A Sucking Tunnel

I was amused and even a little surprised by the heights of stupidity achieved by last night's finale of Ahsoka. The cream of the jest would be if Disney now follows through with giving Dave Filoni an actual Star Wars movie to write and/or direct. I mean, it could work. With maybe the cast of Mystery Science Theater 3000 riffing on the thing (preferably Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Trace Beaulieu).

I did kind of like the scene where Ezra built his new lightsaber. Even though I never liked Kanan, it was a cool conversation between David Tennant as the droid and Eman Esfandi as Ezra. But it was all downhill for the rest of the episode.

Ahsoka's ship is for some reason hovering slowly over the snail people and on top of Ahsoka's ship is Ahsoka herself meditating and Sabine hanging out. We get a few more pieces of the maddening, time killing dialogue Filoni likes to give his female characters. SABINE: "So you know" AHSOKA: "I do." We finally learn the bone of contention between Ahsoka and Sabine was that Ahsoka feared Sabine would seek vengeance for the Empire's attack on Mandalore. The character motivation we should have had from the beginning. But I doubt Filoni had thought of it until the last episode since the beef between the two was originally implied to be a clash of personalities.

Is it wise to be sitting on top of the ship when they know TIE Fighters can swoop in at any time? I suppose they figure they can get back inside fast enough for the shields to go up or for Huyang to execute evasive manoeuvres . . .

Oh, yeah, no-one moves fast on this show.

Well, Diana Lee Inosanto was kind of quick in her duel with Rosario Dawson. I was reminded of how George Sanders, who considered himself a terrible sword fighter, said Tyrone Power could make him look quick when Power played the hero to Sanders' villain in The Black Swan. Only here the roles are reversed as it's our heroine who lumbers about with her lightsabers like an average schlub who just got out of bed. With Ahsoka's makeup and prosthetics, it should've been easy to use a body double who could actually fight. My guess is Disney was just too cheap. Yet they throw money at Dave Filoni.

Not too much money since they evidently didn't have a Star Destroyer bridge set. So Thrawn had to do all his strategising in the witch's tower and when he finally leaves in the climax he does so aboard the trans-galactic ring ship. I don't see why they don't just keep a Star Destroyer bridge set on standby. Why not just reuse the one used on Andor? Might as well ask why Sabine doesn't have her jetpack.

The answer, of course, is so we could have the scene of her and Ezra Force jumping into the Star Destroyer hanger. Ezra makes it and takes down two stormtroopers so he can stand up with his back to the hanger and yell at Sabine, apparently unconcerned about the possibility of any number of Imperials getting the drop on him. Even though a zombie stormtrooper had gotten the drop on him just minutes earlier.

Filoni piles layers of weak logic from here on in. Ezra overhears the dead stormtrooper's comm, a communication about reinforcements coming to the location. Why would they be sending reinforcements to the location if they didn't know Ezra was there? How would they know Ezra was there if they can't see him next to unconscious stormtrooper they're trying to talk to? Given it's a whole huge hanger that should be loaded with personnel, despite the fact that Ezra refuses even to glance around, someone should see him.

This whole sequence of idiocy ends with Ezra landing an Imperial shuttle in a New Republic cruiser's hanger. He exits the ship wearing a full suit of stormtrooper armour, including the helmet, while everyone trains weapons on him. Maybe his comms were knocked out and the New Republic ship just let him come aboard on faith (we know they're that dumb) so they didn't know who was aboard. He still could've removed his helmet before exiting the ship. God, it's so stupid I'm going to need a helmet for banging my head against the wall just thinking about it.

So it seems like the rumours about the show being a setup for a Heir to the Empire film or series might be true. All I can say is they better let Timothy Zahn do the writing. He's at least better than Filoni though why the hell they would bank on even Zahn is a mystery considering his trilogy of books really only achieved the success they did because it was the first real Star Wars content in a long time after Return of the Jedi. The plot hinges on the ysalamiri and just look at all the Star Wars content that featured the ysalamiri after that. Yeah, basically none.

Anyway, that's another kettle of fish.

Ahsoka is available on Disney+. Though I'm wondering if they won't try to make everyone forget this one like they did the Willow series.