gf and I did The Mandalorian ep.13 – The Jedi, before jumping into Ahsoka ep. 1 & 2, and it was a great setup! Very cool to get the re-introduction of Ahsoka first

Ahsoka ep.1 – Master and Apprentice ​

(Running commentary)

OMG! A crawl! The opening is so very Star Wars, very reminiscent of RotJ.

The sounds score is awesome! I love the Japanese slant to it. Also, with the occasional Alien reference.

The episode feels very much like the same vein of Mando 13 – The Jedi. The atmosphere and sound mix is identical. I think our boy, Filoni, has found his voice

Fifth Element, much?

Two of the HK-droids ambushing Ahsoka at the ruin wear stylized Nazi helmets (sort of).

The introduction is also quite reminiscent of Riders of the Lost Ark.

Um… Why does Huyang blink?

YES! Clancy Brown! <3

Aw…. The astromech blew a fuse!

The Ezra-recording is great. Very emotional, and Esfandi sound (and looks) pretty convincing.

So, Morgan Elsbeth is a Nightsister; cool.

I don’t understand why Sabine is so pissy with Ahsoka? What am I not remembering from Rebels? (Which I just finished re-watching earlier this week).

No big issue, but I find that conversation scenes aren’t Filoni’s forte. The Ahsoka & Hera, the Ahsoka & Sabine, and the Ahsoka & holo-Hera talky scenes stops everything dead in its tracks. It’s alright, though; our boy is rather new to this. Everything else, though, is rather great. Faster-and-more-intense would’ve been good, though.

Shin Hati and the probe droid spying on Sabine is a callback to Maul and his droid in TPM.

Hm… did not see Sabine getting skewerd coming! (A reference to Maul & Qui-Gon Jinn, obviously).


What a great episode of Star Wars!


RIP Ray Stevenson…

 

Appropriate. They're staring at a wheel in the sky that's turning...​