Clone Wars -- "Together Again" (Ep. 7.08)

-- You can change who you are, but you cannot run from yourself.

May the 4th be with you...

This arc, what I'm going to call the Trace arc, comes to a close. It didn't redeem itself; it just transitioned into something else.

On the surface, this adventure with Trace and Rafa serves only to put Ahsoka in a place where she can run into Bo-Katan and get caught up in the Mandalorian mess dealing with Darth Maul. And that's fine.
Sort of.
The issue here is that if what they wanted to do was get Ahsoka involved with the far-reaching Maul story line, they could have done it more directly. Having Ahsoka crash onto Trace's landing platform (three episodes ago) is just as arbitrary as having her cross paths with Bo-Katan. They could have gone directly to the pivotal story rather than futz around for four episodes doing nothing.

Except...

Except it seems that they wanted Ahsoka to have an epiphany about her Jedi-ness, and they used the convoluted story with Trace and Rafa to get her there. Not that they couldn't have brought Ahsoka to the same place with any number of stories, but I do understand the appeal of using Trace and the whole idea of 1313 to bring Ahsoka to the mental space where Rafa could say to her, "You're the Jedi we always hoped Jedi would be," and Ahsoka would accept it and take back the Jedi mantle, just from outside of the Council.

Sure, I may be jumping the gun on that, but...
Ahsoka goes off with Bo-Katan to deal with a Sith issue, something that's not really her responsibility anymore. Unless it is.
And I know where she's headed, development-wise, since I've already watched Rebels.

I don't know. Maybe I would have enjoyed this arc more if Trace and Rafa weren't so stereotypical and the plot device of not-using-your-powers not so cliche. I do like when we get to see other bits of the SWU we don't usually see, and we got to see both Kessel and the Pyke home world during this arc. I just wish the story had been more engaging.

"You and I were always good, good until she showed up."

"We have to trust each other."

"You're going back to help her so you can one-up her?!"

Rebels: "Heroes of Mandalore: Part Two" (Ep. 4.02)

-- "A Mandalorian with a jet pack is a weapon."

This is an episode that is a bit difficult for me to review.

On the one hand, it's a fine and good episode in the same vein as all of Rebels, all of Star Wars, in fact. It's exciting in all the ways Star Wars is exciting.

However, it fails in the same way much of Star Wars does in really making the characters have real stakes in the game. The most notable exception to this was Rogue One.

Maybe I've said this before, but Lucas' original idea for Jedi was that the Falcon wouldn't make it out of the Death Star explosion at the end of the movie, hence Han's "funny feeling" comment before they go off to Endor. But Lucas had a change of heart and decided that that would end the trilogy on too much of a down note, and he wanted it to be a full-on happy ending, so Lando and the Falcon come spewing out of the fiery explosion of the Death Star.

In much the same way, the tragedy at the end of part of of this two-part story is rolled back as we discover right away that Sabine's mother and brother did not die from the Empire's powerful new weapon. Just everyone else did. I feel it robs the story of its emotional impact. But I suppose it is a show that is supposed to be kid friendly, which is why so many of the stormtroopers throughout the series escape with their lives rather than being killed by the rebels. You can't have your heroes indiscriminately killing the bad guys.

Yeah, I'm in a bit of a mood after watching this one.

And I haven't talked about the deus ex machina ending.

I'm also not going to.

bah

"Mandalorian? I don't want to be a Mandalorian."

"It's time for you to prove your loyalty, not just to your family, but to all of Mandalore."

"It was a series of bad decisions, okay?"

"Don't move!"

"Oh, I'm movin'."