Latest ‘Ahsoka’ Episode Full Of Inconsistencies, Shoddy Writing, And Ends With Major Nostalgia Bait
The latest episode of Disney Star Wars’ Ahsoka “Fallen Jedi” features a number of inconsistencies, ends with major nostalgia bait, but is the most entertaining episode of the entire series due to the lightsaber duel between Ahsoka and Baylon Skoll, but that’s not saying much.
In “Fallen Jedi,” the entire plot revolves around Ahsoka Tano and Sabine Wren attempting to locate Morgan Elsbeth and Baylan Skoll’s ground base in order to secure the map on planet Seatos that was taken from Sabine by Shin Hati and allegedly leads to the location of Grand Admiral Thrawn.
Aside from the entire idea of the map being nonsensical, writer Dave Filoni decides to retcon previous episodes of the series in order to try and increase the tension. Previously, Filoni made it abundantly clear that Elsbeth and company had plenty of time to use the map to locate the precise coordinates to make the jump to hyperspace. In fact, Hati and Marrok were even dispatched to Correllia after they used the map to locate where they believe Thrawn is located. All of that happened in the second episode.
However, in this episode Elsbeth has not figured out the precise coordinates and thus Baylan Skoll and his forces must defend the map and the encampment from Sabine Wren and Ahsoka Tano so they have enough time for a droid to decipher the coordinates. It’s extremely poor writing.
On top of this, Ahsoka Tano and Sabine Wren’s motivations to acquire the map don’t even make any sense. They have clearly discovered that Elsbeth has built a ship that can travel to another galaxy. So they reason that they have to either secure the map so they can make the jump and rescue Ezra Bridger or destroy it in order to prevent Elsbeth from making the jump and saving Thrawn.
The idea that they would need to get the map relies on them assuming that Elsbeth and company still need it and have not already gotten the coordinates for the hyperspace jump. They would have been better suited attempting to fix their ship and trying to smuggle themselves onto Elsbeth’s ship. However, Filoni is unable to do this because he chose to have them fly out by themselves. Thus there is no distraction that would allow them to infiltrate the ship.
Speaking of that, while Hera said she could not go and help them in the previous episode, she has apparently changed her mind and gathered up a number of X-wings to go to the Denab system with her. It’s unclear why she was only able to get five X-wings and didn’t just deploy the entire fleet.
In fact, when she’s asked about leaving in the Ghost without authorization, she tells one of her officer’s, “Watch me.” When he says there’s a meeting of the general staff and asks what he should tell them, she tells him, “You’ll think of something.” Then when her son questions her about why he has to listen when she doesn’t, she tells him he can ignore orders when he becomes a general.
After Ahsoka, Sabine, and Huyang are ambushed at their ship by a number of faceless guards and they easily dispatch them, Ahsoka and Sabine set off to find the ground base while Huyang continues to repair the ship and is ordered by Ahsoka to focus on repairing the communications terminal so they can attempt to contact Hera.
However, this makes absolutely no sense given the previous episode made it abundantly clear that Elsbeth and company were jamming transmissions throughout the entire system. Something they discovered in hyperspace before they even dropped out of it. Huyang informed them, “We’ve entered the Denab system, all comm transmissions are being jammed.”
This is completely ignored in this episode as Huyang eventually restores the communications terminal and is able to get in contact with Hera.
Hera and her X-wing pilots are easily able to communicate with each other as well without switching to a more local frequency or finding a way to get around their communications being jammed.
Not only does Ahsoka order Huyang to focus on repairing the communications terminal, but Huyang offers his own advice to Ahsoka and Sabine. He specifically tells them to “stay together. You always did better that way, in my opinion.”
This advice and piece of dialogue is then completely ignored when Ahsoka and Sabine come across Marrok and Shin Hati. Ahsoka squares off with Marrok while Shin Hati pursues Sabine Wren. It makes absolutely no sense for Ahsoka to leave Sabine to face off against Hati by herself given she was just impaled by the dark Jedi. Nevertheless, we are expected to now believe that Sabine has somehow vastly improved in the time it took them to travel through hyperspace to the Denab system. It’s a farce.
Not only is this a farce, but Sabine does indeed get the upper hand over Shin Hati by using her Mandalorian gadgets to disarm Hati. However, this is only believable given Hati again chooses to not use the Force albeit she does use it one time, throwing Sabine into a tree. However, after that she just uses her lightsaber. It makes the entire duel unbelievable and completely removes immersion if you still had any at this point.
As for Ahsoka, she faces off against Marrok and is eventually able to defeat him. It’s appears to be revealed that he’s some kind of creation of Elsbeth as after he is chopped down green gas billows out of him similar to Elsbeth’s Nightsister magic.
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The highlight of the episode comes when Ahsoka eventually makes it to the camp and faces off against Baylan Skoll. The lightsaber duel is dramatic and the way actor Ray Stevenson brutally wields the lightsaber is quite entertaining, with heavy, brutal chops. But he’s also nimble enough to parry and evade Tano’s thrusts and attacks.
While the lightsaber duel is entertaining, again, its entire premise is ridiculous. Baylan is supposed to be defending the map while Ahsoka is trying to stop it. You would think the first thing Ahsoka would do would be to try and use the Force to toss the map off the pedestal it’s sitting on. No such thought appears to cross her mind as she readies her lightsaber.
Eventually, Ahsoka is able to get to the map. However, she somehow burns herself. One has to assume it is Elsbeth’s Nightsister magic. This wound weakens Ahsoka and allows Baylan to drive her to the edge of the cliff.
At this point, Sabine arrives from the forest and has taken hold of the map and pointed her blaster at it, threatening to destroy it if Skoll does not release Ahsoka. Skoll completely ignores it as he should, another highlight. He swings his saber upwards and sends Ahsoka falling off the cliff into the water.
With Ahsoka out of the way, Sabine’s threat to destroy the map is ridiculous. Baylan takes an interesting approach to talk Sabine out of firing her blaster rather than just using the Force to take the map away. It sets up a dynamic where he might take her on as an apprentice and further fuels a rivalry between her and Shin Hati. It might be an interesting premise if it was a different character rather than Sabine and was executed better.
With the map in hand, Baylan then places it back on the pedestal. However, unlike the previous times when the pedestal was activated by Elsbeth’s Nightsister magic, it just reactivates with Baylan physically placing it there. It’s a minor gripe, but inconsistent.
Yet, we had seen Sabine activate the map previously and locate the other galaxy’s route even before it was placed on the pedestal by Elsbeth. So who really knows how it works. It’s likely Dave Filoni doesn’t even know given the inconsistences.
With Sabine captured, Hera and her X-wings attempt to block Elsbeth’s ship, which oddly enough had somehow entered into Seatos’ atmosphere between this episode and the last.
There’s a shot of the planet planet rising up out of atmosphere and even Elsbeth comments on it at one point. It appears this is just some kind of aesthetic shot they wanted. It should have been edited out because it makes absolutely no sense.
Nevertheless, Hera and her squad attempt to act as a blockade to Elsbeth’s ship. She ignores them fires up the hyperdrive and makes the jump. This moment does appear to be a specific reaction to Rian Johnson’s hyperspace ramming as seen in The Last Jedi. The X-wing’s aren’t destroyed, but the force of the ship making the hyperspace jump sends Hera’s squad sprawling and two X-wings are destroyed.
After these two X-wings are destroyed, Filoni decides to nostalgia bait viewers with a piece of truly cringe dialogue. Hera’s son tells her, “Mom. I’ve got a bad feeling.” While I’m sure some viewers will be ecstatic that he’s apparently showing his Force sensitivity. The way it’s delivered and when it’s delivered after seeing two pilots get massacred makes it feel emotionally hollow.
Finally, the episode ends with Ahsoka somehow being transported to the World Between Worlds. Who knows how she got there, who cares, because somehow Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker is there with her in the flesh as well.
The keys, they are a jangling.
While this episode features some decent choreography in the lightsaber duel between Ahsoka and Baylan Skoll, the rest of the episode is completely vapid and plagued with shoddy writing in both the dialogue aspect as well as with the plot. It ignores basic facts it presented in previous episodes.
Not only does it ignore these facts, but it expects viewers to ignore those facts as well to buy into the entire premise. This episode is the epitome of Disney Star Wars.
What did you think of the latest episode of Ahsoka?
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