Ahsoka and Huyang are on their way to find out what happened to Sabine, but even as they exit into a galaxy, further and further away, they are immediately met by Imperial forces determined to stop them.
On the planet below, Sabine and Ezra realize they are also being pursued and rapidly become out-numbered by the pursuing soldiers. Can the friends reunite in time to overpow their opposition. And even if they can, how can they possibly return home?
*spoilers*
“Well, they’re all back together. Hope I live long enough to see the outcome…”
Though there are, once more, lots of elements in the mix, Dreams and Madness feels far more the ‘parts’ rather than the ‘sum’ – or as the mighty Stan Lee might have said ‘No change, just the illusion of change‘. Yes, Ahsoka and Huyang finally arrive and meet up with our other heroes, involving some minor skirmishes, but it ends up with what feels like ten minutes of story-time stretched to over thirty and only giving us superficial advances.
Duels should be exciting, edge-of-your-seat stuff, but…for the second time, Sabine faces Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno) – exchanging some swishing blows and both survive and escape to fight another day. For the second time, Ahsoka faces Baylon Skoll (Ray Stevenson) – exchanging some swishing blows and both survive and escape to fight another day. Been there, swished that…
Pacing in a series/serial is everything. But here, more than usual, all the conflicts feel like blatant place-holders, neither having the epic spectacle to excite nor the developments to push things significantly onward. The encounters are momentary, a rinse and repeat of recent plot-points, resolving nothing and offering no real surprises or conclusions. Duels should be exciting, edge-of-your-seat stuff, but…for the second time, Sabine faces Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno) – exchanging some swishing blows and both survive and escape to fight another day. For the second time, Ahsoka faces Baylon Skoll (Ray Stevenson) – exchanging some swishing blows and both survive and escape to fight another day. Been there, swished that. The crab-munchkins / cephlapods duck and dive and grow a little bolder (boulder?) but no-one receives more than a dusting. And, most of all, Sabine and Ezra’s stand-off with the storm-troopers is, even by franchise-standards, the ridiculous stuff of the most basic Saturday-morning set-pieces. Even given Imperial forces infamous lack of precision and accuracy, there is simply no way that two people could realistically fight off and defeat that number of surrounding storm-troopers for so long, even if our heroes have some Force-ability – they’re literally encircled a few feet away by the enemy. Yes, you can suspend disbelief, but here you could ride a Bantha through the convenience of it all.
The ‘circle your wagons’ motif is just one of the signals that while last week’s entry was ‘eastern’, we’re now firmly back to ‘western’ territory. The chase between Shin’s storm-troopers the Noti pods clearly emulates the Indian attacks of old cowboy cinema reels… which would be a fine nod of the hat – after all, what was Star Wars at its heart, if not a western in space? – if it wasn’t actually so journeyman in execution.
Also, on a narrative level, a majority of this mess is still Sabine’s fault and, so far, she’s got nothing but very fortunate luck, high-fives and a pat on the back for simply having survived. No-one’s denying that Ahsoka should be happy to see her student and relieved that she’s survived, but it’s ironic that Ahsoka’s normally stoic features are broken by wide smiles and laughter rather than the ‘Wait, you betrayed my trust… do you understand the consequences of your actions?’ anger that really should also be in the mix. Ezra is very much the swashbuckler of the episode, seemingly having stepped in, wardrobe intact, from Aladdin, though the only blue-skinned character on show is far from a genie. Thrawn, once again, strides back and forth and issues orders, but essentially he’s just watching the clock and counting down until the ship can whisk him back to his own galaxy.
Speaking of which: It’s actually Hera facing that kind of consequential oversight back on home turf. She’s appearing at a kind of tribunal for disobeying orders (though it’s a little unclear under what jurisdiction she’s being judged). There’s no real denying that she did indeed defy orders to help Ahsoka… and that she’s not inclined to apologize for it. There’s an obligatory furrowing of brows, an inevitable ‘this doesn’t look good’ and then a last-minute save as none other than C-3P0 brings a faux get-out-of-jail-free card courtesy of a savvy (and off-screen) Senator Leia Organa. It’s only one of a series of mythological name-checks – as well as C3P0 and Leia we actually have more Anakin (here as a pre-recorded, but highly interactive training hologram) and confirmation of where the series lies in relation to recent events in The Mandalorian.
As said many times, the visuals are great and the characters are fun… and the shift in galaxies you would hope leads to some new layers and evolving mythological challenges…but there’s a sense of the currency of the series being nostalgia for the animated era – trading on the familiar of the recent while only casting come-hither looks at the ancient. I initially though the series was six episodes (until esteemed colleague Paul Simpson reminded me it was eight), but with that final episode soon to be upon us, I can’t help believing that a half-a-dozen chapters might have serviced the saga more efficiently…
- Story7
- Acting8
- Direction8
- Production Design / VFX9
