This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. You can find all my work on MJMunoz.com.
Welcome to my fully operational Star Wars analysis.
This time I'm talking about Ahsoka. Episode... next?
Really what I want to talk about is what happens now that the Ahsoka streaming series is over.
Ray Stevenson is dead.
The likelihood that in order to continue to tell the story of Ahsoka and Sabine and Hu Yang and the Naughty and Bae Lin and Chin
is that they will have to focus the next season on this other galaxy, on this forgotten world, this dying world.
And I would think it should have something to do with the Mortis Triad and with...
Yeah, let's see, with the Mortis Triad and Bae Lin and Chin doing something there.
I don't quite understand why Chin chose to stay with... or on the... not with Bae Lin, but on the planet.
When she could have left the planet that she had complained about herself that it was a, you know, forced forsaken planet or whatever.
I understand why Sabine chose to stay with Ahsoka. I understand the poetry and the rhyming of the two of them staying behind
and allowing... you know, staying behind in the other galaxy and letting Ezra escape back to his home.
When he had all... basically, Saros Rebels was about was family and, you know, home, home being Lothal
and Ezra trying to protect it and rally people around it and yada yada.
Now he gets to go back to Hera, his, you know, not erstwhile mother, his surya mother, his second mother,
and, you know, go back to this place where, you know, all this stuff is happening, where he can see the fruition of everything that he fought for
with his, you know, with his family. His father, Kanan, his second father died and he made the same type of sacrifice,
although he did live, and he gets to come back and there is something, you know, there's something kind of beautiful and warm in that.
I won't talk about the fact that it's strange that you would risk the fate of billions or millions of...
even millions of people in the galaxy to, like, save one person or find one person who you think and hope is alive
if it could result in bringing back Thrawn, but, you know, whatever.
But anyway, in order for Star Wars Ahsoka, or just Ahsoka as it's called, to be...
to be what it is, in order for Ahsoka Season 2 to continue to focus on Ahsoka as the eponymous titular hero,
then we, I would think, need the story to focus on her.
And she has this great connection to the world between worlds, which was established in Star Wars Rebels.
She has a further connection to the gods of Mortis, literally from the episode of Star Wars The Clone Wars,
the gods of Mortis. She has this deep connection to the daughter, because, spoilers for all that stuff, which is great,
Ahsoka essentially was tainted and turned to the dark side against her will by the sun, who represents the dark side,
and the daughter... Ahsoka effectively died, and the daughter gave life back to her,
but I can't remember if the daughter specifically disappeared after that, or what, but then after that,
we had these instances where Ahsoka was gone. Ahsoka was... or rather, the daughter was gone, and when Ahsoka would be in certain places
or at different circumstances, this khanri, this bird that was from the world Mortis, or the planet Mortis,
would go along with Ahsoka or appear near her in different places, and it's symbolic of the daughter.
We have the daughter's head, the head of the daughter's statue crumbled and broken in that last shot with Balin,
and, you know, where the father is pointing off in the distance, and I don't know, like, it's really interesting.
You need to do something with them, even if you have to recast Balin, because Ray Stevenson is no longer with us.
That's unfortunate, but I think it needs to be done. I think the way that it was left, there's so much left to tell,
and I had said in my discussion of the Ahsoka finale that really, you could have a whole universe worth of stories in,
I mean, decades, decades of stories in this other place. You expand on the Nati, or the Noti, the Marauders,
you could have, you know, Shin as, like, you know, warlord goddess or whatever of these guys.
You could have Balin going through, like, trial after trial and journey after journey,
finding out more about the gods of Mortis and the deeper connections, the, like, oldest mysteries of the Force.
You could have Ahsoka and Sabine learning more there on that planet. You know, are those red-suited Marauder guys?
Are they humans, near-humans? Are they, like, horned, like, you know, antler beetle guys?
Or, like, you know, what are they? Because maybe there's more of those people. Maybe there's good people.
Maybe there's these, you know, nice, you know, near-human, you know, more humanoid than the turtle Noti guys
that they get to deal with, and maybe they have, you know, they're not a training academy, but, like, I don't know,
there's, like, so many other directions you can go. There's so much deeper you can go.
And confrontation between, you know, Balin and, you know, whatever dark, old forces he brings up,
and Ahsoka and Sabine could be way off in the future. You know, Ahsoka doesn't necessarily need to come back
to the galaxy unless she's going to be involved in this, you know, Mando Thrawn movie or whatever.
What I'm just saying, even before then, there's so much stuff you can do, depending on how long, you know,
it takes for them to decide, okay, yeah, we want Thrawn's campaign to be, you know, five years, you know,
we want the Heir of the Empire type thing to be five years after they come back. You know, but who knows?
Excuse me. So, you know, where you go after Ahsoka, I think you have to focus on Ahsoka Season 2 should be
on that planet and maybe deal with them getting off of it eventually, but maybe not until they're done
dealing with whatever they're dealing with there. But I don't know. In some ways, like, if there's no way for them
to get back, like, let's say the Purgle don't return to that planet for a long time, that's just how it has to be.
And that could be the conceit. Yeah, we're stuck here until Purgle come along that we can hitch a ride with.
Until then, I don't know what we're going to do. I don't know what we're going to do for fuel.
There doesn't seem to be ships out here. Maybe there's stuff we can scavenge. What is that stuff called?
I don't know, from the Solo movie they were talking about, that fuel source? Anyway, whatever.
Maybe they can find a source of that. Who knows? But, and I mean a natural source of it.
But again, they could just scavenge it from a ship, perhaps, too. That would be okay.
Even though Thrawn and destroyed the base, the tower, whatever, there could still be supplies in there potentially that they could pull from.
It's not like a fleeing military force has never left weapons and equipment behind for other people to use at a later date for their own campaigns.
But anyway, enough about the real world. Yeah, I think those are distinct possibilities of what Ahsoka Season 2 could be, what it should be.
But I also, I don't know, I also feel like there should almost be a Ezra. Then there should be a Thrawn.
Like, you either need to stop doing these eponymous shows.
You know, the Mandalorian is arguable because it's the Mandalorian. And there are a bunch of Mandalorians.
So, well, which Mandalorian is it about? It's obviously about Dintu Jiren, at least for the first two seasons.
After that, I heard Season 3, they might have done a thing where they were like, oh no, it's really about What's-her-face?
And, I don't know, man, I don't know how I feel about that. I haven't seen the show.
I've heard a lot of complaints about Season 3 from people who liked Seasons 1 and 2.
So, I don't know what that means, but I've determined to never, without having concrete things cited to me about a person, place, or thing,
I've decided to never wholly rely on anybody else's assessment of it.
I need to experience it for myself in some capacity, at least, so that I can, you know, assess it for myself.
So, anyway, that being said, I'm definitely willing to try the Mandalorian Season 3.
I'm definitely willing to try Kenobi and see what they're like.
And see how I like them and see, you know, what kind of Star Wars stories they are.
And I, but getting back to my point, I think they either need to really have a good plan going
and have an eponymous show for each of these characters and let us spend time with them as the focus character.
Let us, and in so doing, expose us to more of the Star Wars galaxy to make it like this really vibrant tapestry
where we're getting to see smaller stories that give us a closer look at certain areas.
And, you know, like there's a home, there's a home planet and there's, you know, guest planets or whatever in every series.
I think that's a good idea. And if you do that sort of thing and you focus, like you can go back to Little Fall
and either have an Ezra series take place entirely on Little Fall or you can have it, like that's the focal point.
He wants to get back to Little Fall. Maybe he, I mean, like this is ridiculous.
Even show him like living on Thrawn's ship for an episode or two if you had to and how he got away and how he found Hera.
Like you could totally do that. And if they write him well and make the scenarios interesting enough, even that could be an interesting story.
And it could be, I don't know, kind of a story about like, what is it like to find your way back in to a world that like it's almost like a man at a time story, right?
Because, you know, while Ezra wasn't frozen in time, he's been away from the culture and the life of his home galaxy for 10 years.
And I know I think that's a really interesting, there's a really interesting potential story in that just that I came up with on the fly here.
So I know I think there's an interesting possibility, there's definitely interesting things you could do by drilling down and saying we're going to do a different show about each of these characters.
You could do, I mean, I don't know, could you do a Thrawn show that goes into Thrawn's earlier life?
Still use Lars Nicholson or whoever that is. Nicholson? Is that what it is? I don't know. Micklemas? No, that's not right.
Like you could still use him and show different parts of Thrawn's life if you wanted to.
To tell, I don't know, a more interesting story. They're already doing this acolyte thing which is like, you know, bad guys get the focus.
But I would assume the bad guys get the win in the end. So like, why not do smaller shows, villain shows, and let them be bad and maybe show the greater purpose they're working towards or something like that.
But I don't know. But like, is that even necessary? I don't know that that's even necessary.
And I'm thinking, you know, we didn't need, you know, Star Wars Luke. We didn't need Leia. We didn't need Han. We didn't need those things.
The Star Wars movies in and of themselves worked telling a story. Yes, Luke was the focal point. Yes, Han and Leia were supporting characters.
However, they were important characters. They were important characters that, you know, revolved around the axis point of Luke to tell this bigger story.
But in some ways, like in Empire, Han feels like he kind of takes, I don't know, like a real lead role. And there's nothing wrong with that.
You can still have a story be about person A while having a great subplot with person B and have that be super interesting. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
And just having it be Star Wars A New Hope, Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars The Return of the Jedi, you can have a broader story.
You can have a story that touches on all these characters. You can have a Dexter Jettster in Attack of the Clones.
And it doesn't need to be Star Wars Dexter or whatever or Jettster. You don't need that.
So I almost wonder if, you know, like they've got this idea for this skeleton crew show.
They had the idea for Rangers of the New Republic, but they put it aside for dumb reasons.
And yeah, no, I'm going to because of cancel culture, because of capitulating the cancel culture.
Cancel culture capitulation killed Rangers of the New Republic. That's irritating.
Killed Kiritune and Rangers of the New Republic. So.
Oh, that's not good. That's not good at all.
Capitulating is not good. But my broader point is, you know, the title, The Mandalorian, makes it broad.
You can bring in other Mandalorians. You can swap them in and out for Din, to Jaren, whatever, if you really have to, which I don't think is necessary, but whatever.
But, you know, if you like, my point is, if you have a show named after a particular character,
that character needs to be the hero, the mover, the big, you know, mover and shaker of that show.
And they need to be the focal point of it. And they need to be basically the perspective character, in my opinion.
And like everything except for the perspective character, I think is absolutely like an ironclad. You shouldn't mess with that.
Do they need to be this perspective character? I'm not sure. Could they just be the character that comes in and, you know, causes all the changes and transformations for people?
Potentially. That could be okay. That could be okay. But regardless,
regardless, that's the kind of thing I want to see in a show. If it's about the hero, it needs to stay focused on them.
Did Ahsoka do a good enough job of staying focused on Ahsoka?
I don't really think so. I think her...
Gosh, I think the Mandalorian episodes with Ahsoka in them, was it just one or was it two? I think it was two.
They almost feel like more of what Ahsoka could have been in a way.
Yes, Din played a big part.
But, you know, that's where we got introduced to the Magistrate and Ahsoka's quest for Thrawn or whatever.
And that's all interesting. But the way it was done in that show, I don't know. Ahsoka felt more like a...
She felt more like a future player. Like Ahsoka felt like it was about Sabine. A lot of the time.
And I think that's silly. Why not have the show be called Sabine?
Sabine...
is kind of the person who makes all of this stuff happen.
She...
is the resource, the vital resource that Ahsoka needs to go to to analyze the...
the Nightsister star map, you know, sphere.
Ahsoka needs to go to her for some strange reason.
She...
makes... she lets the bad guys get away with the star map,
which they didn't have in their possession before.
She kind of gets the call of...
She kind of gets the hero's call and denies it, and then, you know, rises again and answers it in the show.
She makes the big mistake and has the big failing of letting them get to the other galaxy.
Although I don't know if Filoni thinks it was a mistake and a failing, which, again, I touched on earlier. I think it was.
But...
Yeah, because if they didn't go, then they wouldn't have gotten back, and they could have just stopped it.
You know? Anyway, whatever. Had she destroyed the map, it would have been good.
Like, it could have been the end of the show. It could have not been the end of the show.
Because they destroyed the map on the planet where the purgale were anyway.
She could have made the right choice, and... anyway, I'll get back to that in a minute.
But yeah, Sabine, you know, she made that choice, and then she had the big heroic thing at the end.
And kind of like, you know, there was a whole cast of characters, but Ezra was basically like the focal point character,
and kind of the hero of Star Wars Rebels.
Like, Sabine could have been that for this show, or, you know, is that effectively for this show, and therefore...
But in an odd way, she's more of a focus character than even Ahsoka gets to be.
And I'm arguing with myself the different points of the show,
where it would have made sense for the show to be called Sabine, and have it be more about Sabine, like slightly more about her.
Like, the only thing that would have been different if it was Sabine instead of Ahsoka, is that I don't think we should have gotten...
if that were the case, the flashbacks, or the dealing of with Anakin in the show, that we got because it's Ahsoka.
The thing under the sea, the enchantment under the sea that Ahsoka had where she got to relive the Clone Wars,
and we got to see that, which was amazing, and we got to see her fighting with Anakin and stuff.
And even the Anakin training videos, none of those things should have happened in the show if it was called Sabine instead of Ahsoka.
That they did happen in the show, due to the fact that it was called Ahsoka, or, you know, it relied on that,
her anchoring the perspective of it or whatever, was interesting, and I really appreciate that they put those in there.
But the fact that... the fact that she...
Anyway, the idea of making Sabine the main character changing that, it might have been worthwhile,
and we could have gotten something, I don't know, more focused, a little bit better told,
because I almost feel like the Ahsoka-Anakin stuff was a little bit of a distraction, like it was really good,
and I really enjoyed it, and it felt vital to the story.
But at the same time, I felt like the creative team let that detract from telling...
I don't know, either they used it as a crutch, and therefore didn't develop as much of the rest of the story as they could have.
And a crutch or a time buyer is the same thing, in my opinion.
Or they didn't do that.
You know, they used it as a crutch, or they didn't.
But perhaps they did use it as a crutch, and had they not had that to rely upon,
they would have demanded from themselves, and they would have asked of themselves that they do something,
a more robust story, a fuller story, that went into things a little bit more...
Like, we didn't get any... like, we could have had... had it been a Sabine show instead,
we could have had one or two episodes on this force-forsaken planet,
where Sabine and Ezra are having really difficult conversations about what she chose to do,
if they still went with that choice, and what's been going on, you know, in the galaxy since then.
And not in a bad way, maybe shed some light on certain things,
and maybe we even could have gotten some more idea of what exactly Ezra has been doing there,
and why... not why he's with these, no tea, but like, why he...
I don't know, like, what he's doing building a life there, and like, how that's been for him.
Like, that could have been even more interesting, and, well, now you could argue,
well, that's taking away from the show being called Sabine,
because it's... now you're saying the show should be Ezra, and it's focusing on Ezra.
I'm not saying it should focus on Ezra, I'm saying with Sabine as a perspective character,
and at the same time with Ezra, it could be interesting to see, you know, what his life has been like,
and we can see not him telling her, but we can see it being shown to her, and it being shown to us,
his perspective, or her perspective on seeing what life is like for Ezra Bridger on this other planet.
And that could be interesting, and I don't know, because maybe that could contrast to her life,
but, gosh, I don't want to go back to this, and I'm really going to wrap this up, because I just... I gotta go.
But I was so disappointed in Sabine being a...
brat, is the word I'll use, in the first episode, where she does the stupid Top Gun thing,
like, she's there at the Lowfall, you know, I don't know, whatever, at the ceremony,
unveiling the painting or whatever that she did.
She's there unveiling it, and then she leaves, and is a jerk, and like, makes a scene,
and, I don't know, potentially embarrasses the government dude there, who like, you know,
helped save her life, and helped her and her friends live, and whatever. I mean, he wasn't like, you know...
It's not like it was Hera that she disrespected, and I'm not saying she owes this guy so much,
I'm just saying, like, yeah, that doesn't really make sense, because, like, you should have this better relationship with this guy,
and, like, he legitimately, like, tried to help you and Ezra, and, like, I don't know,
Ezra risked his life for this man, like, literally risked his life for this man,
and now you're just like, whatever, I don't care, old man, you're dumb, I hate you, I'm not doing this, I'm rebelling, I'm cool,
because I'm like, riding a motorcycle really fast, you know, jumping a ship, like, okay, that's dumb,
like, you're such a jerk, like, that doesn't make any sense, um, but, like, you could have had that,
like, if you were gonna keep that bad choice, you could have sweetened the bitterness of that by showing
what a good, noble, selfless life Ezra was leading. Maybe Ezra had become the unwilling, uh, not warlord,
but, like, I mean, how much can those no-tee people defend themselves from those, you know, human-sized marauders on, you know, Wolfback,
um, or Howlerback or whatever, and, like, why not, I don't know, you could have just focused it in a different way
and, like, shown that, like, while Sepine was, you know, basically living in the First World, having First World problems,
Ezra was living on a, in the Third World, in a backwater planet where there were marauders everywhere trying to kill people!
And he's one of them that they're trying to kill, and she's being a brat because, like, you know, her brother, her fake brother,
has gone missing, and she's sad about that, and she's sad about not being able to be a Jedi or whatever,
like, sad about, you know, Ahsoka abandoning her. Meanwhile, this man has been, like, you know, trying not to die
and trying not to get killed by warlords and trying not to get pulled into another war that, you know,
because he's already escaped one war and he doesn't want to have to go through another one,
but he feels like a struggle and a duty to do something for these people who are less capable than him.
And, like, I don't know, just, like, you could have had a really interesting, like, sweet, like, meaningful thing
where she was like, man, I was a jerk before, and I regret having been such a jerk previously,
and Ezra really is, you know, he's younger than me and he's got a lot to learn, but, like, I also have a lot to learn from him,
and that would be really good of me. And, anyway, that's if this show had been Sabine instead of Ahsoka,
which, you know, based on how much weight she had in the show, how much stuff that she caused to shift in the show,
well, I think this is a decent argument that she could have been about her, but I also think, at the same time,
there's an argument for pulling back and just giving these movies pulp title, or these shows pulp titles,
like the acolyte. That's decent. Who's the acolyte? I don't know. What does that mean? How many acolytes are there?
Who knows? It could have been called Acolytes of the Beyond. It could have been...
I don't know. I can't think of another good name for it right now, but, you know, and then, you know, what would Ahsoka have been called?
I don't know. It could have been called Far Away Galaxy. You know, Star Wars, Far Away Galaxy.
What? Far Away Galaxy? What do you mean? There's only one galaxy? Are they coming to Earth?
Are they going to have a crossover with the X-Men? No, they're not. That's dumb.
Spider-Man, maybe, but not the X-Men. But you get what I'm saying?
If it had been called, you know, Galaxy Far Away, or if it could have been called, like, what, like Dathomir, Forcewitch?
Let's think about that. So, an alternate title for Ahsoka. I mean, hell, what about Thrawn Ascendancy?
What about... I mean, you could have had it titled something like The Phantom Menace. It isn't literally about, you know, Darth Sidious,
but it's about him working in the background. You could have come up with a title for this that factors in Thrawn, or the other galaxy,
or the Great Mothers, or something like that, that hints at that. And then it can pull in all sorts of characters,
and you can say, oh, well, while Ahsoka and Sabine play important roles in this, they are not the key factors, the key movers,
and therefore the show doesn't have to be named after them. So, you don't have to be irritated when the story doesn't focus on them
as much as it should based on how the show has been titled. So, I don't know. I think that's kind of interesting.
I do want to stop and get out of here. I got other things to take care of. I got to get to work. So, anyway, until next time, folks,
take care. This is MJ signing out.