1x03 Part Three: Time to Fly

Maybe I’m one of the few who really enjoyed this episode, and I’m just saddened that this is the case.

“Time to Fly” is a action based episode to show in few dialogue the dynamics between Ashoka and Sabine, a dynamic which we only hear offscreen but so far never seen it.

The chase is the part where both of them need to find common ground and survive together. Sabine must put aside her frustration in her training and Ahsoka must start believing more in Sabine’s insights. When they finally start to listen to each other, they are able to flee and with 20 min you can feel that they had done this many times before and cast light over a relationship crucial to this show and to the plot it is creating. With few episodes I believe this was necessary, as much as the Mandalorian Episode where Grogu eats Spider eggs while Mando tries to free the ship from the ice. Few dialogues, storytelling by action. [Which is also written by Filoni]

Ahsoka space lightsaber fight was something never done before in Star Wars tv and movies and it was thrilling to see and the Huyang perception of Sabine as one of a line of Jedi’s who defies the common Jedi rules (Dooku>Qui-Gon>Obi Wan> Anakin > Ahsoka)
Was a nice new point of view on Sabine being a Padawan.

The chase is not about the stakes or the survival of the characters. The story plays as it is being told to you after they survived, and you want to know how. How one single ship on enemy space scape 6 ships and three heavy cannons and lived tell their story. It’s not about the stakes of who will leave or not, but what they will endure until they find their friend.

We also have an insight on why Ahsoka trained Sabine and how she perceives Sabine and the use of the force as something anybody can do, going beyond the Jedi order. She is not training Sabine as a Jedi Padawan, but as a Rogue force user apprentice. This breaks again the binary viewing of the force and help expands the notion of Ahsoka being a renegade gray Jedi.

Not only this, but after Rebels and Andor, seeing the rise of the rebel alliance and with Mandalorian seeing the inefficiency of the New republic, the Hera and Chancellor part of the episode showed the sense of suspicion of the new senate and how they were able to allow the first order to return.

Amazing episode with a lot done in 37 minutes and few dialogues. A feast to the eyes with the chase between the Purgills, thrilling to see how Sabine and Ahsoka worked to fight the enemies and new information to the plot of the series that just make this really really interesting!

Can’t wait to see where this is going!

[7.4/10] “Time to Fly” had a real A New Hope vibe. You have the blast-shielded lightsaber training, the fancy shooting when the bad guys attack your ship, and the sneaking into the enemy stronghold. I’m not sure if there’s a particular point to it beyond casting Ahsoka as a wizened Obi-Wan type, and Sabine as a young Luke type, but it’s an interesting motif nonetheless.

I’m also noticing a pattern with Ahsoka through its first three episodes. There tend to be quiet, meditative parts, and then louder, action-y parts. And I like the loud stuff, but I tend to love the quieter stuff.

Case in point, I’m pretty sure I could watch a show that was just Sabine’s Jedi training, without a larger threat. The session where Ahsoka tries to draw the force out of her, using a blinded training exercise to spur Sabine to rely on her other senses, is compelling as all get out. Their conversation about using The Force, and how it requires some talent but flows through all living things, replete with a coffee cup attempt, is the sort of thing I’m here for. Hearing different perspectives on this thing that binds the universe together, hearing both sides of the teacher/pupil struggle, is fascinating.

My theory is that Sabine will develop force abilities when it matters most, but honestly, I’d be just as happy if she never did. Having a Jedi without Force abilities, who carries on the spirit and the training beyond the magic, is a cool idea. And we have too many force-sensitives running around canon anyway. Huyang speaking matter-of-factly about her not having much in the way of talent with his dry delivery is a laugh, but Ahsoka striving to train her despite that is heartening.

I’m also a fan of Hera’s scenes here. The idea of the New Republic demilitarizing, and that causing frustration for the people who fought in the Rebellion is a theme that’s been with Star Wars since The Force Awakens. It’s interesting to see it in action here, especially since Mon Mothma seems torn between her personal loyalty to Hera from their joint efforts during the war, and her political obligations to democracy and other government commitments. (Hello other folks who read the Aftermath trilogy.)

Hera running into bureaucracy and a skeptical senate who thinks this mission is personal not practical adds to that thread nicely. Plus hey, for anyone who watched Star Wars Resistance, it’s kind of a hoot that the jerky senator who gives Hera the business is the father of the main character from that show. It’s also nice to see Jacen in live action, already aspiring to be a Jedi and getting into trouble. I doubt it’ll be the focus of the show, but I’d be interested to see more of the relationship between Hera and her son.

The big set piece here, though, is a dogfight with Shin Hati and the other baddies. The best part of it for me is the banter between Ahsoka, Sabine, and Huyang, and the parallels to Episode IV. (I practically expected Ahsoka to say, “Don’t get cocky” when Sabine took out some enemy fighters.) Here’s the thing, though. I’ve watched a lot of Star Wars, and I’ll admit that most of the dogfights blend together for me, this one included.

That said, there’s two parts that stand out. One is Ahsoka doing a frickin’ mid-battle spacewalk. Don’t think too hard about the logistics of it, but holy hell that is badass. Seeing her fend off the blasts with her lightsabers and flip from wing to fuselage was thrilling as all hell. In the same vein, the first live action appearance of the purrgils (space whales) was a treat, and a nice sign that we’re (presumably) getting closer to Ezra and Thrawn.

The other teases are fine. It’s already pretty obvious that Morgan Elsbeth is building a hyperspace launcher to wherever Thrawn is. The fact that it follows purrgil lanes is a nice enough detail, but I’m not compelled by the steady plot movement as much as I am the character exploration.

Still, the character exploration remains nice; the world-building is good, and even the action sequences I’m more indifferent to have some real high points. Ahsoka keeps building, and I’ continue to be interested to see where it’s going.

Here we go, now we're starting to cook a little.

We're still running slow, and there's a bare minimum of plot development - the heroes find out the villains are building an intergalactic ship, which the audience already knew. Hera's request for a fleet to investigate is denied, transparently setting up a surprise rescue in some future episode. And Ahsoka's T6 gets disabled to create a need to be rescued. That's about it.

But the actors finally get a little more to play with, and they use it well. Ahsoka gets to be a wise mentor with a playful edge. Sabine gets to be frustrated, but also determined, and mature enough not to pull a Luke whine (Ahsoka/Sabine have a much more healthy and sensible teacher-student relationship than most Jedi apprenticeships!). Hera gets to deal with frustrating bureaucracy. Her scene with Jacen is pointless except to establish that she's his mom, but it's brief and maybe that relationship needed to be established for something later. (Huyang is still flat, oddly stiff and mean given how much screen time he gets, and so far a waste of David Tennant.)

We get a cool-looking chase among the space whales, a competent but slightly over-long dogfight, a competent but very over-long blindfold training sequence, an over-long sword technique sequence between Huyang and Sabine that has some issues with the CGI, and an underwhelming but let's please try again someday lightsaber EVA. This 30 minute episode would have made a really exciting 18 minute episode (which is a better ratio than the previous two episodes).

Sabine's insensitivity to the Force is being treated in an interesting way that I think is emblematic of the way Star Wars leadership is waffling between, on the one hand, stultifying faithfulness to every word and stylistic choice of Lucas, even though large parts of his universe were off-the-cuff nonsense and he was not exactly interested in creating characters with enough depth to sustain this many minutes of storytelling (which was smart of him, blockbuster movies with that many aliens and spaceships don't need character depth, and empty characters make more fun action figures), and, on the other hand, telling more human & compelling stories in a more fully-realized and consistent universe but risking hardcore fan offense. Basically Huyang and Ahsoka are on opposite poles of the debate between Lucas-era midichlorian Force sensitivity, where it's some kind of innate inherited racial superiority / divine right of kings, vs TLJ orphan-with-a-broom Force sensitivity, where it accrues to the scrappy and determined and lucky. I personally find the TLJ variety to be much more interesting storytelling - in particular, it makes the light side/dark side dynamic richer because scrappy and determined outcasts have better reasons to be afraid and angry. Disney seems hesitant to directly go there given the anti-woke pitchforkers that appear to make up a meaningful chunk of SW fandom, but maybe this storyline gives Star Wars an opportunity to shift that a bit? If they don't dismiss this series as Girl Star Wars?

I had to google to find out why I was confused about whether we were on Denab or Seatos or what: Seatos is the planet, Denab is the system. We don't know about anything else in the Denab system: the fact that the show introduces two space names for the same place might be a sign that the writing revisions could be spread around the team a little better. I think stronger script editing would help this show in general.

7.5/10 - Some great spaceship combat action! The name of this episode was already quite promising :)

Ahsoka seems to be quite a difficult master - at least she wasn't making things easy on Sabine (which is quite surprising given how relaxed Anakin was with her). But it looks like she came around a bit.
Huyang summed it up nicely: "Well, I suppose you [Ahsoka] do come from a long line of nontraditional Jedi. In that way, she [Sabine] fits right in." :D

It's cool that Jason wants to be a Jedi - I wonder if that might turn in a reality, given that his father was a Jedi.

I can relate to Sabine: I wish I could move the cup too :D Not gonna happen though - at least not for me...

"Ah yes, standard operating procedure." - I already like Huyang <3 xD

So it's indeed a huge hyperspace ring.
I'm quite surprised that intergalactic jumps don't seem to be a common thing in their universe yet but then again it was always "in a galaxy far far away".

PS: I was a bit surprised that Ahsoka let Sabine keep flying at the end - given that Ahsoka should have much of Anakin's flying skills. Sabine is a good pilot too though.

PPS: I'm a bit sad that Ahsoka seems nothing like her younger self (well, not quite but it kinda feels that way) - it makes sense that she's changed but it feels like she's changed a bit too much.

The episode was indeed a bit slow. Not much happened, was resolved or unexpected. They could have cut the discovery of the Eye a lot shorter and saved the explanation. It was clear that they would want to go to where the map had pointed. We also knew that this was in another galaxy ... A little bit unnecessary.

Still it was a good episode. I am relieved that Sabine at least up to now is true to the Sabine that was established. I even like the explanation that takes up Qui-Gon's words and the idea that much of mastering the force is a question of commitment. Commitment whose effort is reduced by a higher sensitivity to the force.
This however all the more begs the question why would Ahsoka call Sabine "Padawan" if all she trained her in is to wield a lightsaber?

Something I really loved in this episode is the dilemma of siding with Hera because the viewer supports her cause and she is depicted much more likeable and the viewpoint of politicians who believe war is not what needs to be a priority in financing. Weren't it for them to be so unlikable I would totally agree with the senators.

Worth mentioning in my opinion is how completely different of a character and a droid Huyang is. He is so reasonable whilst still being a kind of comic relieve.

It was a good episode, so well directed, you could feel the tension in the space scene. What I like about the recent Star Wars series is that the space battles feel "real", not over exaggerated. That was the case with the second chapter as well.

I get why some people find the chapter a wasted opportunity to move the story forward, but I think it's because we have to wait a week for the next episode. I enjoyed it very much. Even if the series doesn't have many episodes.

The main issues from the previous episodes remain: while Ashoka is starting to remind me of the character from Rebels, I still miss Vanessa Marshall's voice for Hera. I think she should have gotten the role. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is good but she is just too different. Maybe even too young for the role.
The introduction of Sabine in a live action form ruined her character for me, she acted like a teenager. So I don't care about her. But the training scene was really good and interesting. The direction, the music, the audio.. it was generally a nice development of the scene from A New Hope. I actually want Sabine to fail: not because I don't like her anymore, but I think it would be an interesting course for a character to not reach a true connection to the Force, failing the training. Maybe that won't be the case since it already happened off screen. We already know she is a good fighter, even without the Force.

I loved Ahsoka in space, since it wasn't exaggerated. But I thought laser beams from spaceships were bigger and probably impossible to deflect with a light saber.
That part was intense too and I am becoming a fan of Shin Hati, even if there isn't a true development of her so far. I just hope she has an interesting story and won't be just a final adversary for Sabine. I am worried she'll represent the final arc for Sabine's training.