This is MJ, I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer.
You can find all my work at MJMunoz.com.
Welcome to my fully operational Star Wars analysis.
This time out I'm talking about Ahsoka, episode 6.
I am once again listening to the credits as the episode has just ended less than a minute
ago, maybe 90 seconds ago now, and I gotta say it's weird, we've got this cool score
that we don't hear at the beginning of the episode, and I don't think we ever hear it
like throughout the episode, so while it's a cool score and I appreciate the choice to
just drop us right into the action, it is really weird that we're not getting this score
in the episode, or at least nowhere I can discern it, and yeah, that's kinda strange.
Anyway, so this was Ahsoka episode 7, like I said, it was called Dreams and Madness,
and I do not know why it was called Dreams and Madness.
By the end of it, Thrawn has told the fake Nightsister lady that he has won because he
made Ahsoka lose time, and that's the one thing she can't afford to lose, and he intends
to keep it that way.
I don't know how I feel about that, because I don't really find that argument compelling.
I also didn't find it compelling, like the problem with Grand Admiral Thrawn, and I don't
know how Zhaun made this work out, and I did talk about him previously about how one of
the things that happened in, I don't know, Dark, whatever, I think it was the second
Thrawn book, was like he guessed this crazy thing that was going on with people shuffling
ships between the Falcon, the Lady Luck, and Luke's X-Wing maybe, and like the three of
them rendezvoused and he figured out this thing, and it's like, how did you guess that
dude?
And I don't know if there is actually some strong logical, like you know, because it
is the field of logic, I don't know if there is some strong logical argument or way or
methodology that could be used to really define that stuff properly or not, but like, Thrawn
guessed, you know, because Zhaun needed him to, exactly what it was, and the problem with
writing a genius is that you have to be a genius, and I don't know if Timothy Zhaun
is a genius or not.
He certainly captivated people with his character of Grand Admiral Thrawn and the Chance of
Sentency and all that stuff.
So you know, kudos to him, and obviously that is a great feat, and some people call the
Thrawn books the best books, or their favorite books of the Star Wars Extended Universe,
and you know, that is fine, or Expanded Universe, sorry, which is fine, and I have nothing against
that, and I have nothing against Zhaun, except for the chocolate milk thing, which I think
I talked about previously too, and I will not belabor now.
They call it hot cocoa milk.
Anyway, so it works every time.
Oh man.
Anyway, so yeah, that's weird to me, and I think Filoni tried to give Thrawn a genius
line, which was regarding to, Ahsoka was in this debris field, they call it, or well,
he calls it a brief field, and he calls it a graveyard, I believe, to the Nightsisters,
the Great Mothers, and he says to, what's her face, the magistrate, I'm using that old
name for her, because I can't remember, Morgan Elizabeth, there we go, he says to Morgan
Elizabeth something along the lines of, we, like, he knows that, this is confusing, in
the books, it is revealed that Thrawn figured out that Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader,
because it's not common knowledge at the time.
It becomes common, well, it becomes a known fact later, I don't know when it becomes common
knowledge, if ever, in the galaxy, but Thrawn is one of the few people who knows it.
I think it's Thrawn Tarkin Sidious, and I don't know, a handful of other people.
So Ahsoka, maybe Rex, I don't know who else, anyway, Obi-Wan Yoda, there's a handful of
people.
Anyway, the genius line that Thrawn, that Filoni gave to Thrawn, which confused me,
was something along the lines of, it's twofold.
So it starts with, I think, him knowing that Ahsoka is Anakin Skywalker's apprentice, and
the, yeah, there's a, I'm pretty sure there's a Thrawn book that's split timeline, which
I don't know why you would do that, between the Clone Wars and Imperial times, and it's
like a cat and mouse game of Thrawn working with Anakin Skywalker for something, maybe
in the Outer Rim, I don't know for sure, and then him working with Vader, and then him,
by the end of it, he like, put pieces together that it's the same guy.
And other than Thrawn understanding how Vader works, I don't know how that's beneficial
or why that's actually cool, unless he was planning on working against the Empire for
some greater purpose, some grand design, some greater good that he had in mind.
And I totally rhyme, that was weird.
Anyway, so, but that's all to get to the point where I'm telling you what the line from Thrawn
was, which was something like, she will come to you, and then you will bring her to me.
No, it was, we will let her go on her own path, so that we will always stay one step
ahead of her.
And he said it with such confidence and smoothness, I'm supposed to say, I don't know what that
means.
He said it with such, I guess, charm, you could say, you could argue, that I wanted
to believe it, but as soon as he was done saying it, and Morgan Elizabeth turned to
the screen and said, I too questioned what exactly he was saying, and I thought, I have
an enemy, and in the context too, he wanted to pull back the forces, he wanted to pull
back the ships from pursuing her, the limited resources that they have, he wanted to pull
back the ships from pursuing her in the debris field, because he didn't want to lose any
more of them than he had to.
And somehow, he knew that pulling back on the ships, and stopping them from killing
her, if they could, which the odds were low, he would be able to, I'm going to spend the
whole episode on this guys, okay, just get ready for it, he would be able to let her
go, which would help him stay ahead of her, despite the fact that he doesn't know where
she's going, except for the fact that she wants to go to Sabine Wren, or he's assuming
she wants to go to Sabine Wren, who has been mercifully sent far away from him and his
forces, which he pointed out, and I thought that was clever, I really did.
Yeah, if she's going to go try to rescue her friend Sabine, well, Sabine ain't here, and
somehow these people, these Jedi always find each other, so yeah, Ahsoka's going to find
Sabine far away from us, and you know, thanks to the force, we won't have to worry about
her interfering and meddling with us, whereas if we kept Sabine imprisoned on our ship,
she would come right here, she would attack us, we would defend, it would lead to a dangerous
outcome, so like, I don't know, he's definitely clever, and it was definitely a good move
to put the conflict as far away from you as possible, but it's not like a genius move,
and still, that line, that line of, I will let her go there, so that she, we have to
fight them over there, so we don't have to fight them over here?
Oh, I'm sorry, I'm, uh, wow, I'm too much.
Anyway, so yeah, by letting her go on her own course and leaving her alone, when we
have a small likelihood of killing her, we will stay one step ahead of her.
She, my guy, she's not after you, she's after Sabine, so you potentially wasting resources
in an attempt to kill Ahsoka Tano, that turns out to be fruitless, will decrease your forces.
Yes, I agree.
You are smart to pull back your forces because of that.
I agree, that is clever, good tactics, again, I don't know that it's genius level, but it's
definitely smart.
So I agree, I like that, that's a good, smart move by a good, smart bad guy.
However, this thinking that he's gonna stay a step ahead of her when she's not going after
him directly doesn't make sense.
That would be like me, so I'm driving in the car right now.
There's a guy driving behind me in some sort of vehicle, but I'm gonna say that by letting
him go on his own path, I'm going to stay ahead of him and evade capture by him.
He's not going after me, that's not his destination, that is not his route to get me.
At least I hope not, I don't know what's he doing.
But by me going on my path, going on my merry way, continuing with my plans as usual and
ignoring him and not interacting with him, like not slamming my brakes and swerving so
that the guy stops and getting out of the car and yelling at him, chasing him with a
baseball bat, by not interacting, interfering, intervening with this guy who's just driving
behind me somewhere else going on his own mission, by refusing to do that interaction,
I will ensure that he doesn't follow me to work right now.
However, I have no reason to think he would have followed me to work had I not interfered
with him at all.
And it's kind of the same logic, I think, I mean it's like a gross analogy, but it's
kind of the same logic with what Theron was saying, that Ahsoka's on her own mission,
if we leave her alone, she won't know what we're doing or she'll be even less informed
about what we're doing and therefore she won't be an aggravating, complicating factor for
us.
Obviously, but that's just weird.
Anyway, so sorry for picking on that for so long, but it just seemed weird and it's like,
I don't know man, and I know I mentioned this before so I'll be super brief, but when they
brought Theron to Rebels in season three or whatever that was, I thought, do you really
want to do this?
Do you know what you're doing?
Like at that point, Folony was no longer, he was the supervising director of Rebels
and I think he was partly in charge.
And he said, we can give you this many dollars or we can give you this many dollars minus,
or less 25% and these are your art styles that go along with that.
Which would you like, Mr. Folony?
Which doesn't make any sense.
Well, anyway, I think that's true.
I don't know for a fact that it's true that because Rebels was on Disney XD, I think,
that it was like much lower budget than Clone Wars was, but Lucas was, as I understand it,
putting his own money, like George Lucas himself, the man who married Melody Roberts, Roberts
Robinson and had a kid, around the time he sold Lucasfilm to Disney, that man right there,
father of Katie and Jet and other people, he put his own money into Clone Wars and he
was like, yeah, I'm going to spend the money on this because I want it to look a certain
way and be a certain quality and I want to keep pushing the envelope with the fanimation
and stuff.
And they went from being wooden marionette like Thunderbirds to having flowing hair and
robes and cloth textures and all that good stuff and having that amazing Siege of Mandalore
battle between Ahsoka and Maul.
Ah!
Top tier animation!
Some of the best animation in the world ever made, I believe.
Anyway, definitely some of the best lightsaber coordination, lightsaber fight coordination
we've ever seen.
Anyway, almost as good as Ryan vs. Dorkman.
And then, you know, when we went to Rebels, he had much less money to work with.
But anyway, you know, Poloni did the best he could, I think, under the new regime, although
it doesn't make sense, but whatever.
I'm not going to get into theory and guessing and pretending like I know what I'm talking
about exactly.
You know, but he was the supervising director of Rebels.
He wasn't directly involved.
I think that was like season two.
I think, pretty sure, oh gosh, Greg Wiseman, right?
Greg Wiseman of Gargoyle's fame and Spectacular Spider-Man 2?
Was that him?
Anyway, I think it was.
But Greg Wiseman had a large part in the Kanan part of the story, I know for sure, and in
a lot of the writing of that first season of Rebels.
And I think Poloni was very involved, too, if I'm remembering correctly.
But then I think he went to, you know, executive producer role, which has bigger overarching
control over the series, but still like you're handing off your ideas to other people to
actualize, which is fine, but it just, you know, it can kind of change things and be
interesting.
It can be interesting.
It can lead to interesting, and by interesting, I mean not so great results.
So anyway, I thought, I can't believe you're inviting Thrawn into this children's show
that is, you know, neutered by being on Disney XD, and like, I'm not sure you're going to
handle this well.
And yeah, I don't know.
It was interesting.
I didn't think they did an incredible job with Thrawn, but whatever, in that show.
But I mean, it was decent overall.
He felt threatening enough, but just, I don't know, some things were off and some things
were weird to me.
And I kind of feel the same way.
Like, I'm not sure you can handle Thrawn 100%.
Like I don't know.
Like Moff Gideon was a really cool villain, as far as I'm concerned, in the first two
seasons of Mandalorian.
And I thought like he was cool.
He felt Thrawn-ish.
He felt like a super smart guy.
He felt very clever, very tactical, and you know, very competent and threatening.
And that was super cool.
But when you're actually bringing in Thrawn, I don't know.
Like there's a shine and there's a level of prestige that goes along with Thrawn.
And maybe he works better in books, honestly, because of the way you can get into his head
and hear his philosophizing and bouncing ideas off of Pelion.
Like he's basically Sherlock Holmes, and Pelion is his, uh, what's his name?
Wilson, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Yeah, Watson, there you go.
I've never read a Sherlock Holmes book in my life so I'm just going off of what I know
from general pop culture, like movie references, I've never even seen those Robert Downey Jr.,
Sherlock Holmes movies.
So you know, forgive my uh, lack of recall of that.
But anyway, forgive my un-total recall.
But yeah, so, I, I don't know man, I don't know, I know what they're doing with Thrawn,
I don't know why they're doing with Thrawn.
And you know, I'm
Less than thrilled. I'm less than thrilled, but I'm curious to see how it all shakes out. I like though that
Bailin bailed. Hey bailin bailed. I see what you did there Filoni
He's a bailer cuz his name bailin. Anyway, I like that bailin bailed on
Thrawn's mission and on you know being a mercenary for him and that he's doing his own thing. I
Assume that ties into dreams and madness the title of the episode
But I still think that episode is like very poorly placed because I'm not sensing any dreams
I'm not sensing any madness either and that's kind of strange
but
Irregardless
That one was for you dad
Irregardless
it's
It's weird it's very weird to me that
Bailin is off doing his own thing and I mean it makes it kind of more interesting more dynamic and you know
I wonder exactly what he's up to. I don't know that we'll find out. I mean we should find out next episode but I
Don't know like I think Thrawn's gonna leave
And
Ahsoka and the gang are gonna have to try to leave too the pergola gone
So will they try to hitch a ride on the eye of Cyrus or eye of Sion? Sorry eye of Sion
I kind of feel like
In a crazy way whatever bailin's after if there is some secret force thing
Cuz he's leaving
Shin to join the Empire or the new Empire
You know first order whatever and like be a part of that and you know find her greatness and find her fortune or whatever
There and he wants to do something bigger. He said he basically wants to end all future wars
Does he want to become a demigod is there some sort of crazy you know fable?
Excuse me fable bound power their fable bound power. That's a title to your next book the fable bound power anyway
Um he uh like is there something some great power that he's gonna activate there like there was that um
Malachor I think they used Malachor in Clone Wars where maul was there and Kanan and there was the fateful fight and
Maul and Ezra were teaming up
To get to a holocron or something like that and there was some sort of like you know planet-wide super weapon
Cut yeah, I I think it was called Malachor and I wonder if like do they just take the idea of the mass shadow generator
or what
But maybe it wasn't Malachor. Maybe it was like how they changed Korriban to Moribon. Maybe it wasn't Malachor
Maybe it was like Malachon or something like that anyway, but um
We Ezra picked up a cross guard lightsaber. I think there too. That was like a Jedi weapon anyway
Too much Star Wars guys too much Star Wars anyway
Maybe there's some sort of like you know force based super weapon
that's like Nightsister magic combined with something else like sithi or who knows what and
Like I I almost think that this
Episode eight could wrap up the season the series whatever with somehow Balin activating this thing that goes wild and
stops Thrawn from getting back into the galaxy unless of course they are pushing for Thrawn to win in the end and
get back into the normal Star Wars galaxy and
For him and his forces to be the remnants that become the First Order eventually like I can definitely see that happening
But I don't know it could also not happen and I
Don't know that could be more interesting that could be more fun. Maybe I don't really know
I don't really know just find odd
Overall I was entertained I liked seeing Ezra use his like
You know offensive force pushing and stuff and
Seeing him fight was funny. Although I am irritated a little bit by the little
RV turtle guys that they are
Peaceful as they're called them peaceful. That's not true. They're harmless
There's a difference between being peaceful and harmless and this has been said by a few different people in a few different ways
But basically if you're peaceful, it's because you have the ability to
Harm people or be violent and you choose not to because that's how you want to live your life
if you're harmless you are incapable of or
Yeah, you're incapable of
by dint of strength or weapons
You're incapable of causing harm to somebody else. So you're not peaceful. You're not safe. You're just incapable. You're inept
You're harmless. That's totally different and
You shouldn't want to be harmed by being peaceful
And you shouldn't want to be harmless. You should want to be peaceful. There's like a market difference and I don't know
That's interesting. I even think there was a little bit of like a not pacifistic
But like a more Jedi like thing going on with Ahsoka after Shin was defeated
she wanted to help her and she wanted to like, you know do something with her and
I thought it was really cool because you don't always have to kill the bad guys
Not that I want them to keep redeeming bad guys or anything like that necessarily but you know Star Wars is
About redemption and we could see you know Shin
potentially saved from her evil ways and go off to become one of
Luke's students like that's happened before in Star Wars in the original canon
that happened to a guy from not Splinter of the Mind's Eye, that's way too far back from a
Dark Empire or Dark Empire 2 rather there was a guy who was like a you know
Sith follower dark Jedi type of guy and Luke ended up turning him and then he ended up being an ally
In like the Jedi Academy Chronicles or Jedi Academy books and stuff, which is super cool
But anyway, so like I know I like that
That softer approach being taken but I want my characters to be dangerous my heroes to be dangerous and threatening and capable of
You know great destruction but then like hold back and choose to go the other way as opposed to my villains who are also
competent and deadly incapable but who you know choose not to do that because they're evil and that's like what sets them apart, right?
it's like the whole sheep dog and wolf thing like to the sheep a
Sheep dog looks like a wolf and they're just as dangerous and scary but literally what sets apart the
Sheep dog from the sheep is that he has the capacity for violence and yet he chooses to you know
Broadly speaking as an illustration he chooses to use that to defend the sheep against the wolves
But you know to the sheep they all have
They they see them as the same way
Anyway, there's something in my head rattling around about a sheep
Suggesting that everybody have their fangs removed and then you know, the wolves aren't going to comply with that
So then when the sheep dog have no fangs to use against the wolves, then the whole flock gets massacred
Again because they have been rendered harmless as opposed to being, you know, peaceful
So interesting stuff to talk about but yeah, I am I know I mean I overall enjoyed it. I overall liked it
it was cool seeing Sabina as we're talking again and
I mean, I honestly enjoyed more the Ahsoka stuff
I enjoyed that Anakin flashback and to think that there's 20 of those hollow vids that he made for Ahsoka
you know shortly before they parted ways is incredible and touching and
Really cool. There is a little bit of a continuity issue though if you take things
Literally the Clone Wars was three years long that outfit that he's wearing in the training video
Which is the last one he made for her?
Well, I guess he could have made it before the season 3 year
I think middle of season 3 they do a time jump a so like everybody gets new character models
Ahsoka gets her more grown-up look
Anakin gets his like revenge of the Sith look as well as Obi-Wan they go from having the armor
Being like the animated Clone Wars like the micro series Clone Wars style basically
Which is the early Clone Wars style of armor with the vom braces and vom. What is it? Von Bracen paltryn? Is that what it is?
Yeah, there's like arm
Armor that they have basically and that's Anakin's early
You know Clone Wars look and then he gets his late Clone Wars look is the same as the revenge of the Sith look
And if I'm remembering correctly season 3 featured
the planet of the father the son of the daughter
And I believe that was season 3 but it wasn't until the middle of season 3 that there was a time jump
And because Anakin is in his revenge of the Sith look in that one and so is Obi-Wan
Doesn't Ahsoka still look young though? Wait a minute
Maybe I'm just remembering that
Anyway, it doesn't matter. I've gone on too long. I need to let you go
I'm almost going as long as the the episode itself wasn't that's not good. So anyway, excuse me. Can you quiet down your car?
Come on! Show some respect, I'm recording a Star Wars podcast, man. Anyway until next time folks. Take care. This is MJ signing out. I
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