Ahsoka

[warty goblin]

That's really his arc in TLJ. His motivation at the start is "run away from the First Order to protect himself and Rey", only coming around to "Help the Resistance so he can help people" after Canto Bight. It even culminates in him facing down one of his commanders, where he makes a verbal declaration of his allegiance, even as he calls her out for her cowardice.

Of course that's also like 90% of his arc in TFA. He doesn't get an arc in RoS, because nobody gets an arc there. There's only a sequence of barely connected stuff that happens, frogmarching the audience from one setpiece to its inevitable and even more ridiculous successor.

[GloatingSwine]

Of course that's also like 90% of his arc in TFA.

In TFA he only tried to remove himself from the conflict altogether but eventually stands up to protect Rey, in TLJ he found a cause to stand for not just an individual.

[Dr.Samurai]

Which amounts to watching nearly the exact same beats, but with a few words interchanged.

[LibraryOgre]

Of course that's also like 90% of his arc in TFA. He doesn't get an arc in RoS, because nobody gets an arc there. There's only a sequence of barely connected stuff that happens, frogmarching the audience from one setpiece to its inevitable and even more ridiculous successor.

I cannot think of a situation where you will find me defending TRoS (I have faith in Star Wars fans that SOMEONE has a bad enough take that I have to, but I can't think of any off the top of my head). I get like a north-bound badger with TLJ, but I get more like the south end of that badger with TRoS.

[Peelee]

I’d say Obi-Wan was, ultimately, done better in the prequels. Even ignoring that Ewan McGregor’s charisma basically carried the whole trilogy on its back, I kinda liked that the more Anakin pushed against the traditions of the Jedi Order Obi-Wan seemed to embody them more. He tried to be a role model for Anakin and, in a way, became the only true Jedi the Order really had in its final days, besides Yoda of course.

Don't get me wrong, Cranky Old Wizard Obi-Wan is pretty cool in the original trilogy but I never really liked how he waxed poetic about the righteousness of the Jedi Order with one hand and lied to and manipulated Luke with the other. Forget all the "from a certain point of view" nonsense, Obi-Wan was training a teenager to kill his own father or die trying and if he died trying it's okay because they could always use Leia instead.

A.) i never found McGregor all that charismatic - honestly, PT Kenobi could be recast and I'd hardly notice a difference. Never really got the fandom's love for him, but that's just me.

2.) One of my biggest complaintd about the prequels is hoe close Kenobi and Anakin were suppose to be but er never actually see that. They just bicker most of the time, and that could be any two coworkers.

3.) OG Kenobi wss perfect, and only changed when more movies kept getting pumped out that kept changing who he wss and what he did. Hell, originally, he's Shell-shocked at hearing his real name again, his life he left behind for two decades rushing back to him. Currently, he chopped a Sith lord in half six months before meeting Luke and the whole damned thing is an act, especially deciding to get back into the action since as of current canon that was always the plan. I agree its crap. I disagree that, when viewed ad a standalone as it was intended, Guinness didn't deliver the best damned Kenobi that you could ask for.

[pendell]

I cannot think of a situation where you will find me defending TRoS (I have faith in Star Wars fans that SOMEONE has a bad enough take that I have to, but I can't think of any off the top of my head). I get like a north-bound badger with TLJ, but I get more like the south end of that badger with TRoS.

...

ChatGPT, what in the world is LibraryOgre saying ?

Prompt: What does this mean?

"I cannot think of a situation where you will find me defending TRoS (I have faith in Star Wars fans that SOMEONE has a bad enough take that I have to, but I can't think of any off the top of my head). I get like a north-bound badger with TLJ, but I get more like the south end of that badger with TRoS."


ChatGPT response:
The statement you provided is a metaphorical expression that suggests the speaker's level of disagreement or dissatisfaction with the movie "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" (TRoS) compared to "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" (TLJ).

The phrase "I get like a north-bound badger with TLJ" implies that the speaker strongly disagrees or has a negative reaction to TLJ. The mention of a north-bound badger is likely a humorous way of emphasizing their strong disagreement or frustration.

On the other hand, the phrase "I get more like the south end of that badger with TRoS" suggests an even stronger level of disagreement or dissatisfaction with TRoS. The mention of the south end of the badger is a way of intensifying their negative reaction.

Overall, the speaker is expressing their strong disapproval or disappointment with TRoS, implying that they have a more negative opinion of it compared to TLJ. The use of metaphors adds a colorful and dramatic flair to their statement.

Note: It's actually an internal tool rather than the "in the wild" version of the LLM, but I think it's pretty clear the LLM is just as confused as I am.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[LibraryOgre]

...

ChatGPT, what in the world is LibraryOgre saying ?

"I cannot think of a situation where you will find me defending TRoS"

"I cannot think of a situation where I will defend The Rise of Skywalker", implying that I cannot, at this time, conceive of such a scenario

"(I have faith in Star Wars fans that SOMEONE has a bad enough take that I have to, but I can't think of any off the top of my head)."

I believe that many Star Wars fans have really bad opinions about various Star Wars media, meaning that while I cannot imagine scenarios where I would defend The Rise of Skywalker, such a thing might exist.

I get like a north-bound badger with TLJ, but I get more like the south end of that badger with TRoS.

"Badger", in this case, refers to the animal's tendency towards violent stubbornness; "north-bound" refers to the direction that it's head is oriented, which is mention to juxtapose the "south end", which would be the opposite, which is to say the rear, which the the place from where feces is produced.

The whole could be alternately stated as "I do not like the Rise of Skywalker, but I stubbornly defend The Last Jedi."

And don't feed my words to a plagiarism engine, public or not.

[Peelee]

"I cannot think of a situation where you will find me defending TRoS"

"I cannot think of a situation where I will defend The Rise of Skywalker", implying that I cannot, at this time, conceive of such a scenario

"(I have faith in Star Wars fans that SOMEONE has a bad enough take that I have to, but I can't think of any off the top of my head)."

I believe that many Star Wars fans have really bad opinions about various Star Wars media, meaning that while I cannot imagine scenarios where I would defend The Rise of Skywalker, such a thing might exist.



"Badger", in this case, refers to the animal's tendency towards violent stubbornness; "north-bound" refers to the direction that it's head is oriented, which is mention to juxtapose the "south end", which would be the opposite, which is to say the rear, which the the place from where feces is produced.

The whole could be alternately stated as "I do not like the Rise of Skywalker, but I stubbornly defend The Last Jedi."

And don't feed my words to a plagiarism engine, public or not.

Note to self, badgers make for impromptu compasses.

[pendell]

And don't feed my words to a plagiarism engine, public or not.

Roger that; now that I understand you don't want it to happen, it won't.

Although, for the record, I really don't want to get close to EITHER end of a badger

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[GloatingSwine]

Which amounts to watching nearly the exact same beats, but with a few words interchanged.

No, it's a progression of motivation and intent which implies an opening of the person to the wider universe.

You know, a character arc.

A character arc isn't just "a series of things that happened to the same guy", it's a change in the person which leads them to new decisions they would not have made at the start of the arc.

[Dr.Samurai]

No, it's a progression of motivation and intent which implies an opening of the person to the wider universe.

You know, a character arc.

A character arc isn't just "a series of things that happened to the same guy", it's a change in the person which leads them to new decisions they would not have made at the start of the arc.

Thank you for the condescension, always a good way to approach a conversation.

For my part, Finn's arc is just too long to go through the same motions across two movies. He is so far removed from what is happening in TLJ you could remove him completely and not change things (apart from needing the First Order to understand their own sensors, instead of having the thief tell them, but that's just bad writing and the change is an improvement).

Finn was afraid of the First Order and not interested in fighting them, but has a change of heart when Rey is in trouble. Then he is afraid of the First Order and not interested in fighting them, but then has a change of heart because he visits a casino and some space horses are in a cage, or something.

Recall Han had an arc in A New Hope, then in Empire he wants to leave, not because he still doesn't care about everyone, but because Bounty Hunters are still after him for the debt he owes to Jabba. But Han still saves Luke's life, still uncovers the Imperial Probe, and still remains a direct part of the plot. And this debt sub-plot remains relevant, not because Han's character is still growing and shaping, but because Jabba is still relevant and the debt never got paid.

One of the failings of the sequel trilogy is its regression of the characters back before their arcs, so that Han reverts back to being a scoundrel running away from his problems and looking out only for himself. And Finn regresses in TLJ from what he discovered about himself and his willingness to put his life on the line against the First Order in TPM.

If it works for you and others, great. But it's pretty weak to me and the screentime could have been much better utilized.

[Sapphire Guard]

See I think it's more about people outside of the fandom which is a significantly larger population. Obviously not excusing the aggressive and abusive parts of the fandom who do exist, and were if anything even worse for how they acted in the 90's when the prequels were coming out.

For a good few years the prequels, the first one especially, was a major popular culture punching bag as the definitive 'bad' film in a way that I don't think has ever been truly matched.

Feedback loop, I think, where one led to the other. Regrettably, we're probably going to have to admit that Simon Pegg is part of the fandom, and so are a lot of those internet reviewers. That kind of person made a lot of noise, and even if it is complete nonsense like the whole 'saved in the edit' debacle, if the video is polished enough people who view it in passing and don't care much will probably assume that this random Youtuber actually knows what they're talking about.

[Errorname]

In TFA he only tried to remove himself from the conflict altogether but eventually stands up to protect Rey, in TLJ he found a cause to stand for not just an individual.

Sure, but by the same token I don't think it's that interesting for a character to learn slightly different variations on "The Bad Guys are Bad and I need to fight them" in back to back movies, especially when the latter one just takes him out of the story for most of the movie.

ChatGPT, what in the world is LibraryOgre saying ?

You know you could just ask the person you're actually replying to what they meant instead of a chatbot.

[Trixie_One]

Feedback loop, I think, where one led to the other.

Yeah, I'd agree with that.

There's a great take that In PointlessHub's very funny look back at Jingle all the Way where it highlights the messed up nature of the culture back then with a clip of Nostalgia Critic over reacting to the kid being Jack Lloyd. Given he was even younger child than he was in Phantom Menace in retrospect it comes off as a lot more mean spirited than it did at the time.

[Beelzebub1111]

Having just finished Ahsoka I have to say I am thoroughly disappointed in this depiction of the Grand Admiral. In the original books he would fail but he would learn from them and improve his strategy on the fly if his plan didn't work. In this show it just seems like he's coping with his failures of strategy and going "Oh but actually I didn't fail, because..." and he come s across as a fraud.

The space battles in the show are terrible. The good guy's ship gets hit directly in the engines several times over and nothing happens. Even the battle where those two rebel pilots die on Hera's orders don't get a mention. Two people were killed under her command, and she faces no consequences for it. Leia bails her out off-screen. Nobody mentions that Sabine personally doomed the galaxy and nullified Ezra's sacrifice. If I was Ezra, I would have some questions. But nobody seems to care.

I hate the choreography of the lightsaber fights. Ashoka does not use her second lightsaber at all to attack, enemies should be dead but they aren't. The duels just become boring and repetitive, and it feels like there was no planning. Sabine's beskar seems like literal plot armor. She's the only one that's shot at and hit and it will only every hit her in the beskar and you know it. I never feel like the main characters are in any danger. Even when charging on horseback through turbolaser explosions there's no threat or challenge or skill displayed, they just run in a straight line to the closing door because because they know they can't get hurt.

This show is boring, badly written, contrived, and deserves to be so much better than it is.

[Mechalich]

Having just finished Ahsoka I have to say I am thoroughly disappointed in this depiction of the Grand Admiral. In the original books he would fail but he would learn from them and improve his strategy on the fly if his plan didn't work. In this show it just seems like he's coping with his failures of strategy and going "Oh but actually I didn't fail, because..." and he come s across as a fraud.

I think this is a misdiagnosis. The fraud in the show is that the good guys have invincible hero plot armor. Thrawn's strategies succeed, it's just that the heroes take no damage.

Even the battle where those two rebel pilots die on Hera's orders don't get a mention. Two people were killed under her command, and she faces no consequences for it. Leia bails her out off-screen.

Hera's in the right though, at least ethically. Yes, she violated procedure, but she should never have been held back in the first place and if she'd been allowed to just bring her fleet to the Denab System like she should have been, all the problems disappear.

However, that sequence does highlight how the show repeatedly draws on lore that it is not reasonable to expect the audience to know. The bit here being that Leia is one of Mon Mothma's major political opponents in the New Republic at this time. Leia was against disarmament and against allowing huge chunks of imperial infrastructure to remain in place, positions that Mon Mothma supported. It's not clear if the New Republic Senate has a party system or anything like that, and it's very poorly described, but it's fairly likely that Senator Xiono is part of Mon Mothma's faction and her political ally against Leia, even if Mon hates him personally and has great personal sympathy for Hera (who saved her life during Rebels).

This show is boring, badly written, contrived, and deserves to be so much better than it is.

The show is definitely the conclusive piece of evidence that Dave Filoni, while skilled as a showrunner and continuity monitor (and these are important things, especially in Star Wars), isn't a great writer, especially episode-to-episode, and he also appears to be massively overtaxed. Ahsoka very much has the feel of a show that needed two to three extra passes at a fairly early stage in the scripting process (though how much cost cutting pressures and the production schedule influenced all that is unknown), but that didn't get those because Dave was a combination of too busy and too unwilling to trust anyone else with his characters. And really, I don't even mind if he wants to keep Ahsoka for himself. He's earned the right to have a favorite toy in Star Wars, but he can't write every episode of Ahsoka while still writing huge chunks of Mandolorian, maintaining a heavy involvement in The Bad Batch, and overseeing other projects like Skeleton Crew and probably The Acolyte in some kind of executive capacity. There's only so much man under the hat.

Of course, this comes back to senior management again. If Dave Filoni and to a lesser but still very real extent Jon Favreau are being run ragged by having too much Star Wars on their plate, and it certainly seems they are, or if the scripts they turn in simply aren't up to snuff, the higher-ups at the studio need to tell them that. It's very well documented that during the production of Clone Wars George Lucas could and did exercise veto power over a wide range of decisions. While that might not always have been for the best, it at least put an extra set of highly invested eyes on the project. I don't believe that Kathleen Kennedy is exercising any significant oversight over Favreau and Filoni nor do I believe she could tell the difference between good and bad Star Wars stories if the scripts hit her in the face.

These sort of short season quasi-prestige genre shows are really high-difficulty, high-risk enterprises. They are very expensive to make while at the same time have little room to have any sort of bad stretch. A traditional 24-26 episode network season could easily shrug off a couple of bad episodes in a row, with even shows everyone considers classics like TNG having any number of crummy episodes and plenty of genre shows have whole bad seasons. These shows are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for every minute of footage, the margin for error is razor thin, which seems to mean that if you don't get it right the first time, there isn't a second time. Not limited to Star Wars either, there's been real problems for any number of franchises trying this.

Aside from trying to pivot back to animation, I'm not sure there's a real solution.

[Beelzebub1111]

Hera's in the right though, at least ethically. Yes, she violated procedure, but she should never have been held back in the first place and if she'd been allowed to just bring her fleet to the Denab System like she should have been, all the problems disappear..

Hard disagree on her making the right decision. Two people are dead because of her and no one cares. She brought her son into an active war zone where he could have been killed and no one cares. And in the end she had nothing to show for it. She took a needless risk going off on her own. There is a reason why command structures exist, and one of those reasons is so there's accountability for when things go wrong.

My big complaint is that two people are dead because of her actions to defy and they don't even get mentioned at all. You'd think that would weigh on her but no one seems to care to bring it up.

Not to mention Leia's clear nepotism and willingness to override democratic decisions post hoc what makes her better than Sheev?

[gbaji]

Hard disagree on her making the right decision. Two people are dead because of her and no one cares. She brought her son into an active war zone where he could have been killed and no one cares. And in the end she had nothing to show for it. She took a needless risk going off on her own. There is a reason why command structures exist, and one of those reasons is so there's accountability for when things go wrong.

To be fair, there's what a command structure should do, and there's the reality that this is an action adventure show where the heroes have to have the spotlight. No one actually wants to see a series where things are resolved by calling in the fleet and destroying the bad guys with massive firepower operated by unnamed NPCs.

The trick is finding the right balance between those two things. Which IMO, they failied to do here. The story would have been better if they'd never even mentioned bringing the fleet to Denab in the first place. If the plan had been to send a small scout group to check things out (which is totally also what a command structure would do), and that group encountered exactly what they encountered, there would be no problems at all with the story. The mere fact that Hera wanted to send the whole fleet, then got overruled, and then went off with her own small group anyway, artificially creates this problem. For... quite honestly... no actual storytelling value at all. Except, I suppose, to create more drama and tension between Hera and various Senators.

But honestly, that same drama and conflict could have been created easily via other means, without the somewhat hamfisted methods used in this series.

My big complaint is that two people are dead because of her actions to defy and they don't even get mentioned at all. You'd think that would weigh on her but no one seems to care to bring it up.

In a show like this, random unnamed characters have to die, so the audience knows "this is serious stuff, and our heroes could die!". Not sure how often we see a tear stained ceremony held for them on screen though. You are correct, that it might have been nice to have even a brief scene with Hera lamenting the consequences of her actions and the deaths of soldiers under her command as a result. And I'm sure such a scene probably exists on a cutting room floor somewhere, removed in favor of a long drawn out scene of Ahsoka and Sabine slow marching on a planet, and not talking, or flying in a ship, and not talking, or... well... a bunch of other long drawn out scenes in which no actual conversation or meaningful dialogue actually occurred.

To me, that's the biggest problem I have with this series. It just seems like no one taught these folks any sort of time management. The balance in terms of screen time, infodumps, character development, plot development, etc, just seems.... off. Badly off. Huge amounts of screen time wasted on nothing, while it's clear that other meaningful elements and components of the story were left on the scrapheap, leaving the audience to guess and fill in the blanks. The resulting story just felt... Hollow.

Not to mention Leia's clear nepotism and willingness to override democratic decisions post hoc what makes her better than Sheev?

Well, which highlights another problem with that whole artificial command structure drama (which we still really don't have any sort of payoff for). If Leia really is in charge of the military, and has the sole authorization to do this if she wanted, why didn't she originally? The idea of not doing the right thing when it would have really been useful to do so, but then coming in to "save the day" later, when the only thing saved isn't the galaxy, but one persons reputation and career, just seems like a waste. Why didn't Hera immediately go to Leia and get permission to do what she wanted to do in the first place? Why the post-hoc permission after the fact, when it had no real benefit except CYA?

It just felt like a complete knee-jerk plot contrivance. The audience is supposed to be all worried about Hera due to the debacle at Denab, things look grim, she's "gonna get it", and then we have this miracle save at the 11th hour. Yay! Hera is saved! Oh wait... Um... Why not actually provide that support ahead of time, and save us all the drama in the first place? The answer: The writers wrote this for the drama. They wanted Hera to have to go out on a limb to try to "do the right thing", and then wanted her to appear to suffer consequences for this, and then wanted a dramatic save at the last second. See. They get the audience to worry that the good guys can't stop the bad guys, and then be relieved that "the hero" goes and does something anyway, then worried again when things go poorly, and then more worried when "the hero" is going to suffer for this, and then relieved again when a miracle saves the hero. And we toss in a well known character to boot! This is like right there on page 107 of the screenwriters handbook, so that's what they did.

Blah! Terrible. I hate hate hate, when writers contrive drama for it's own sake. Doubly so when it's so obviously faked.

[Errorname]

To be fair, there's what a command structure should do, and there's the reality that this is an action adventure show where the heroes have to have the spotlight. No one actually wants to see a series where things are resolved by calling in the fleet and destroying the bad guys with massive firepower operated by unnamed NPCs.

I mean, speak for yourself. Fleet battles rule.

[AMX]

I think the point of the pointless drama is to make the New Republic look corrupt and ineffective, as setup for the Sequel Trilogy.
So I wouldn't expect any sort of payoff from it at all.

[ecarden]

I think the point of the pointless drama is to make the New Republic look corrupt and ineffective, as setup for the Sequel Trilogy.
So I wouldn't expect any sort of payoff from it at all.

I mean, we straight up know Xiono's still around and a Senator/**** at the time of TFA, so there's not going to be any substantive payoff to that thread...

[Mechalich]

Well, which highlights another problem with that whole artificial command structure drama (which we still really don't have any sort of payoff for). If Leia really is in charge of the military, and has the sole authorization to do this if she wanted, why didn't she originally? The idea of not doing the right thing when it would have really been useful to do so, but then coming in to "save the day" later, when the only thing saved isn't the galaxy, but one persons reputation and career, just seems like a waste. Why didn't Hera immediately go to Leia and get permission to do what she wanted to do in the first place? Why the post-hoc permission after the fact, when it had no real benefit except CYA?

It just felt like a complete knee-jerk plot contrivance. The audience is supposed to be all worried about Hera due to the debacle at Denab, things look grim, she's "gonna get it", and then we have this miracle save at the 11th hour. Yay! Hera is saved! Oh wait... Um... Why not actually provide that support ahead of time, and save us all the drama in the first place? The answer: The writers wrote this for the drama. They wanted Hera to have to go out on a limb to try to "do the right thing", and then wanted her to appear to suffer consequences for this, and then wanted a dramatic save at the last second. See. They get the audience to worry that the good guys can't stop the bad guys, and then be relieved that "the hero" goes and does something anyway, then worried again when things go poorly, and then more worried when "the hero" is going to suffer for this, and then relieved again when a miracle saves the hero. And we toss in a well known character to boot! This is like right there on page 107 of the screenwriters handbook, so that's what they did.

Agreed that the whole situation is absolutely a mess. Coming off of Corellia, at the end of Episode Two, Hera has actionable intelligence as to the location of an armed and dangerous Imperial remnant faction that has been stealing a large quantity of military grade materiel that was supposed to be either repurposed or scrapped - the hyperdrive core that she observes being hauled away is from a Super Star Destroyer (which presumably means an Executor-class dreadnaught) - that one item is worth millions of credits all by itself, it's like watching someone carry off the nuclear reactor for an aircraft carrier, kind of a big deal. Also, these Imperials were dedicated enough to try to kill her personally while shouting 'long live the Empire,' and they are operating in the company of an apparent Imperial Inquisitor - which is kind of a big deal (yes, Marrok's already dead or something, but they don't know that). Oh, and Ahsoka sees Shin's face as they escape, meaning she ought to be able to match her against security footage from the attack on the Vesper that freed Morgan Elsbeth.

It should be well within Hera's authority to dispatch, if not the entire fleet, at assets substantial enough to guarantee apprehension of the escaped transport vessel - which is armed and beefy, so at least a capital ship. Sure, maybe she should be obligated to brief the Senate afterwards, but she's following a tracker signal, and as far as she knows the target could leave the Denab system at any time (which, actually, the show reveals is what happened, since there's no sign of Transport CT-05 when Ahsoka and Sabine reach the Denab system).

And even if the New Republic's command structure is sufficiently dysfunctional such that Hera needs Senate permission to remove her forces from garrison duty despite actionable intelligence, none of the Senators offer any sort of real, practical reason why the fleet shouldn't be sent to the Denab system to take a look. The fleet, so far as we can see from the show, is just station-keeping. It's not otherwise busy. There's no reason why some part of it can't be sent out for an investigation under the guise of 'training.' Now, there could be a reason why Hera can't dispatch the fleet to Denab on her own authority and why the Senator's don't want to send the fleet there. For example, if the system were in Hutt Space. The Hutts would, presumably, take exception to a New Republic fleet just roaming around one of their systems even if it is, as the show seems to indicate, uninhabited. However, since the show later has the Senate direct the fleet to go to Denab anyway to snag Hera, clearly that's not the case.

Now, I think what the whole New Republic Senate bit is intended to show is how one faction in the Senate (the Populists), led by Xiono, is willing to let Imperial remnants get away with basically anything they want so long as he can say peace is preserved while another faction, led by Leia (the Centrists), supports a more proactive approach. Saving Hera, therefore, is supposed to represent Leia burning valuable political capital as a partial explanation for her ultimate failure to save the New Republic from itself. There's two big problems with doing this though. First, it's not going to matter for another twenty years in-universe, and second, unless they're either an inveterate Wookieepedia browser like me or have read the novel Bloodline no one in the audience is going to have the faintest idea that any of that is a thing.

Now, I'm quite sure Dave Filoni has read Bloodline, and also the various production notes from TFA and TLJ that apparently informed that novel. The key disconnect is that he seems to be unaware that the overwhelming majority of his audience has not, and never will. Probably this sort of thing has been a feature of his writing for a long time, but it hurts Ahsoka the most because the lack of audience context is extreme. TCW, Rebels, and even the Bad Batch all happen within the course of much larger events of which the audience at least understands the overall contours: Republic vs. CIS, Rebellion vs. Empire, escaping the new Empire. 9 ABY, by contrast, is this messy moment where the audience understanding of state of the galaxy is very limited because its drawn from a bunch of Disney canon novels that simply don't have wide exposure (okay, and from Battlefront II I guess, but that's pretty bottom of the barrel as Star Wars games go).

[ecarden]

And even if the New Republic's command structure is sufficiently dysfunctional such that Hera needs Senate permission to remove her forces from garrison duty despite actionable intelligence, none of the Senators offer any sort of real, practical reason why the fleet shouldn't be sent to the Denab system to take a look. The fleet, so far as we can see from the show, is just station-keeping. It's not otherwise busy. There's no reason why some part of it can't be sent out for an investigation under the guise of 'training.' Now, there could be a reason why Hera can't dispatch the fleet to Denab on her own authority and why the Senator's don't want to send the fleet there. For example, if the system were in Hutt Space. The Hutts would, presumably, take exception to a New Republic fleet just roaming around one of their systems even if it is, as the show seems to indicate, uninhabited. However, since the show later has the Senate direct the fleet to go to Denab anyway to snag Hera, clearly that's not the case.

I mean...the main reason they don't agree to send the fleet to Denab (besides the whole 'setting up the NR to fall apart in two decades thing') is because Hera literally never makes any of the arguments you do. She never connects Denab to anything, offers no evidence and instead focuses on the one thing which she 100% can't prove, that this is about Thrawn. It's honestly impressive how they avoid presenting any actual argument for what Hera wants to do.

Now, to be fair, the decision to have Mon Mothma be in this meeting and the pre-determined result puts them in a trap. If Hera does the sensible thing and lays out her case as you did, then Mon Mothma basically can't go along with the 'we do nothing' plan. So, Hera has to do a **** job of making her case, so Mon Mothma can seem reasonable, if wrong, when she goes along with it.

The obvious solution of 'don't have this be Mon Mothma and Xiono or come up with an actual reason to potentially say no' wouldn't have had the sweet Mon Mothma cameo, or the Resistance call back. Like, if you make it so Denab is, as you suggest, in Hutt Space, or some neutral third party's space and give her fleet something it's actually supposed to be doing (like, say, suppressing piracy, or being a fleet in being to ensure that the pirates/Hutts/whatever don't raid the base below) then there's a genuine debate to be had about what the best course of action is. If you make it not Mon Mothma, then you can have the senators/governors/generals just shrug and go 'sorry, we've got to protect Senator X's trade routes, we can't send ships out to chase down some pirates or smugglers.'

Like, it's genuinely weird that Mon Mothma is so heavily involved in this at all, as she is literally the leader of a galactic power. Doesn't she have stuff to do?

Now, I think what the whole New Republic Senate bit is intended to show is how one faction in the Senate (the Populists), led by Xiono, is willing to let Imperial remnants get away with basically anything they want so long as he can say peace is preserved while another faction, led by Leia (the Centrists), supports a more proactive approach. Saving Hera, therefore, is supposed to represent Leia burning valuable political capital as a partial explanation for her ultimate failure to save the New Republic from itself. There's two big problems with doing this though. First, it's not going to matter for another twenty years in-universe, and second, unless they're either an inveterate Wookieepedia browser like me or have read the novel Bloodline no one in the audience is going to have the faintest idea that any of that is a thing.

Now, I'm quite sure Dave Filoni has read Bloodline, and also the various production notes from TFA and TLJ that apparently informed that novel. The key disconnect is that he seems to be unaware that the overwhelming majority of his audience has not, and never will. Probably this sort of thing has been a feature of his writing for a long time, but it hurts Ahsoka the most because the lack of audience context is extreme. TCW, Rebels, and even the Bad Batch all happen within the course of much larger events of which the audience at least understands the overall contours: Republic vs. CIS, Rebellion vs. Empire, escaping the new Empire. 9 ABY, by contrast, is this messy moment where the audience understanding of state of the galaxy is very limited because its drawn from a bunch of Disney canon novels that simply don't have wide exposure (okay, and from Battlefront II I guess, but that's pretty bottom of the barrel as Star Wars games go).

I really don't think it's about internal NR politics. My read is it's about two things:

1) Continuing his trend of trying to post hoc justify the collapse of the NR by saying 'it always sucked and was disfunctional, kept alive only by the efforts of a handful of heroes'

2) Set up the classic 'follow orders/be lawful or be good' conflict and show that Hera is still a hero, doing the right thing despite all risk to her self or her career.

The problem is that the first is just as dumb as the politics point, given we're decades away from its collapse and the second fails because her total unwillingness to actually present her case means that it doesn't feel like a conflict, it feels like Poor Communication Kills (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.p...unicationKills).

[Mechalich]

The problem is that the first is just as dumb as the politics point, given we're decades away from its collapse and the second fails because her total unwillingness to actually present her case means that it doesn't feel like a conflict, it feels like Poor Communication Kills (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.p...unicationKills).

Agreed. It makes me wonder about Dave Filoni's writing process. I suspect that what he did is write a bunch of big set pieces first and then retroactively tried to spin out some connective tissue to tie them together. I recall saying earlier that this reminds me of late-season GoT because the showrunners behind that disaster openly admitted to that as their process. The problem is that this process has extreme pitfalls, especially in the context of an incredibly expensive live-action show where there are no takebacks. For example, they can't reshoot Hera's big confrontation with the Senate and rework the dialogue to advance a decent argument if someone in points out after seeing the cut that it doesn't make any sense. The money just isn't there.

Personally that's why I'm coming around to an 'adapt, don't create' view for these kinds of shows. With the costs being what they are, it needs to be known that the story will work beforehand. There's just too many traps otherwise.