Discussion Ahsoka

[lister]

When we really only had the OT.

More specifically I am a fan of the West End Roleplaying Game which laid out how long space travel took. Hours or days within a system. Weeks or months to cross the galaxy. Depended on the exact locations and how good your ship was. Which is fine to say that doesn't count because it's not a core movie or show. But then it's just one more argument on the pile of why I won't respect canon du jour. Why bother learning the stuff if they'll delete it?

But even when we only had the OT, I didn't really spend too much time thinking about the nuances of hyperspace. Again, it was just a narrative conceit to allow the characters to easily travel through space. And in fairness, a roleplaying game was never going to be considered canon, "du jour" or otherwise. You chose to accept the "rules" of space travel that that game laid out, and that's fine. But it's unreasonable to expect the people who make the movies and shows to follow those rules. Or even know they exist. Nothing was "deleted" from canon. It was never canon in the first place.

This is like reading Star Trek technical manuals and getting annoyed when something happens in an episode or movie that contradicts what the book says. "All Kirk had to do to destroy the Klingon ship was target its auxiliary inverse deflector array, which is of course located directly beneath the starboard disruptor's secondary power grid. Duh. This show is so stupid."

Sure but what if they seemingly hop from Bejing to Boston in time to intercept people who we know just left MIT for downtown Boston? Homestly for the First Order to keep chasing down the heroes, interplanetary travel must have taken minutes. The ST was bad like that but the shows are starting to do the same thing. It's like people flit from core worlds to the outer rim and it's seemingly no big deal. It's an aspect of Star Wars writing that seems to have gotten really sloppy. At least throw in some sense of the passage of time.

Maybe it's subjective but Luke's training scene made it seem like they'd been on the Falcon a long time. The small fortune that an interplanetary charter cost also intimated that it was a serious thing. A quick scene planning the fleet's jump to hyperspace in ROTJ made it seem like a serious thing. Whereas the scenes on the bridge of the hyperspace ring made it seem like a quick jaunt. Like I said they didn't take Sabine's cuffs of, or, I think even put her in a cell with a bed so how long could it have been? Whereas having Leia be asleep when Luke opened her cell gave an impression that time had been passing.

I think the ST directors used hyperspace like casual magic (like they did using The Force to teleport a lightsaber). And unfortunately the new normal has stuck. Maybe the prequels did too and I just don't remember, I haven't watched them since they were new.

I don't know, Sabine's cell didn't look that much different than Leia's cell on the Death Star. I guess yeah, taking her cuffs off would have added slightly to the idea that more time has passed but, whatever. I'm watching a fun space adventure, not a documentary on fictional interstellar propulsion technology.

 

[ID13238]

Lars Mikkelsen actually voiced Thrawn in Rebels.

Lars Mikkelsen actually voiced Thrawn in Rebels.

And in the live version of him portraying Thrawn he sounds absolutely nothing like his voiceover character
nor does he look ANYTHING like his voiceover character.
Thank you for helping me make and prove my point.

 

[Maverick10126]

Looks, nope, he doesn't look like his animated counterpart at all. But he sounds dead on to me. I think what could be throwing you off is the visuals aren't matching the audio. You are so used to him looking at certain way and the voice coming out doesn't match the face so it's convincing you that both are off. The mind can do interesting things when it comes to combining sound and visuals. Try watching a martial arts movie muted, it's a very werid experience.

 

[Caas_Sandhri]

@Caas_Sandhri Another lengthy post, it'll take me some time to digest and reply back, but I wanted to immediately react to this:


This we can immediately discount as impossible.

Because again, if there is a way for the Nightsisters to communicate in any meaningful way with Elsbeth, then why not just tell her where the planet is, and the map subplot becomes - yet again - superfluous.

If there is a need for a map, then Elsbeth and the Nightsisters cannot have shared meaningful information from galaxies away. Unless the audience need to introduce yet more improbable explanations tofill that plot hole, eg. Well they're powerful enough to order a giant Hyperspace Ring from Elsbeth but not knowledgeable enough to know where their own planet is.

Starting at 10:13:
Night Mother: "You do our ancestors credit."
Elsbeth: "Thank you, Great Mother."
"You heard our call to you in the dream?"
"Your visions guided me across the stars."

For me, that sounds as if the Nightmothers gave Elsbeth instructions, logically at least on three things: Thrawn is alive; he's on Peridea; he needs a hyperspace ring capable of intergalactic jumps to return. Everything else does not make sense. If Elsbeth just wakes up one day and thinks "oh well, I had a dream of Thrawn, I must now start a search all on my own", where would that lead? Would she even think of bringing a hyperspace ring? Is she constructing the thing just in case? What if Thrawn is alone, and the Chimaera destroyed? What if he needs a troop transporter? No, this hyperspace ring is much too specific to be anything else but a direct order by Thrawn, relayed through the Nightmothers.

As for the map, knowing that the destination is Peridea doesn't mean Elsbeth has the hyperspace jump route. Assuming the Nightmothers have the GPS coordinates of Peridea, Elsbeth still needs the navigation route. There's a reason Peridea has not been rediscovered in the last millennia: hyperspace routes need to be charted and logged. You can't just point at the target and off you go. Even with the map, the hyperspace ring's computer had to recalculate the route to account for star movement in the last thousand or ten thousand years.

You can certainly tell me where you live, and I could find the place on Google Maps, but that doesn't mean I could just drive there without having a route, and a flight plan, and a rental car, and whatever. That's not stuff you can send me in a dream, I need to program it from my side.

 

[General Hoth]

Well, TPM had the party go from Naboo to Tatooine using sublight, was that really the closest safe planet? How long did that take? Kamino being just outside the GFFA didn't seem to be much of an issue in AotC. ST has lightspeed skipping, ESB spends most of the Falcon's screentime in sublight travelling to another system. All without clear timeline indicators.

I guess this is just one of those things you're supposed to shrug over

I wonder if they will say that they did the Peridia run in less than 12 parsecs?

 

[TauntaunScout]

But even when we only had the OT, I didn't really spend too much time thinking about the nuances of hyperspace. Again, it was just a narrative conceit to allow the characters to easily travel through space. And in fairness, a roleplaying game was never going to be considered canon, "du jour" or otherwise. You chose to accept the "rules" of space travel that that game laid out, and that's fine. But it's unreasonable to expect the people who make the movies and shows to follow those rules. Or even know they exist.

It was indeed what passed for canon once. Lucas was impressed with it*, and sent the books to Zahn in lieu of a series Bible. But the Galaxy was a lot more compact back then. And I don’t think it’s unreasonable to have a Bible new directors and writers have to conform to. It’ll never happen, because rich people refuse to be told what to do by anyone, ever. But it’s perfectly reasonable. I had high hopes because Pablo Hidalgo started out writing for the RPG, but alas.

But my favorites getting thrown under the bus means, I don’t have any sympathy when people say that 1) my hobby projects aren’t canon or 2) they’re mad about a film contradicting old canon THEY liked. That ship has sailed: these people in California will rewrite anything they want at any time.

Nigh-instantaneous hyperspace is just gonna go in the admittedly subjective “cons” column of any given episode or movie that it appears in, for me. Like using the Force to teleport a lightsaber.

*He didn’t think it would be feasible to write rules for the Force. But the crew at West End did it, in a way that even he liked.

 

[kk1]

Geez, no subtlety at all in Ezra being Space Jesus, just look at the poster.

 

[lister]

It was indeed what passed for canon once. Lucas was impressed with it, and sent the books to Zahn in lieu of a series Bible. But the Galaxy was a lot more compact back then.

Eh, not in my experience.

 

[TauntaunScout]

nor does he look ANYTHING like his voiceover

Looks, nope, he doesn't look like his animated counterpart at all.

And to be fair to Thrawn (whom I hate, so any defense of him from me is pretty sincere), isn’t he way older than his last appearance in-universe? He should look different.

The mind can do interesting things when it comes to combining sound and visuals. Try watching a martial arts movie muted, it's a very werid experience.

One of the things that always surprises new medieval reenactors (or the public audience) is that the swords don’t make noise when you draw them. Medieval scabbards were wood and/or leather. Any metal used in the construction doesn’t typically touch the blade. It’s other time periods (like the 1800’s), with all-metal scabbards, that “hiss” when you draw them.

I wonder if they will say that they did the Peridia run in less than 12 parsecs?

I did it less than 11 parsecs, soooo…..

 

[Maverick10126]

View attachment 473420Geez, no subtlety at all in Ezra being Space Jesus, just look at the poster.

That's a great Jabba the Hutt poster

 

[Oofa]

View attachment 473420Geez, no subtlety at all in Ezra being Space Jesus, just look at the poster.

And you have Enoch, Norse mythology, Tolkien mythology - it shouldn't come as a surprise, but then again, I am guessing Ahsoka will be(come) "God".

 

[TauntaunScout]

Geez, no subtlety at all in Ezra being Space Jesus, just look at the poster.

Sad but true. Like so many other SW horses out of the barn, any kind of mythological subtitles left us with Episode One.

 

[BlindJedi]

That could be any number of "cool space things" used as ornamentation of the scene. Never occurred to me it was the entire Star Wars Galaxy.

I always thought it was and I'm not alone, seeing as how the image Obi-Wan pulls up of the Galaxy is the same object.

It's not the Star Wars Galaxy, it's the Rishi Maze, a neighboring dwarf galaxy. If it was the whole Star Wars galaxy you wouldn't see all those stars surrounding it. It would be a lot more sparse.

They are definitely way out there on the edge hiding, but they aren't outside the galaxy.

That's a beautiful retcon. It was the galaxy for a while.

 

[BlindJedi]

It's like Tool Time or Silver Spoons or something to me, "just TV".

Isn't that all it is, anyway?

 

[TauntaunScout]

Isn't that all it is, anyway?

Yes. But The Mandalorian is something more: it gets me to buy merch.

 

[BlindJedi]

Yes. But The Mandalorian is something more: it gets me to buy merch.

Ah.

Star Wars TV hasn't done that for me in a while. Solo and the ST did though so I guess I get that.

 

[TauntaunScout]

Ah.

Star Wars TV hasn't done that for me in a while. Solo and the ST did though so I guess I get that.

Heck the Mandalorian even altered the lexicon. Everyone started saying “this is the way”. I don’t think a SW project has done thst since ESB.

 

[BlindJedi]

Heck the Mandalorian even altered the lexicon. Everyone started saying “this is the way”. I don’t think a SW project has done thst since ESB.

Despite my disinterest in Din or Mandalorians I do enjoy that. Good point.

 

[Maverick10126]

My dad always say "I have spoken" now.

 

[TauntaunScout]

My dad always say "I have spoken" now.

Glad I am not the only one.

 

[Tulgah]

It makes me laugh when Palpatine, on Coruscant, says “I feel young Vader is in trouble” (because Obi-Wan has just cut his legs off). Then he just goes right outside and rescues him from the lava.

When my daughter first saw that scene, she immediately said “Isn’t Mustafar supposed to be on the edge of the galaxy?” It took her zero seconds of being a Star Wars fan to realize the hyperspace stuff doesn’t make sense.

My response was something like “Well, we don’t know how long he’s been lying there. Maybe the dark side was keeping him alive, like it did for Maul when he was cut in half (which I had told her about after watching TPM). She just rolled her eyes.

 

[Mandalore464]

Starting at 10:13:
Night Mother: "You do our ancestors credit."
Elsbeth: "Thank you, Great Mother."
"You heard our call to you in the dream?"
"Your visions guided me across the stars."

For me, that sounds as if the Nightmothers gave Elsbeth instructions, logically at least on three things: Thrawn is alive; he's on Peridea; he needs a hyperspace ring capable of intergalactic jumps to return. Everything else does not make sense. If Elsbeth just wakes up one day and thinks "oh well, I had a dream of Thrawn, I must now start a search all on my own", where would that lead? Would she even think of bringing a hyperspace ring? Is she constructing the thing just in case? What if Thrawn is alone, and the Chimaera destroyed? What if he needs a troop transporter? No, this hyperspace ring is much too specific to be anything else but a direct order by Thrawn, relayed through the Nightmothers.

As for the map, knowing that the destination is Peridea doesn't mean Elsbeth has the hyperspace jump route. Assuming the Nightmothers have the GPS coordinates of Peridea, Elsbeth still needs the navigation route. There's a reason Peridea has not been rediscovered in the last millennia: hyperspace routes need to be charted and logged. You can't just point at the target and off you go. Even with the map, the hyperspace ring's computer had to recalculate the route to account for star movement in the last thousand or ten thousand years.

You can certainly tell me where you live, and I could find the place on Google Maps, but that doesn't mean I could just drive there without having a route, and a flight plan, and a rental car, and whatever. That's not stuff you can send me in a dream, I need to program it from my side.

I don't think the plot is half as smart as you think it is (and neither is Thrawn). Did you see the "Hyperspace route" the map showed in Part I when Sabine activated it? It was a bloody straight line from her galaxy to the other. The information within the map wasn't a route, it was a location. Pointing to a world in a distant galaxy so that people would know where it was. Literally placing Peridea on the map, telling Sabine where to point her binoculars at the sky to see it (which she does immediately afterwards). And then, using their own onboard computers, Elsbeth and co calculated hyperspace coordinates to it (this takes up three minutes of screentime in Part 4, watch it again).

Let me repeat that again: There are no coordinates in the map. Just a location. The Hyperspace coordinates were calculated by the Hyperspace Ring's computer once Elsbeth had found the location of Peridea.

But in any case, even if the map did contain the coordinates, come on, that map subplot is just so useless and convoluted. You've got Space Witches who can communicate across the stars and sense a minuscule Jedi travelling through Hyperspace in the belly of a whale, but they can't tell somebody how to get to them using their space magick.

We can always science it up and introduce comparisons to real world science, but it's Space Fantasy. Anyway, let's try. If everything must have a scientifical explanation behind it, how do the Nightsisters communicate with Elsbeth? As in, what channel does the information follow to reach its target? Is it a magical field? The Force? For information to travel that far, that fast, it must travel at higher speeds than light. So the very messages they send each other are likely using a Hyperspace Lane. With the unlimited resources that Elsbeth seems to have, building giant Hyperspace Rings and the likes, it just beggars belief that she can't identify that route and follow it back to its source.

But I'm not a fan of rationalizing everything. Star Wars is space magic. We shouldn't have to compare Hyperspace travel to GPS navigation. We should just accept that "Spaceship goes vroom and arrives at destination fast." just like we accept that lightsabers work and that people can communicate across the stars in their minds.

So we could easily have accepted that Elsbeth had found a way to get to Thrawn "because". And the map was a useless subplot that ate up far too much valuable time in a show that would have been far more interesting without it. A way to artificially inflate its runtime with dare I say very amateurish, tropey storytelling. But that's just my own opinion of course.

 

[Rushie]

My take is that mental messages are instantaneous through the Force, see Vader, Leia and Luke at the end of ESB. All life is connected through the Force, if someone is powerful enough to mentally talk to someone else, the message is delivered directly in their minds. And does not leave a trail or point to its physical origin. That's not the problem to me.

The problem indeed is the witches being able to communicate but not being aware where they are relative to GFFA. Now maybe that knowledge is lost with their civilization.

Let's say their Magick skype calls can target anyone of Nightsister origins. They beam out their signal, Morgan automatically latches onto it and the information is sent. Like sending it to someones mobile phone, you don't need to know their location for it to reach its destination.

That would account for some of the plot hickups. But yeah, the mothers reaching out with their location could've greatly smoothed out ep I at least

 

[Mandalore464]

For the record, my take is not so much that the existence of the map could not have made sense. My point is that introducing it to the plot was unnecessary fluff.

 

[BlindJedi]

View attachment 473420Geez, no subtlety at all in Ezra being Space Jesus, just look at the poster.

Sweet! I can combine my Biblical and Star Wars costumes.

 

[VideoViper]

One of the things I liked about the OT is that the time it takes to space travel was left open. Depending on your interpretation the trip to Alderan could have taken 12 hours or 3 weeks? More allows more time to actually train Luke. ESB the trip to Bespin is sub light speed so the bad guys could have been there a week or more before the MF arrived.

With the additional media space travel started to become plot dependent where the trip could be instant or long without any real distinction as to why.

Now in Asoka, the map in the credits basically spells out that it’s a long trip with different paths, so even though some have interpreted it as a short trip, it did take awhile. This will be very important if they bring in some related plot points from the novels.

 

[FF6Mog]

C’mon Dave! Stop off-screening stuff! We’re all adults here; we can handle some smoochie-facing!

 

[BlindJedi]

We clearly can't.

 

[Rushie]

Would've been funnier if one pair of boots faced the opposite way. Especially Ezra's

 

[Tulgah]

This might be my favorite Star Wars thing ever!

 

[Masterfett]

I do find it interesting the Great Mothers were offended at the stench of Jedi but chose Sabine as a prisoner when she has no presence in the Force. Meanwhile two very experienced jedi are standing right there stinking it up, I guess they masked their presence ahead of time...
So IMO that scene failed in the way Filoni thought it was supposed to go, with the audience thinking they meant Baylan and Shin and were "surprised" when they actually meant Sabine. lol
I was no more surprised by it than when Ahsoka supposedly died in her own show. And as cool as the Nightsisters are, this thread of fate thing is already an old worn out concept to me from several other shows I've seen it used. Thus it adds nothing "new' or "unique", maybe to some people who've never heard of it before. But this is exactly the reason why it's not always a good idea to reuse other people's work and to directly infuse it into yours. Adapt, change, or reinvent it maybe.

As for why Ezra is still alive, it's because Filoni's story demands it, no other reason. If Ezra were actually dead then what? Now if he were Thrawn's prisoner it would probably be more interesting in the sense of them using his connection to the Force to increase their powers or whatever. but for him to just be on the same planet all this time feels weird, you'd think he would have stolen a TIE Fighter and escaped. Unless there truly is a more powerful force out there and both he and Thrawn have an uneasily alliance in order to survive. After all, his whole legion of Stormtroopers seem to be the undead held together by magic. Thus whatever happened he lost, time and time again. It does make ne curious what this other force is, and hoping it isn't the Vong, or if so that it's done a bit different that the novels. This will be interesting to see get fleshed out, though I suspect that part of the story will come later in movie form. The budget isn't there for a series if it's about the Vong. IMO

Regardless of why Ezra is still around, it does make more sense for Thrawn to eliminate him ASAP before he has a chance to thwart his plans yet again. Like what happened in Rebels finale. He really shouldn't be making the same mistake twice. So far Live action Thrawn has been a letdown for me, but it's still early so we'll see.
Also lets be clear, Ezra is just another average person, nothing special. He merely got lucky temporarily defeating Thrawn with the help of whales. And the only thing making him "important" to the story is Sabine's devotion to finding him. Otherwise I think it would have been a far more interesting story if he had died over there. Ezra is not about to become or overtake Luke Skywalker's level of importance in GFFA, ever. not that Luke took down the Empire alone, but he was the heir of Anakin and had the same potential to be a very gifted Jedi. And not that you have to be a bloodline jedi to matter, i do feel as if a descendant does have slightly more potential than the average joe who's Force Sensitive. Anyone can still use the Force, but I'm of the mind a direct descendant of a very gifted Jedi can possibly tap into it in a very different way. Thus for that reason Luke would have an advantage over Ezra, as would even Jacen. IMO.

I mean c'mon, the guy hasn't seen a woman in 10 years, and it certainly seems like Sabine hasn't been getting any lovin'.

This isn't Hot & Steamy Wars.

 

[Masterfett]

Doesn’t seem to take much time in Ahsoka.

it's interesting that they want hyperspace travel to happen in mere seconds to get from point A to B, as if it only takes a few hours to travel vast distances. yet they feel the need to overstay the welcome with overly long scenes filled with walking to a place, or take too long looking at a character looking off into the distance. Someone in charge of editing isn't very good at it. We get good scenes with interesting dialog cut to small takes while we have to endure a scene filled with silence and posturing.

Looks, nope, he doesn't look like his animated counterpart at all. But he sounds dead on to me. I think what could be throwing you off is the visuals aren't matching the audio. You are so used to him looking at certain way and the voice coming out doesn't match the face so it's convincing you that both are off. The mind can do interesting things when it comes to combining sound and visuals. Try watching a martial arts movie muted, it's a very werid experience.

He doesn't have to look exactly like Rebels Thrawn or Zahn's Thrawn, especially since he was changed for Rebels and is now his Canon look. he doesn't even have to "sound" like Thrawn because until Rebels we don't even know what he sounded like. Live action Ahsoka doesn't look or sound anything like Animated Ahsoka.
What I'm not seeing is a "Commanding presence" that you would expect from such a revered menacing character, you know, the same feeling you get when we first meet Tarkin. I felt none of that coming off of Lars performance. Not that he's Evil like the Emperor or menacing the way Vader is, but that same aura that Tarkin gives off as a "thinker" who's also formidable in the way he presents himself as a threat to your existence if you cross him. IDK, can't quite put my finger on it but this ain't it.

 

[Mandalore464]

As for why Ezra is still alive, it's because Filoni's story demands it, no other reason. If Ezra were actually dead then what? Now if he were Thrawn's prisoner it would probably be more interesting in the sense of them using his connection to the Force to increase their powers or whatever.

Another option would've been to show Thrawn and Ezra having to cooperate throughout those ten years to survive an extremely hostile environment. Not necessarily what I would have done but this would certainly create interesting dynamics once they are rescued and finally free to resume fighting each other.

 

[SpectreOne]

I'd love to see a show about the chimaera with Thrawn and Ezra and the rest of the imperial crew having to fight for their very survival in an completely unknown and hostile galaxy. That could be what new Battlestar Galactica was in the Star Wars universe. Sadly, we live in an age, where writers are already overwhelmed by the task of filling eight episode seasons with story.

 

[ID13238]

And to be fair to Thrawn (whom I hate, so any defense of him from me is pretty sincere), isn’t he way older than his last appearance in-universe? He should look different.

Should Thrawn look older? Yes.
But there is no way that even after all the years have past by T would have let himself go and look like all he did was sit in the Tatooine cantina
and drink Bantha beer.

 

[BlindJedi]

Thrawn looks fine.

Geez. It's like he's having to survive and not do what he normally would do as well as aging. Certainly better than fan interpretations I've seen over the years.

Not that that is saying much for this irritating character.

 

[Oofa]

That's the problem with shooting only 8 episodes, everything comes off as way too convenient.
And regarding hyperspace travelling, doesn't Han mention something about how long it takes them to get to Bespin?

 

[BlindJedi]

That's the problem with shooting only 8 episodes, everything comes off as way too convenient.
And regarding hyperspace travelling, doesn't Han mention something about how long it takes them to get to Bespin?

No, just says "it's pretty far."

LEIA
Lando system?

HAN
Lando's not a system, he's a man.
Lando Calrissian. He's a card
player, gambler, scoundrel. You'd
like him.

LEIA
Thanks.

HAN
Bespin. It's pretty far, but I
think we can make it.

LEIA
(reading from the
computer)
A mining colony?

HAN
Yeah, a Tibanna gas mine. Lando
conned somebody out of it. We
go back a long way, Lando and me.

LEIA
Can you trust him?

HAN
No. But he has no love for the
Empire, I can tell you that.

 

[MARK2D2]

I, too, remain rather confused from a logic standpoint why Thrawn hasn’t simply killed Ezra? It’s been years, right? Leaving the guy that vanquished you to another galaxy alive and well doesn’t exactly strike me as something a great military genius would do. …But then precious little in this show has made much sense. I mean (as others have stated) if the Night Sisters were calling out to ”their sister” in her dreams… why not— oh, you know — just send her the necessary hyperspace coordinates while they were at it?

Even an average writer could have lopped off a couple really dull, pointless, draggy episodes.

This whole show feels very much like a mediocre first draft. Was it written over a single weekend?

 

[RUOKR2]

While we don’t really know how long the hyper-hyperspace journey was, I am glad that it wasn’t so long as to mess Sabine’s makeup whilst being held captive. (Which in itself is something to think about).

That's the problem with shooting only 8 episodes, everything comes off as way too convenient.
And regarding hyperspace travelling, doesn't Han mention something about how long it takes them to get to Bespin?