Haven't read this, but...
The actress is joined by Natasha Liu Bordizzo, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and the late Ray Stevenson in a show about the titular former Jedi.
www.hollywoodreporter.com
Seems like they are saying it's a bit boring through the first two episodes. Which I can understand a bit from the trailers. I'm still not sure where the dramatic tension will come in, but it's only two episodes so it has time.
It's weird they somehow give Andor a pass for the first few episodes but don't for Ahsoka. I'm sure that's because they have hindsight now and know Andor ultimately ended up really good, but they suggest Andor was slow but interesting in the first few episodes, and I just completely disagree. I loved Andor, but I was soooo bored the first three episodes (which was 3 total hours), I almost quit on the show. Then it really picked up in episode 4 and never looked back.
They also seem to take issue with the characters pasts being mentioned here. They mention that new people won't be confused, because their pasts are explained, but that just telling someone about something isn't the same as letting them experience it. I'm just not sure what they are suggesting they should do instead. Do they want them to use the first few episodes replaying episodes of Rebels live action? If they omitted the characters from Rebels, that seems equally weird based on Ahsokas story. Even the OT had a ton of stuff that happened before A New Hope that they just reference. All of the tension between Obi-Wan and Vader in the first fight is just based on stuff we were told by Obi-Wan.
It feels so weird being a Star Wars fans these days. Typically if you were a hardcore fan of something, you'd connect with other hardcore fans. But Star Wars is so expansive now, and there are so many different eras all with a different feel (OT, PT, Animated shows, ST, D+ shows) that it's actually incredibly hard to find people with similar tastes, expectations, and wants.
To that point, it makes it super hard to read reviews and know how much it will match my experience. For as much as I liked Andor, and I'm sure other older adults did too, that has more to do with where I'm at in my life now than my feelings towards Star Wars. I enjoyed Andor as someone who enjoys slow dramas now, not as a purely Star Wars fan. It could have been set in WW2 and I would have enjoyed it just the same. But I would not have liked Andor as a kid, like I did the OT. It didn't spark my imagination in that way, nor did it try to. But that's also why I don't just want everything to be like Andor, like some people seem to want. I'm glad we get lighter and more serious stuff. This reviewer even says they had to keep telling themselves not everything has to be like Andor. So it was very much top of mind for them when watching this. Which is already way different than how I am going into this, expecting a lighter tone, much like Rebels.
I didn't mean for this to be so ranty. There are some good points in this article, and ultimately, they are correct. If Ahsoka can't draw us in and create dramatic tension for the characters, then it won't be memorable. This article just comes off as cynical in a lot of areas, without giving too much detail on how their issues derail the show, which I'm definitely curious about. Like they complain that the Loth cat being cute or Chopper being lively is done so in an attempt to sell toys. But does the Loth cat being cute derail any scenes or seem out of place? Does Chopper act in a way that is inconsistent with what we've seen in the past or in a way that distracts from the story?
I don't know, I'm probably being too defensive here, and it's possible they are being brief in their explanations to avoid spoilers, but I saw some articles with criticism for the first two episodes that seemed far more to the point on what they didn't like that helped me understand the validity of their concerns. I actually just watched a video that had a lot of criticisms, even some shared in this article, and explained them really well in a way that made sense.
