All of us here, in this antiquated forum, are the outliers. 

Why Dooku?  Because he won a fan choice poll over on Instagram.

Instagram seems to be Hasbro's go-to source for "what do the fans want" these days.  Try as I might, Hasbro doesn't really care about us "forum folks" anymore.

Wow.  I read the Bantha Skull Post.  I guess I'm not much in to social media so I missed this, but it clearly wouldn't have mattered with their final four:
- Luke Skywalker
- Count Dooku
- Sabine Wren
- Asajj Ventress

Lame.

I hope somebody at Hasbro has some fresh ideas as the Instagram masses clearly don't.

Jayson noted that everything revealed was a fan channel figure.  I thought that was kind of odd as well.

Totally agree that the selections were crappy/weird (other than the NightTroopers set), and the part that I don't get is the fan channel aspect.  Maybe I don't understand who exactly shops via fan channel, but that makes me think "collector".  What collector wants these TPM figures?  I get that they want to do a carded version of The Ghost figures and that retail probably wouldn't be a great spot for these.

I sure hope there are mainline retail figures still coming from Andor or other relevant shows that weren't shown as I'm not sure other than the NightTroopers set that there will be anything that I pre-order.

Hasbro's efforts here (and in Black Series that I've dropped) have been pretty weak lately.  I sure hope there is some good stuff still coming.

ROTS Boker Scout & Speeder Bike are also down to $19.97

Wow.  I still haven't opened mine. 

Is the Biker Scout made to also stand up okay, or is he mostly designed to sit on the bike?  I may get a bunch of these just for the biker scouts.

I was holding out hope it was in fact going somewhere, but I find it the heart of arrogance on Filoni and Lucasfilm's part to feel so assured they will have the opportunity to continue this into another season, or show, or film in the future.

I was kind of thinking the same thing. 

I'm not sure how Disney greenlights Star Wars streaming series, but I was under the impression that there was no contract in place or any guarantee of a second season.  Maybe Filoni thought he nailed it, but I think this series was just okay, and I'm probably biased towards the positive because its Star Wars.  I think Filoni is best as an adviser Like Lucas was on "hero's journey" mythology and what makes Star Wars Star Wars.  I'd much prefer they find real writer/director talent like Tony Gilroy to own a whole series like they did with Andor.

I know they've talked about a movie event tying this all together, but I'm not sure how interested anyone is going to be in a movie that ties together the sloppiness of Mando season 3 and Ahsoka.  They're going to have to get a much stronger narrative to make that interesting.

I agree with you Nick that not everything needs to be tied up at the end of a season, but I was left a bit dissatisfied with the storytelling.  Maybe I need to know a little more about Thrawn's plot with the casket/crates to feel real dread.  Maybe I need to know anything about what Baylan is up to in order to care even a little.  Maybe I needed a better character growth journey for Ahsoka.  There was good eye candy and the plot didn't have holes in it, but there was room for improvement.

I'd probably rate this first season a 5.5 out of 10.

I watched the episode with my daughter last night (second watching for me) and she thought the season was way too short and/or not enough happened.  An unsophisticated viewer that I couldn't agree with more.

Ultimately I mostly enjoyed the show.  Some thoughts:
- I like that it had a general plot that you could follow without giant plant holes or total randomness.  Some plot points (Baylan/Shin) still don't make any sense, but weren't critical to the story.  BoBF and Mando season 3 were pretty messy from a plot perspective, so I was glad to see the execution on this was better.  It was no Andor, but it was solid.
- I agree with my daughter that the pace was a bit slow at times and not a lot happened.  I don't need non-stop action sequences, but it would have been nice to have the story move at a faster clip and/or have more episodes to tell a bigger story.
- The show was called "Ahsoka", but at times it really felt like the show didn't have much to do with her character development and spent more time on Sabine and other characters.  Or at the very least I'm not sure we had an "Ahsoka" struggle/character journey that played out very well.  At the beginning of the show it was Ahsoka vs. Thrawn/Morgan.  Quickly we pulled in the training abandonment of Sabine as a main theme, but that theme wasn't well maintained throughout the show.  They kept coming back to Ahsoka stopped the training because Sabine might use her training for the revenge of Mandalore, but they didn't really show what has changed and if Sabine had the right motivations.  And at the end of the show it seemed to just be back to Ahsoka vs. Thrawn/Morgan.

I'm not sure what to think about a season 2.  Do we want Ahsoka and Sabine to get back to the "real world" and Ahsoka to be a major player in this timeframe, or do we want her to be in limbo in the other galaxy?  Do we think she survives to the time of the sequel trilogy but remains off the table somehow?  Do we want Mando and the New Republic to take up the battle on their vs. Thrawn in the other series without Jedi help other than I guess Ezra and maybe Luke?  The stories they're trying to tell in this timeframe are tough when they keep major players off the table, which is why I think a show like Andor works so well. 

Quote from: tmanthegreat on October  4, 2023, 01:13 AM

Well that was an interesting episode tonight! Really wish this season wasn’t only 8 episodes though…

I agree with this sentiment.  I felt that there wasn't much fear for Thrawn to die since he essentially just showed up in the series and is a main baddie.  With the way the Star Wars live action shows have been doing cross-overs, I feel Thrawn's plot will be resolved in an Endgame kind of way (isn't there a movie to come out?).
Maybe there needed to be one more episode... at least to flesh out what Baylan and Shin were doing instead of a quick montage of all the key players in the series at the end.  I was disappointed in their brief screentime because I enjoyed Baylan's story so far (and I'm not sure if we'll ever know the end of it now that Ray's passed) and was curious to see where Shin's path lies (is it still with Thrawn as Baylan suggested, even though she was left behind?).  I'm looking forward to see more of Ezra.  I enjoyed his character (humor and all).

Totally agree.

The Baylan/Shin stories needed more meat to them.  Are we supposed to be worried about what Baylan is doing when we don't have the faintest idea what he is up to?  Why does Shin's character even exist if she is just going to be stuck in the other galaxy? She could have easily have been an Inquisitor if they needed another lightsaber wielding baddy.

I think the series has been decent - not great and not bad.  The Baylan part is probably the biggest head scratcher.

One other thing I was surprised that didn't transpire was getting Zeb involved.  I thought he might have come along with Carson's squad and then joined up with Hera, but even Hera didn't have much of a role.  Maybe it'll come in season 2 or in some other related series

The mystery remains about what is in those caskets that are being loaded on the Chimaera.  Dead Night Sisters?  Ysalamiri?  Or something more sinister?

At first I thought it was Ysalamiri, but why would they need hundreds of crates of them when there are only a handful of Jedi?

Ahsoka TVC figures would be sweet, but I still want a full set of main characters from Andor.  That has a second season coming (supposedly in August 2024) and I sure hope they put a lot more creative energy in to those figures before too long.