'Ahsoka,' or when 'Star Wars' becomes homework
Plus, 'Reservation Dogs' goes back to the Seventies, 'And Just Like That' wraps Season Two, and more
This week’s What’s Alan Watching? newsletter coming up just as soon as I feed my Lothcat…
Ahsoka, and the case of the required reading
Among my many pandemic binges was a double-feature of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels. I had always heard good things about both from fellow nerds, and with Ahsoka appearing in live action on The Mandalorian, it felt like a good excuse to go back and see her origins. On the whole, I really enjoyed both series, even if each of them (Clone Wars especially) needed a while to figure itself out creatively. And because I had seen them relatively recently, I had no trouble following either the plot or the emotional journey of the first two episodes of Ahsoka.
But (if I can paraphrase a character I’ll be writing about a few paragraphs from now) I couldn’t help but wonder: how would Ahsoka play to someone who had not watched at least those four seasons of Rebels, never mind Clone Wars?
Since my review published on Tuesday night, I’ve gotten two kinds of responses. The first comes from fans of the animated shows, who have no sympathy for live-action-only viewers, and say, “This is a sequel to those shows. Of course it’s going to require people to already know or care about the characters.” The second comes from viewers frustrated that they need to have seen somewhere between four and eleven additional seasons of television to properly appreciate this one.
Even though I know the cartoons, I tend to side with the second group. Between the Marvel shows and Star Wars, it feels like Disney has done too far in assuming people will be willing to watch every single show and movie in order to understand and enjoy the next one, and the next one, and the next one. It reminds me of how, in my more serious comics-reading days, I eventually stopped reading all of the most high-profile Marvel and DC titles, because they were guaranteed to be part of at least one crossover a year, and I didn’t want to have to read lots of other titles to follow what was happening in the ones I cared about.
In the decade and a half since the first MCU movie, the interconnected nature of these big franchises has gradually gone from feature to bug. I wonder at what point Disney, Warner, and the other companies behind these franchises will realize that many audience members will be more excited to watch stand-alone projects than ones that demand you see many other things first.
Reservation Dogs gets Dazed and Confused
What an incredible episode of Reservation Dogs this week. When Maximus showed Bear his Seventies home movies a few episodes ago, I assumed it would be a one-off. Instead, we got a full flashback to what he and the rest of the Okern elders were like when they were the same age as Bear and Elora. Beautiful filmmaking, great casting on the teenage versions (young Brownie and Bucky in particular), and one shot — the rainbow halo around Maximus’ head — that I will be thinking about for a long, long time
And Just Like That throws its ‘Last Supper’ (for now)
Finally, I masochistically can’t stop watching And Just Like That, almost entirely out of nostalgia for the good parts of Sex and the City. So when Season Two ended yesterday, I couldn’t resist not only watching, but writing about all the weirdness, starting with the very odd guest list for Carrie’s farewell dinner to her old apartment.
For those who have kept watching, I’m curious if you think this season was an improvement over the first, or if you preferred the show when it was even more of a trainwreck. Also, as a Samantha Jones fan, it bums me out that this is the way the character will almost certainly be seen for the last time.
That’s it for this week! What did everybody else think?
Somehow, the second season of AJLT managed to be more of a flailing mess than the first. I masochistically rewatched the first season, and I think viewers were so thrown by the endless cringe, the tone deaf if noble stabs at diversifying the show, and the side characters on top of side characters on top of side characters, that we couldn't quite see that "the Carrie show" hidden underneath all that mess was actually pretty solid and affecting.
"Carrie loses the love of her life and has to navigate single life in her 50s" is a fitting story for a SEX AND THE CITY follow-up, and when looked at in a vacuum, was reasonably well executed. Season 2, on the other hand, didn't have anything resembling a raison d'etre, so all we were really left with was the mess.
I think we're all stultified by how a franchise that was once defined by its preternatural ability to have its finger on the pulse of the culture could now somehow feel so lame. But of all the show's missteps, I think the writers have really underestimated how important Carrie's voice over and the "Carrie investigates a question and writes her way through it" conceit of the original series was essential to the show's success. I think viewers might forgive some of the new show's awkward detours (or perhaps not even notice them) if we felt like we were in more steady narrative hands. Perhaps if the writers of the new show had to work within the confines of the OG series' structure, they'd be forced into writing a more cohesive and economical story, as well.
The show remains compulsively watchable, and the cast is, as always, incredibly game and winning as they try to muscle their way through dreadful material. But if Carrie Bradshaw isn't asking questions, she isn't really Carrie Bradshaw -- and the show she's stuck in isn't an actual story. It's a just wall with beyond random, batshit crazy antics thrown-up against it.
Allow me to provide a third response - neither my wife or I have seen the animated shows (but have seen all the live action shows) and we thoroughly enjoyed those two episodes of Ahsoka. It's clear that there is backstory, but it's just background to us. The same as there was background in the original Star Wars when there's some Empire and some Rebels and some long-forgotten (or not so long, thank you prequels) Jedi order. We might be missing some nods to what's been in Rebels, but we did not (as of 2 episodes) feel like we were missing out on anything notable relevant to our enjoyment of this story.