I'm a big fan of the Clone Wars and Rebels animated series so I was doing backflips when I heard about a live action series based on the characters.
Overall, the casting is good and where Rebels left off, the series has a strong premise. The production design is all right (not quite as good as Andor's though) and the lightsaber fights and well choreographed.
The writing is where it's falling down. Dave Filoni has to take the blame since he wrote every episode and clearly needs a writing staff. Perhaps he's spent too much time writing for five year olds, because he is writing the characters as too bland and not grownup enough, and not thinking some things through sufficiently.
Take Ahoska for example. She's being written as too zen and serene, without an inner conflict that a lead character needs. She is being written as an Obi-Wan-ish mentor figure, but the series is named for her, so why isn't she written as the lead character, with inner conflict and complexity to match?
Maybe the true lead is a character for whom Ahsoka is the mentor? That could be Sabine or Ezra. But Sabine is the worst-written character of all. She must be pushing 30 by now, yet she still acts like a rebellious adolescent.
And don't get me started on "everyone is Force sensitive." It's far too late in the game to retcon Star Wars like this. If it only was a matter of trying to get a little telekinesis or mind control, it would be as common as superpowers are on The Boys, with societal upheaval like you see on that show.
Why doesn't Jabba the Hutt have a minion who can influence rivals in negotiations? Why aren't there background characters who can levitate a glass from across the table, or take an unusually large leap to avoid a mud puddle in the street? We'd have been seeing this all the time long before now. They just need to drop it.
Sabine is being retconned with the Force so she can serve as an apprentice figure to Ahsoka but Ezra is the more natural apprentice. But I'm no happier at his writing.
Okay let's recap here. He made a huge sacrifice while still a teenager to save his friends and the galaxy from Thrawn. He's spent a decade on a bleak planet, surrounded by enemies, with only some turtle people as companions. He has no reason to believe he will ever be rescued.
Then Sabine shows up and effectively invalidates his sacrifice. How does he respond? Oh hi Sabine, nice to see you. That's ALL? He isn't overjoyed to be rescued while at the same time, infuriated that the last ten years were all in vain? Why isn't Ahsoka equally angry at Sabine? Why is Sabine being written as an unstable moron?
It's like Filoni is scared to show the "grownups" being angry at each other because it would upset the presumably childlike audience. If you assume the audience is largely grownups, having conflict and drama is not only all right, it's necessary so we won't all doze off.
Since this series isn't yet over and hopefully won't be for a few years, I may be back to edit this review later on. Hopefully to bump up the score to an 8 or 9 because the writing has improved. Fingers crossed for season 2.
