[7.4/10] I appreciate that there’s a simple but effective arc for Ahsoka. After everything that happened in Revenge of the Sith, she’s disillusioned and doesn’t want to be a part of the fight anymore. When retreating to an unremarkable planet, she can’t help but use her powers to save people, and it leads to the threat of an Inquisitor and them losing everything. So she realizes she can’t avoid this, no matter how much she wants to, and decides to get back into the fray.
That’s solid! I don’t love every piece of it. Bail Organa’s dialogue is a little too on the nose, and the “village brother” who rats on Ahsoka is a little too obvious a piece of crap. But there’s a tidy story of Ahsoka trying to get out, realizing how people are affected by the Empire, and resolving to get back involved. I particularly love the imagery in this one, as this new Inquisitor has an imposing design, and their clash flanked by fire has an epic feel to it. I’m also intrigued by what exactly that Inquisitor’s deal is, since he seems like a Grievous type, but it isn’t quite clear.
There’s only one big problem, albeit one that’s likely to only matter to a fraction of Tales of the Jedi’s audience -- this all feels terribly redundant of the Ahsoka novel. I don’t want to get on a soapbox about canon or anything. If you bend and twist, I’m sure you can technically fit the two stories together. But “Resolve” is the second time Filoni and company have effectively discarded that material, in essential, if not technical terms. I dug E.K. Johnston’s novel, which told this same type of story about Ahsoka losing and regaining her will to fight, in more fulsome terms. Seeing this thumbnail sketch equivalent of it is a little unsatisfying by comparison, even if we get to see a visual component here.
On the whole, this is still solid Clone Wars-adjacent storytelling, connecting the dots from RotS to Ahsoka’s future in Rebels and beyond. But I wish it didn’t conflict, in substance if not in form, with what Star Wars has already presented.
Overall though, I really enjoyed this first season of Tales of the Jedi. The Dooku story is not one I’d ever have asked for, but ends up making his journey feel more complete and his motivations more understandable. It was my surprise favorite part of this one. And while the Ahsoka stories felt a little more gap-filling than character-heavy (like an upscale version of those Forces of Destiny shorts), the episode about her childhood in particular was engrossing and moody. So I hope we get more of these little Clone Wars-adjacent vignettes in the future!
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2022-10-28T20:14:06Z
[7.4/10] I appreciate that there’s a simple but effective arc for Ahsoka. After everything that happened in Revenge of the Sith, she’s disillusioned and doesn’t want to be a part of the fight anymore. When retreating to an unremarkable planet, she can’t help but use her powers to save people, and it leads to the threat of an Inquisitor and them losing everything. So she realizes she can’t avoid this, no matter how much she wants to, and decides to get back into the fray.
That’s solid! I don’t love every piece of it. Bail Organa’s dialogue is a little too on the nose, and the “village brother” who rats on Ahsoka is a little too obvious a piece of crap. But there’s a tidy story of Ahsoka trying to get out, realizing how people are affected by the Empire, and resolving to get back involved. I particularly love the imagery in this one, as this new Inquisitor has an imposing design, and their clash flanked by fire has an epic feel to it. I’m also intrigued by what exactly that Inquisitor’s deal is, since he seems like a Grievous type, but it isn’t quite clear.
There’s only one big problem, albeit one that’s likely to only matter to a fraction of Tales of the Jedi’s audience -- this all feels terribly redundant of the Ahsoka novel. I don’t want to get on a soapbox about canon or anything. If you bend and twist, I’m sure you can technically fit the two stories together. But “Resolve” is the second time Filoni and company have effectively discarded that material, in essential, if not technical terms. I dug E.K. Johnston’s novel, which told this same type of story about Ahsoka losing and regaining her will to fight, in more fulsome terms. Seeing this thumbnail sketch equivalent of it is a little unsatisfying by comparison, even if we get to see a visual component here.
On the whole, this is still solid Clone Wars-adjacent storytelling, connecting the dots from RotS to Ahsoka’s future in Rebels and beyond. But I wish it didn’t conflict, in substance if not in form, with what Star Wars has already presented.
Overall though, I really enjoyed this first season of Tales of the Jedi. The Dooku story is not one I’d ever have asked for, but ends up making his journey feel more complete and his motivations more understandable. It was my surprise favorite part of this one. And while the Ahsoka stories felt a little more gap-filling than character-heavy (like an upscale version of those Forces of Destiny shorts), the episode about her childhood in particular was engrossing and moody. So I hope we get more of these little Clone Wars-adjacent vignettes in the future!