The Death Star Human Resources Department: September 22, 2023
Everybody you've been waiting for showed up on Ahsoka and we talk about it.
Hello there
Welcome once again to the Death Star Human Resources Department newsletter. We’ve got a fun one today. Episode 6 of Ahsoka brought us not one, not two, but three characters we absolutely have to discuss. You can guess two of them. Who is the third? Keep reading to find out.
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This is Where the Fun Begins
Actors. They’re just like us, right?
In an interview with Conan O'Brien for the Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend podcast (recorded prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike), the 71-year-old actor recalled how he and McGregor, 52, "automatically" started making lightsaber noises the first time they pulled out their intergalactic weapons for a scene on set.
"George [Lucas] said, 'Uh, let's cut there. Boys, we can add that in later,' " Neeson joked.
You could put me on set at a Star Wars movie, tell me that I’m playing Darth Icky, but if I make a lightsaber noise I lose the job, and I would probably last about 12 seconds before I’d get asked to leave.
Ahsoka Episode 6: Dreams and Madness.
There was a lot that happened this week. And I mean A LOT. First, and most important let’s get to the big reveal from Episode 6. We got a new Weird Little Guy! What, you thought Grand Admiral Thrawn and Ezra Bridger were the big reveals? I guess we can talk about them later. We’re starting with the Noti. You know, the Star Wars Ninja Turtles. Weird Little Guys are the best part of Star Wars. Well maybe not the best, but a fun part at least. Ezra is clearly their leader, Sabine notes he has his own band of rebels. I’m calling it right now, the Noti are going to take down Thrawn’s army.
OK, the real big reveals of the night. First up, we finally get to the fireworks factory and are introduced to everyone’s favorite blue-skinned Imperial, Mitth'raw'nuruodo aka Grand Admiral Thrawn. He doesn’t disappoint. His intro was fantastic. Walking through the army of beat up Stormtroopers chanting his name. I’m not sure what’s up with that. Maybe Thrawn started a cult of personality while he’s been stuck on Peridea. Or maybe there’s something more, that we’ll discuss below. The Stormtrooper with the weird mask who’s clearly Thrawn’s right hand man. Sure he’s been stuck in another galaxy for 10 years and everything else seems to be falling apart around here, but he strolls in with his uniform spotless. It was so good.
My initial reaction was I thought Lars Mikkelsen almost played him too understated. To be clear, Thrawn was always a cool cat. He’s not some mustache twirling egomaniac supervillain. I would have liked to see him a little more animated, similar to how he was, well, animated in Rebels. Maybe that’s the difference between Thrawn in Rebels and Thrawn in live action. What works in animation to give a character personality would come off as over the top in live action. So I’ve talked myself out of it. Mikkelsen played it right. He’s cool, collected, and has an air of menace about him. This was the first appearance of a character everyone has been waiting for. It’s tough to make everyone happy. I’m just glad he wasn’t an end of the season cliff hanger.
While it wasn’t a surprise to see Thrawn this week, I was not expecting to see Ezra and Thrawn in the same episode. I guess we can safely say that Marrok and Ezra are different people. Are we still talking about Marrok?1 I guess not. That was a fun little surprise at the end, especially the way the camera moved around Sabine to show Ezra. Eman Esfandi is perfectly cast, you can tell right away he’s Ezra even though he’s got a new look from the cartoon. Really looking forward to seeing how he reacts when he finds out his way off the planet is The Eye of Sion.
Last week was the Ahsoka/Anakin/Huyang/Hera/Jacen episode. This week we just got Ahsoka, Huyang, and the purrgil for a few minutes and the rest of the episode was for the rest of the characters who were already in the galaxy even farther away. Everyone meets the Nightsisters. Then everyone gets to meet Thrawn. Then everyone gets to meet Ezra. There’s a lot going on. Let’s get to the bullet points.
Is gold a Nightsisters color? Is the ring a Nightsister design or a Chiss design? It’s been a while since I’ve read the Thrawn canon so I can’t remember if Chiss ships and anything special to them.
The ring of Peridea being make up for Puurgill bones was such a cool shot.
The surface of Peridea statues look like Easter Island meets The Scream
The second Space Stone Henge looks awesome. Really, this was the best looking episode of Ahsoka.
The Nightsisters look fantastic. The look and the vocal effects are spot on.
For the lives of all the characters, The new galaxy even farther away was a folktale. Then the all wind up there and just kinda are like ‘huh, guess its real after all.”
Destroyed Star Destroyer. Chimara painted on bottom. Super cool.
Night Troopers chanting Thrawn. Beat up armor. Is this some Nightsister magick like Marrock was? We’re not going to know until we see a lightsaber blade cut through one of them
Another dude in a mask. Is he actually going to do something, or will be be another Captain Phasma?
Thrawn looks like Elon Musk and there might be cult of personality? Little on the nose.
Trasnporting catacombs? What’s going on there. Coffins?
Much like Sabine and the Howler, I have at many times pointed at my pets to go in the other direction, only have to them follow me. It’s a universal experience.
I have also informed them many times they are embarrassing themselves.
Bokken Jedi, a nice way of saying feral Jedi.
I know there are some people online who thought Ezra and Sabine needed a more emotional reunion, but I thought it worked. Sabine has to play it cool, especially when Ezra finds out she risked another galactic civil war to come get him.
And finally, Huyang making “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” part of canon was just so much fun.
Everything should be coming to a head next week. Can’t wait.
Baylan’s Plan - We Think There is One
The show is named for and supposedly stars Ahsoka Tano. Sabine Wren is the real star of the show. Chopper should be the star but he’s being criminally underused. But the most interesting character so far is Baylan Skoll. From the first time we saw him in the trailer and wondered if he was Joruus C'baoth, to the opening scene in Episode 1 where he tells some unlucky New Republic chump “we are no Jedi,” he’s been stealing every scene he’s in. We’re still trying to figure out what exactly the deal with orange lightsabers is. He’s not a Jedi. He’s not a Sith. Maybe he’s a Gray Jedi but that doesn’t exactly fit.
We learned a little more about him. He tells Shin that he was just a little older than her when Order 66 and the Purge happened. Thrawn refers to him as General Baylan Skoll. Ahsoka has not been kind to the Jedi Order. Both last episode showed Ahsoka as a Padawan being forced to lead Clone Troopers. It’s not a stretch to imagine that with the rank of General, Baylan was put in same position.
The real question is, what’s he up to? He tells Shin that Thrawn, Morgan Elsbeth, and the rest are just a means to an end. He takes a cynical view that both sides are equally bad. It doesn’t matter if it’s the Republic or the Empire or the New Republic. It doesn’t matter if it’s the Jedi or the Sith, it’s all the same. History repeating itself over and over again. Baylan is a man with a bigger plan.
As he’s explaining all this to Shin as they’re checking out the second Space Stonehenge, I just kept thinking of Edward Norton’s monologue in the teaser trailer for Fight Club. Tying it back to Star Wars, one of the trailers shown with The Phantom Menace was Fight Club. Weird choice.
Listening to him tell Shin he’s looking for the beginning, all I kept thinking of was Kreia from Knights of the Old Republic II. I’ve touched on the KOTOR games in past newsletters. Partly because they are just awesome games and partly because Disney has been taking elements from the games and adding them back into canon.
As Jar Jar Binks would say, it would be a long o’tello to tell the whole story of Kreia, but the short version is she was a Jedi who became disillusioned with Jedi Order. She then gave the Dark Side a try, only to be betrayed by her two apprentices, Darth Nihilus and Darth Sion2. She decided the Jedi and the Sith were two sides of the same coin, devoted to the Force and locked in a never ending war with each other. Kreia eventually came to the conclusion that the Force itself was to blame and her ultimate goal was destroy the Force. And cause a new beginning in the galaxy. Don’t just take my word for it, Star Wars YouTuber Star Wars Comics has a video with a pretty good explanation and a more detail on Kreia and her story.
Or he actually is a Joruus C'baoth character and is crazy and getting crazier. We’ll see.
Making Fetch Happen: Sabine Wren as a Jedi
You don’t need to be a Nightsister or a Jedi to be able to see into the future and see that at some point in the next two episodes, Sabine is going to use the Force. We got to see her try again in Episode 6, to try to get out of the Nightsister jail. We saw her try once before to use the Force to move a cup on Ahsoka’s ship, and maybe try to use the Force in force in her fight against Shin on Seatos.3 Despite Huyang saying she has no aptitude for the Force, it’s pretty clear it’s going to happen.
First off, Sabine keeps trying to use the Force. She wouldn’t keep doing it if there wasn’t a payoff at the end of the series. If she wasn’t going to be able to use the Force, the show would have just said she can’t and left it at that.
Second, and the other big clue we got this week. When we meet the Nightsisters, they identify a Jedi in their presence. It’s not Shin, who while never trained as a Jedi is clearly strong with the Force. It’s not Baylan, who was part of the Jedi Order. No, it’s Sabine.
Is this a good thing? You can use the Force without being a Jedi. I don’t think that’s a controversial statement any more. You can use a lightsaber without being a Jedi. Even Han Solo pulled that off back in Empire. But can you use the Force if everyone agrees you don’t actually have any ability to use the Force? The Force is part of every living being, Yoda said so. Kanan Jarrus said this to both Sabine and Hera in Rebels. Of course then in Phantom Menace, Qui-Gon Jinn informed us all that actually being able to use the Force just meant you had a blood disease.
Since I’m in the prediction business in this edition of Death Star HR, we’re going to see her use the Force to save Ezra in the next episode. Sabine has not been opening herself up to the Force. She’s been putting up walls ever since Rebels. Her history with Ahsoka doesn’t allow her to open up, but now that she’s finally re-united with Ezra, she’ll be able to.
From the Depths of Wookieepedia
Quick one this week. We’ve got the Coruscani Pilot Institute. I guess it’s the Imperial version of the Air Force Academy. One day, when I’m extra bored, I am going to put together a list of all the institutions of higher education in Star Wars and come up with some kind of March Madness tournament. You’ve been warned.
News From the HoloNet
A Guillermo del Toro ‘Star Wars’ Movie Almost Happened
Too bad. It could have been his best movie since Blade II.
*NSYNC Confirms They Were Cut Out of ‘Star Wars: Attack of the Clones’
Release the boy band cut!
X-Wing Model From Original ‘Star Wars’ Movie Found in a Garage
The only stuff you’ll find in my garage are boxes I need to recycle.
Donald Glover’s ‘Star Wars’ Series ‘Lando’ Is Now a Movie
We went from movies to streaming and now back to movies.
That’s it for this week. If you like what I’m doing, please subscribe. I’ll catch you next week, and may the Force be with you.
It’s funny how quickly Marrok went from the only topic of conversation to “oh yeah, that guy.”
We talked about him a few weeks ago when The Eye of Sion was revealed.
There is some debate if she did a really weak Force push, or Shin flinched expecting a Force push.