Ahsoka: Part Eight- The Jedi, the Witch and the Warlord

 "Perhaps this is where a ronin such as you belongs."

This is, perhaps, the perfect finale. A satisfying ending... and a very StarWars fairytale vibe. I'm not just taking about the zombie stormtroopers, awesome though they were.

Consider the fate of Morgan Elsbeth, who has worked so hard and sactificed so much. She is honoured by being accepted by the Great Mother asa witch- although at the further cost of absolute loyalty- yet, that same day, she is expected to sacrifice her life so that Thrawn may escape.

We have avreconciliation between Sabine, whose gambit has paid off, and Ahsoka who has learned that, like Anakin, she ought to show faith in her apprentice. And it is only after realising she is trusted that Sabine, at last, uses the force properly, in the time honoured way of making her lightsabre fly towards her hand.

Yes, Thrawn escapes. But so does Ezra. Ahsoka and Sabine are stranded on the other galaxy with Huyang but, it seems, there is a mystery that they need to unravel. For Baylan and Shin are both there too. We know not what they are planning, but there have been hints. I sense a second season.

This was superb. The reactioin will be interesting. There is, of late, a certain negativity towards Disney's Star Wars content that seems to bear little relation to the material itself. This caps an excellent season.

Ahsoka: Part Seven- Dreams and Madness

 "He was a good master."

On one level, this is a penultimate episode that serves to get all the pieces on to the chessboard. Thrawn and the witches seem to have Sabine and Ezra at their mercy until Ahsoka rescues them, meaning all three are reunited. Meanwhile, Thrawn seems to be using all this fighting as a bit of misdirection so that Ahsoka neither suspects nor stops his cunning plan toescape back to their home galaxy. I heavily suspect that bothe he and they will end up in the main galaxy after the finale.

Yet there's so much more. Baylan's agenda continues to be mysterious as he goes off on his own, leaving Shin with the imperials. Sabine yet again uses every excuse to avoid telling Ezra of her recent shameful deeds, putting her friendship for him above the safety of the New Republic. And there's a great opening scene with General Syndulla facing the music... until she is saved by none other than C-3P0, relaying that Senator Leia Organa sanctioned the mission. The late, lamented Carrie Fisher may be gone, but Leia is ever with us.

And yet... the ghost of Anaking still hangs over it all, from Ahsoka's recorded messages as she regains her old fondness for the old master who cared for her, and Thrawn's reaction to the fact that she is Anakin's apprentice.

I have certain expectatiins as to where the finale will end, but no idea how we will get there. Good stuff.

Ahsoka: Part Six- Far, Far Away

 "Something stirs here..."

This episode is, it's fair to say, an exhilarating ride.

I almost admire that, not for the first occasion in a Disney Star Wars show, the titular character is hardly in the episode. Indeed, Ahsoka and Huyang appear only in the opening scene, inside the whale(!) as, yes, Ahsoka reveals to Huyang that Sabine went with the baddies willingly, but all they really do is discuss philosophy and break the fourth wall while foreshadowing the upcoming themes. I love how Huyang's stories are named History of the Galaxy 1, 2 and 3, with 1 being the best, of course.The subtext here is... yeah, not very sub.

However, in a galaxy further, further away, bloody loads happens. The planet is Peridea, where space whales go to die, and it's home to some rather cool space witches, known of the old to the Jedi, who ride space whales... and Morgan is descended from them. Thrawn's grand entrance is teased, of course, until we finally see the battered Star Destroyer, some battered old Stormtroopers, an intriguind figure (a droid?) called Enoch... and Thrawn. Lars Mikkelsen certainly imbues him with presence and charisma.

As promised, Sabine is allowed to seek Ezra, riding a rather cute wolf thing, but she's on a long leash, intended to lead the baddies to Ezra so they can kill them both. The scene of her riding out of the camp feels to me, if I may mix my pop culture references, as though Sabine is leaving Mega City One to take the walk into the Cursed Earth.

But the baddies, being baddies, have multiple agendas of their own. Morgan is quite happy to abandon Baylan and Shin on this extra-galactic world forever. Yet Baylan, in a fasxcinating philosophical conversation with Shin which seems to echo that between Ahsoka and Huyang, has other ideas. He seeks something deeper than power, to restore the Empire which will in turn be defeated by the Jedi only for the Empire to emerge again, and on it goes. The wheel turns. Baylan seems to want to stop the wheel spinning; intriguing.

Sabine, via some adorable creatures camouflaged as rocks, finally finds Ezra... but it is bittersweet. For she knows, and so do we, how disappointed he will soon be when he finds out the circumstances of how Sabine came to find him.

Awesome stuff. Wow.

Ahsoka: Part Five- Shadow Warrior

 "I'm here to finish your training."

Yeah. It's fair to say a few things happened in this episode. I suspect it's one of those "event" episodes that may not much reward repeat viewings, but it packs quite a punch.

So, Anakin. I'm not sure where that otherworldly plane is supposed to be: clearly, in the "real world", Ahsoka is in the water, and needs to choose to live to be rescued. But the "training" scenes with Anakin, most of them flashbacks to the Clone Wars, are utterly absorbing. I won't pretend to have the answers, but I think we're being shown that Ahsoka is being held back by her worriesabout in some ways becoming what Anakin became. 

Then there's the extraordinary ending, as Ahsoka uses the awesome (and I mean that in the old-fashioned sense) Purrgil to jump across galaxies... hopefully to the right place.

Justas good as any of this is a nice little character moment, though: Huyang tells Hera that she takes these big risks because she cares, which is why people like her. Indeed. She is now going to face the music with the Senate while Ahsoka goes gallivanting about in other galaxies. Ahsoka has big moments, but doesn't forget the small character stuff. This is getting very good indeed.

Ahsoka: Part Four- Fallen Jedi

 "You know how it is. Once a rebel, aslways a rebel."

SPOILERS. Unless you've seen the episode, read on at your peril. You have been warned.+

Nice title. Has there ever been a pun that works on so many levels? Let us count them. Sod it, let's give this blog post an unorthodox structure, shall we?

1. We begin with Ahsoka and Sabine having literally fallen from the sky, their starshift lost in the woods.

2. Sabine, who has only just become Ahsoka's padawan again, gets a test of her mettle in combat, seems to decide not to try and use the force... but betrays her master to Baylan for the promise of meeting Ezra Bridger again, putting her feelings before the greater good. This is not the Jedi way. She falls at the first hurdle.

3. Ahsoka literally falls off a cliff, to what may or may not be an afterlife- I'm a little confused of the chronology, and I've not seen either Clone Wars or Rebels. Looks like I need to. Anyway, what's he doing there? Hayden Christiansen playing him again, no less.

I've no idea where this is going, but I suspect Sabine is not destined to be a Jedi. I loved Here's rebellion, general or not, with all her mates. And I love that the baddies have actually made the jump into this other galaxy. Big revelations can probably be expected not the series has taken such a massive change of direction.

I'm also loving Rosario Dawson's assured performance, and the superb comic turn from David Tennant as Huyang. What was already a dam good series is now, er, even damn gooder.

Ahsoka: Part Three- Time to Fly

 "We almost died."

"Multiple times."

"Ah yes. Standard operating procedure."

This is a somewhat short episode but, yet again, it's a bloody good one, in terms of both plot and character. It is, though, centred on an utterly superb dogfight set piece that rivals anything in the films for drama. This series has the potential to be every bit as good as The Mandalorian.

There's a lot of fascinating plot development here. Despite what I assume are Mon Mothma's best efforts (she's Chancellor; is she head of state of the New Republic?), Hera meets with politocal scepticism that Thrawn is indeed out there, and is refused resources. Ahsoka and Sabine are on their own. Yet, atthe end, they discover that the baddies have nearly finished constructing a big artifact hanging in space: how very Star Wars. In this case it's a hyperspace ring which, it seems, is capable of travelling to another galaxy, using the intergalactic migration paths of Purrgil, intergalactic space whales. And, if the concept isn't cool enough, they actually bloody appear.

Even better, though, is the focus on training between Ahsoka and Sabine, with an extended scene with one of thosesightless hemets as worn by Luke in Star Wars. I loved everything about this training scene, which reminded me very much of a Shaw Brothers style '70s style kung fu movie from Hong Kong. The dynamic between them is great, as is Huyang's traditionalist pessimism.

I'm loving this. I'll do my best to blog the next episode a bit sooner.

Ahsoka: Part Two- Toil and Trouble

 "An ancient people from a different galaxy..."

I saw this episode while wondering whether I ought to have started watching Ahsoka at all. After all, it's the sequel to Rebels, an animation I haven't seen. But, I thought, I've started so I'll finish. I won't be the only viewer in this situation, to put it mildly.

And I'm glad I did. This episode has me hooked.

We begin with Sabine waking up receiving medical treatment. She lost the map to the attacking droid. Worse, she unlocked it, and it is now in the hands of their enemies... who use a sort of stone circle on the planet Seatos to reveal its pretty damn cool secrets: it details a path to another galaxy, where General Thrawn is said to reside. Yes, Thrawn, he who I know only from those Timothy Zahn novels from the '90s which I haven't read since John Major was prime minister. I suspect, while it may be the same character, that we're probably not looking at the same continuity. Nevertheless, this is conceptually awesome stuff.

So is the intrigue, as it becxomes clear there are imperial sympathisers on Coruscant, motivated by greed. There are ex-imperials involved in administrarion at every level... as there have to be. They were the only experienced officials when the revolution came. The same happened in the transition from Nazi Germany to the Federal Republic: it doesn't have to be a threat. One doesn't want something analogous to the de-Baathification debacle in Iraq. And yet... this threat seems serious, and clearly linked with the plot to bring back Thrawn.

If all this wasn't cool enough, I'm enjoying the tension between the worldly and wise Ahsoka and the rebellious Sabine as they are, at the encouragement of General Hera Syndulla, once again Jedi and Padawan... with the Padawan a Mandalorian, complete with helmet.

This is incredibly cool. I'm very much enjoying it.

Ahsoka: Part One- Master and Apprentice

 "Sometimes even the right reasons have the wrong consequences."

I'm familiar with the Star Wars movies, all of them, plus all of the live action Disney Plus stuff. I've even seen thse two '80s Ewok TV movies. But I've never seen the Clone Wars animation, or at least not yet. This had a minor effect on The Mandalorian as I had no prior knowledge of Bo-Katan. For this series, I fear, my ignorance is likely to look larger. Fortunately, we have what appears to me to be exposition for those such as my poor self. I've no way of knowing how much I say below will be familiar to those of you who have seen Clone Wars.

So Ahsoka trained as a Jedi, has a lightsabre and everything, and was once Anakin's apprentice until she walked away. She isn't quite a Jedi as such, although she has to work with her own former apprentice, the well-meaning but rebellious Sabine Wren. There was a Jedi called Ezra Bridger who went missing when the Empire fell, along with the mysterious General Thrawn, the big bad for whom all, goodies and baddies, are looking. Hopefully I have that right.

This is, however, a very promising beginning. This is very "trad" Star Wars, beginning with something very close to the scrolling texts from the films, the camera then panning to a large spaceship. We also have a lot of the movie serial homage stuff from the original Star Wars film- there's a secret map, we meet Ahsoka in a very Indiana Jones set piece- plus a nicely promising couple of Jedi baddies, Baylan Skoll and his young apprentice, whose name I didn't catch. The cliffhanger is superb, as the apprentice attacks Sabine and seems to stab her in the heart... surely they wouldn't kill her now? Also, David Tennant as a very Jedi-adjacent droid. Cool.

This is good stuff, purposefully avoiding characters from the films but absolutely evoking a very trad feel. More please. Oh, look. A second episode.