That's a fair assessment, the action sequences are excellent, but the story line and dialogue is just really clumsy.
I'm really curious on how they're going to sum this story line up with the season finale next week, and frankly no guarantee that there will be a season two.
Are we going to get a true Sith Master reveal. Is Qimir going to die? How are the Jedi going to match up to Lore especially with Mundi leading the We would know if the Jedi had returned after their 1000 year absence line in the Phantom Menace.
Also, will Mundi still get away with not paying child support due to his religious beliefs?
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
I gave up on Star Wars a good while ago. Just curious if anyone can tell if there's been a ret-con to get rid of the stupid midichlorian thing?
"How did you get the Force?"
"Toilet seat."
Legends EU pretty much ignored it for the longest time, but they had other zany theories.
Everyone could use the force, they just needed to be trained, which kind of made sense in a way because the force penetrates us (eww) and binds all life together.
Then it was a brain abnormality.
At some point, Palpatine in the Dark Empire series was just zapping the crap out of his servants to give them force power.
I get it that Lucas needed to find a way to make anakin the most powerful Jedi ever and needed a measurement to do it.
But they made the M-count such a big part of the story of the cloning of Palpatine in the prequel series that it became a bit silly.
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Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
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Legends EU pretty much ignored it for the longest time, but they had other zany theories.
Everyone could use the force, they just needed to be trained, which kind of made sense in a way because the force penetrates us (eww) and binds all life together.
Then it was a brain abnormality.
At some point, Palpatine in the Dark Empire series was just zapping the crap out of his servants to give them force power.
I get it that Lucas needed to find a way to make anakin the most powerful Jedi ever and needed a measurement to do it.
But they made the M-count such a big part of the story of the cloning of Palpatine in the prequel series that it became a bit silly.
Should have just done it the old fashioned way. Have him kick the most ass.
I've always said that all they needed to do is make Anakin older and more mistreated as a slave in the Phantom Menace, and the Jedi witness him freeing the slaves and his mother in a fit of rage and power, and they decide that he's too powerful not to be fixed by the Jedi.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
I get it that Lucas needed to find a way to make anakin the most powerful Jedi ever and needed a measurement to do it.
They could have hand waved it all away by just saying experienced Force users could feel latent abilities of other force sensitive people or something.
I stopped watching after that terrible witch coven episode, 3 I think? Came in here to see if it was worth catching up with it again, but apparently not
They could have hand waved it all away by just saying experienced Force users could feel latent abilities of other force sensitive people or something.
True, but they would have had to establish that way back in the OT.
How I would have done Phantom Menace to address no midicholorians
Spoiler!
I would have like a scenario where Anakin was a teenager on Tatooine, and was a slave with his mother. But unlike in Phantom Menace where they seemed to live a good life under Wattoo, and had food and all of that. That they both worked in a mine or a factory, and Wattoo was cruel and casually sadistic like a Slave owner would be.
When our hero's arrive, they feel a disturbance in the force, but they don't know how strong it is, but Qui-Gon follows it, and they run into Anakin and his mother in slave housing which is absolutely the poops.
Anakin realizes they're Jedi because he can feel them too, like Ezra with Kanaan. Anakin asks for help, and gets the usual Jedi, we can't interfere we are on a mission, sorry. Which angers Anakin.
Of course the next day, Shmi does something wrong at the mine, and Anakin reaches his limits, and flies into a Rage and decides to save his mother and free the slaves.
Of course the Jedi feel this explosion of force energy, and its tinged with the Dark Side and they race to the mine or factory just in time to see Anakin taking on a bunch of over seers and he kills them through the force, like just instinctively stops them from breathing. He then goes after Wattoo who is beating his mother, and Anakin starts to force choke him, and then casually snaps his neck and throws him off a cliff.
The Jedi arrive and calm him down, but sadly Shmi dies in his arm. Qui-gon explains his gifts and says that he can do great good as a Jedi and that they are going to free the rest of the slaves and take Anakin to Coruscant to present him to the Jedi Council
On the trip back, after of course the confrontation with Maul, Obi-Wan poops on Qui-gon and basically says that the Jedi Council will never agree to train Anakin because of his age, and that he used the Dark Side so casually and did it instinctively. Qui-gon says that he believes that the boy is the chosen one, and that if the Jedi don't train him, that he could become a force of great darkness in the Galaxy, and the Jedi can make him whole. Kenobi insists that what they should do is simply lock him up when they get home.
Of course now this solves the whole weird way older Padme Pedo vibe from the first movie.
After Anakin meets with the council, we get the same argument from Mace that the boy can't be trained, he's too old, had too many attachments and tapped into the dark side like it was water. But Yoda cautions him, and that it will be decided later.
Then things unfold like they did on Naboo, but it now is a little less silly, Anakin who has flown load lifters, and skyhoppers before on Tattooine joins the battle and blows up the Trade Federation ship, but he taps into the Light Side of the Force to do it, and he saves his friends.
Qui-gon still dies, and Anakin mourns the death, and Kenobi softens realizing after talking with Anakin that he has had very little given to him in his life, and that he did have attachments, but maybe that's not a bad thing, and that if the Jedi just lock him away or don't train him that he can become a real threat, and that with his power and no father that maybe Anakin needs to be trained and the Jedi need him, reflecting Palpatine's line to Anakin in AOTC that the Jedi need him more then they know.
After the victory the scene with Palpatine telling Anakin that he will watch his career with great interest. But you can add on in a private conversation where Palpatine tells Anakin that he's there as a friend, and to be weary of the Jedi as they will never fully accept his power, and they will be jealous of it.
The last scene is a little more poignant as Anakin tells Padme (who's like literally the same age as him) that he is off to train as a Jedi and that he will remember her kindness to him.
Now we have a really good reason for the Jedi to believe that Anakin is powerful, and that he is clearly the chosen one because the use of the Force comes naturally to him and that's the Dark and the Light, but we also see the quick temper and his desire to protect those that are closest to him.
Of course George wouldn't do this because it would be dark, and violent, and not have a cute kid saying that spinning is a neat trick.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
True, but they would have had to establish that way back in the OT.
Doesn't Vader say something along the lines of "I sense a power I've not felt since..." in A New Hope? You can easily spin that into the same line of thinking.
Ok, I thought this was a pretty good finale, whether we get a second season or not, they certainly planted deep roots for that.
Spoiler!
We finally got the confession that Osha and Mae needed to hear, as Sol confessed to the murder of the girls mother, but he continued with the delusion that he did what he thought was right, and that he was protecting the girls. Frankly, the girls were in no danger until the Jedi interfered. The truth is what we know, and that is that Sol was obsessed with having a Padawan, and he literally craved attachement to the twins.
In the end he confessed and we got the switch. Mae, wanted him to confess his sins to the Jedi Council and pay for his crimes. Osha basically wanted revenge, and we got the switch of the Acolyte, as Osha agreed to become the apprentice of Qimir in exchange for giving her sister a way out.
And then we saw through the episode that the Jedi really are fairly corrupt. as Venestra lied to the Supreme Chancellor and a committee of senators, putting the blame on Sol for the murders and death, and then stated that he had killed himself.
Frankly the Sith understand the Jedi better then themselves, as Palpatine 100 years older will tell Anakin that the Jedi feared above everything else, losing their power.
The Senator said it best when it came to the Jedi, that they were an unchecked power, posing as a religion, a delusional cult that seeks to control the uncontrollable. And while that's an apt description, he missed the truth of all this. The Jedi believe that they are above all others, and that what they do no matter what the cost is the right thing to do. Its actually a very Sith like sentiment, as the Sith believe that any act of violence or evil is justifiable in the pursuit of a higher purpose, which is in their own twisted sense gaining control over themselves, their destiny and their power so they can use it to bring order and peace to the Galaxy.
So where does that leave us? We got cameo's by what appears to be two heavy hitters. At the end of the episode Venestra approaches Yoda, I believe to confess what she has done, which makes Yoda complicit in the great Jedi conspiracy that Palpatine used effectively to finish Anakins turn to the Darkside.
One thing that we do know is simply this. We can't trust Venestra, she's proven that she's easy with the lies. So when she says that Qimir was her Padawn til he turned to evil, we can't really be all that sure that she's telling the truth. One thing that's truly interesting, is that we can't really say that any of Qimir's actions were truly evil even in the excellent episode 5, the Jedi attacked first. The Jedi that he did actually kill, well the wookie participated in the death of the girls mother, and he deserved justice. Sending Mae to kill the other missions, was in a twisted sense one of Justice.
We also got a glimpse of a yellow eyed hooded Muun from the looks at him that could very well be Darth Plaguies the wise. The question for season two is simply. Is he involved with Qimir, is he a secret master, who will remain hidden from Osha? Or is he hunting Qimir as a threat to the Sith rule of 2.
What we do know is that Plageuis will eventually become the Master of the greatest of all Sith Palpatine.
Overall I think this was a strong episode, the action scenes were good, and for the most part the dialogue and the way they tied things up was well done.
It would be worth a watch in season two to see what happens to the seeds planted in this episode.
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Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
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At the end of the day out of the 8 episodes two of them were really good to decent, that was episode 5 because of the mass murder of Jedi, and last nights. But its hard to make up for 8 episodes that were a real struggle.
I expect there will be a movement for a season 2.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
The bar has been set exceptionally low, so hopefully if they do a season 2, it will be a lot better writing-wise. I enjoyed Manny the most out of the entire show like a few others have echoed here, but I honestly wonder if my standards have been lowered because I didn't find myself hating any episode except for maybe the second flashback episode from a different perspective. Totally unnecessary.
Yeah I felt that ultimately the show overvalued the significance of its core mystery and the payoff didn't match the buildup. The characters were mildly interesting at best and I didn't really care that much about most of them.
It had its moments, there was some pretty cool stuff. Also agree that Manny was great (which is interesting since everyone also seemed to like Baylan from Ahsoka).
Maybe I just need to accept that these TV series (Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel, etc) are much like the novels from those IPs.. the quality is just going to be low because that's all they have to do to get the engagement they want. The really good ones happen just by random chance.
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