This finale episode is a mildly amusing Star-Wars'ed homage to The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, even down to the plot, although in this case I see Thrawn as "The Lion" (a more devilish one this time instead of CS Lewis' god-like one), "The Jedi" (and Huyang) being all the kids heroically running around trying to save the galaxy, obviously Morgan Elsbeth was "The Witch", and finally "The Wardrobe" was the conduit back into the 'real world / known galaxy'. There were various other parallels in concept as well.
It also had a very "The Empire Strikes Back" vibe, in that the the 'rebels' have effectively lost the battle (but not the war) with Thrawn and his Empirical ambitions, and have been left very much on the back foot, unable to prevent another all-out war. Again, it would seem that "the only hope" lies with one young Jedi Knight (Ezra, aka D'Artagnan) and a hugely compromised, and still woefully complacent, New Republic, who will effectively be the new Rebel Alliance. The differences this time round will be that there will be (if The Three Musketeers make it home in time) four highly skilled (sort of) Jedi Knights and (hopefully) a fully reunited Mandalorian army to back them up. There may still be other former Jedi Knights who will come out of hiding to aid the fight, if necessary, perhaps even Luke Skywalker. This is all conjecture at this point of course, as this finale has left all of these balls very high in the air, along with whatever nefarious plans that Baylan Skoll and Shin Hati are separately plotting in the unsuspecting galaxy in which they find themselves.
Overall, I felt that this finale was pretty good, apart from the plethora of unanswered questions that have been present through much of this first season, and there were some shockingly low-quality scenes. Thrawn knew that the platoon of troopers were basically just lambs to the slaughter that wouldn't slow Ashoka and crew down for long. That's fairly standard Star Wars stuff, but how in the name of Luke Skywalker did three lightsabre-wielding, Force-strong Knights manage to kill the entire platoon without having dismembered/beheaded a single one, especially given that such battles have previously resulted in an entire stack of severed hands/arms/heads? This seemed like a convenient plot contrivance so that it didn't lessen the impact of them all rising from the floor to fight again. The undead troopers initially seemed like a good idea, but was sadly a very wasted opportunity. The Night Sisters could surely have infused a generous dose of anger, speed and relentlessness into them, but all they really seemed to be were just standard troopers brought back to life, exactly as they were (apart from the green glow) as nothing more than another pointless delaying tactic. If they had been more zombie-like - in a fast, nasty, formidable way like in 28 Days Later, not the stereotypical 1960's style slow, lumbering, stupid zombies like in The Walking Dead - they would at least have appeared to be more scary, and a genuine threat to the Knights. Another thing that seemed too convenient was Sabine's swift enhancement of her Force manipulation abilities. Perhaps the genuine threats to life (her own and then Ezra's) helped her to focus her mind to be able to make the leap from not even being able to pull a coffee cup towards her, to being able to Force-push Ezra, mid-Force-leap, into the Star Destroyer. Convenient, but at least credible, unlike the whole trooper thing.
Thrawn was very good in this, masterfully maintaining his cool, calm and patient exterior whilst clearly seething at the predictable incompetence of his forces - especially the Night Sisters - in their efforts to stop Ashoka, Sabine and Ezra from getting close to him, and accepting minor tactical losses in the pursuit of his primary goal . I'd forgotten until he spoke directly to her that he and Ashoka had never actually faced off against one another. His likening of her to Anakin - her Master - was both complimentary and insightful. What would it take/how easy would it be for her to fall to The Dark Side, just like Anakin did? That maybe throws another ball into the air - will this somehow happen or not? Probably just an attempt at a bit of psychological manipulation, but it throws the possibility out there.
This whole season appears to have been about very complex plot and character building in preparation for either a second season or a whopper of a film. This is fine by me, but please don't keep us all waiting for too long...
Review by TygerboiBlockedParent2023-10-07T21:47:17Z
This finale episode is a mildly amusing Star-Wars'ed homage to The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, even down to the plot, although in this case I see Thrawn as "The Lion" (a more devilish one this time instead of CS Lewis' god-like one), "The Jedi" (and Huyang) being all the kids heroically running around trying to save the galaxy, obviously Morgan Elsbeth was "The Witch", and finally "The Wardrobe" was the conduit back into the 'real world / known galaxy'. There were various other parallels in concept as well.
It also had a very "The Empire Strikes Back" vibe, in that the the 'rebels' have effectively lost the battle (but not the war) with Thrawn and his Empirical ambitions, and have been left very much on the back foot, unable to prevent another all-out war. Again, it would seem that "the only hope" lies with one young Jedi Knight (Ezra, aka D'Artagnan) and a hugely compromised, and still woefully complacent, New Republic, who will effectively be the new Rebel Alliance. The differences this time round will be that there will be (if The Three Musketeers make it home in time) four highly skilled (sort of) Jedi Knights and (hopefully) a fully reunited Mandalorian army to back them up. There may still be other former Jedi Knights who will come out of hiding to aid the fight, if necessary, perhaps even Luke Skywalker. This is all conjecture at this point of course, as this finale has left all of these balls very high in the air, along with whatever nefarious plans that Baylan Skoll and Shin Hati are separately plotting in the unsuspecting galaxy in which they find themselves.
Overall, I felt that this finale was pretty good, apart from the plethora of unanswered questions that have been present through much of this first season, and there were some shockingly low-quality scenes. Thrawn knew that the platoon of troopers were basically just lambs to the slaughter that wouldn't slow Ashoka and crew down for long. That's fairly standard Star Wars stuff, but how in the name of Luke Skywalker did three lightsabre-wielding, Force-strong Knights manage to kill the entire platoon without having dismembered/beheaded a single one, especially given that such battles have previously resulted in an entire stack of severed hands/arms/heads? This seemed like a convenient plot contrivance so that it didn't lessen the impact of them all rising from the floor to fight again. The undead troopers initially seemed like a good idea, but was sadly a very wasted opportunity. The Night Sisters could surely have infused a generous dose of anger, speed and relentlessness into them, but all they really seemed to be were just standard troopers brought back to life, exactly as they were (apart from the green glow) as nothing more than another pointless delaying tactic. If they had been more zombie-like - in a fast, nasty, formidable way like in 28 Days Later, not the stereotypical 1960's style slow, lumbering, stupid zombies like in The Walking Dead - they would at least have appeared to be more scary, and a genuine threat to the Knights. Another thing that seemed too convenient was Sabine's swift enhancement of her Force manipulation abilities. Perhaps the genuine threats to life (her own and then Ezra's) helped her to focus her mind to be able to make the leap from not even being able to pull a coffee cup towards her, to being able to Force-push Ezra, mid-Force-leap, into the Star Destroyer. Convenient, but at least credible, unlike the whole trooper thing.
Thrawn was very good in this, masterfully maintaining his cool, calm and patient exterior whilst clearly seething at the predictable incompetence of his forces - especially the Night Sisters - in their efforts to stop Ashoka, Sabine and Ezra from getting close to him, and accepting minor tactical losses in the pursuit of his primary goal . I'd forgotten until he spoke directly to her that he and Ashoka had never actually faced off against one another. His likening of her to Anakin - her Master - was both complimentary and insightful. What would it take/how easy would it be for her to fall to The Dark Side, just like Anakin did? That maybe throws another ball into the air - will this somehow happen or not? Probably just an attempt at a bit of psychological manipulation, but it throws the possibility out there.
This whole season appears to have been about very complex plot and character building in preparation for either a second season or a whopper of a film. This is fine by me, but please don't keep us all waiting for too long...