Anyone have a chance to watch the two part premiere?

I enjoyed it, even if some of the cgi was corny.

Spoiler

the dream sequence where Osha becomes a a child version of herself looked awful and cheesy.

None of the High Republic Jedi have really set themselves apart yet as memorable characters. I think Sol has been pretty great so far, but all of them have been saddled with a lot of exposition dialogue the first two episodes. I’m looking forward to seeing the Wookiee Jedi in action next week being cool and not forced to explain x characters backstory.

Spoiler

Shocked that Carrie Ann Moss died so early lmao, they Drew Barrymore’d her. Tough beat to spend weeks training for Force-Fu just to get a knife in the heart in the first five min. I also really hope that the four Jedi didn’t kill Osha’s family, since that seems to be too obvious? Like obviously they mustve done something really shady for the one to willingly kill himself, but I don’t know. I just don’t think that would be satisfying.

 

I'm waiting to watch it with my family over the weekend. This one really snuck up on me though, I didn't know it was coming out until I saw an advert for it on a bus last week. I know absolutely nothing about it, but I'm hoping that it's more Andor and less Boba

 

I really enjoyed the first two episodes.

High points of note for me, in no specific order and spoiler-free:
1. The visual design of the Jedi outfits are starting to blend between the High Republic gold and yellow and moving more towards Skywalker Saga brown and tan. Works on a practical level of "hey, we made the Jedi look cool as hell but need to start having the prequel's design make sense" and a symbolic level showing a tarnishing of the Jedi's moral center and the beginnings of their fall.
2. The bit with the children meditating, and the discussion of diving into the Force like an ocean, is a direct call to Elzar Mann, a Jedi Maser from Phases 1 and 3 of the High Republic who experienced the Force as an ocean.
3. Sol is just... great. Easily my favorite character of the first two episodes, and I do not look forward to what I can only assume is his inevitable death.
4. If you've read the High Republic books, the characterization of Vernestra Rwoh as a hidebound, rules oriented voice of authority makes a lot of sense. Her Master was Stellan Gios (the absolute dapper dude pictured below), an eventual member of the Jedi High Council and probably my favorite character of High Republic Phase 1, was also very rules oriented so it's nice to see his impact a century-ish on. Fun fact: Vernestra Rwoh actually passed her knighthood trials at 15, making her one of the youngest Jedi knight in at least a generation.



5. I think Amanda Stenberg is doing a good job of portraying two wildly different characters.
6. Cool to see Joonas Suotamo back and playing our first live action Wookiee Jedi.
7. Some of the technology definitely shows that it is a more technologically primitive time than the prequels and Original Trilogy, which helps reinforce the fact that this is before anything we've seen before in live action.

Spoiler: Speculation

I don't think Indara, Sol, Torbin and Kelnacca killed Mae and Osha's family. Something shady definitely happened around it, and I don't know what but I think Mae did start the fire. Sol likely wasn't involved, since it seems like he honestly believed Mae was dead. Indara definitely recognized Mae as Mae, Torbin swore the Barash Vow (an oath in which a Jedi refrains from taking part in activities of the Jedi Order as either an act of penitence or occasionally an attempt to re-focus on the Force) and Kelnacca is clearly on some sort of hermitage.

I have a feeling that Indara and Torbin (and probably Kelnacca) may have saved Mae's life but sensing darkness in her didn't want to bring her into the Jedi Order and so told her that Osha was dead. And probably sent her off somewhere. This would tie in to Sol's statement about not letting fear cloud judgement, basically everything about how Mace Windu treated Anakin, and Luke's moment of fear when he was sensing Ben's mind. It just... fits. One problem with this is that Torbin took the Barash Vow ten years pre-series, but the death of the family happened 16 years pre-series so whatever crap Indara/Torbin/Kelnacca were involved in might have occurred later than I currently think. Or what I've postulated was just part one of whatever happened.

Mae is being manipulated by the Sith Master who is likely testing her to see if she would fit as his apprentice, or if she'll just be some lowly Sith cultist (like those we saw on Exegol in Ep IV and as Qimir is likely to be). My prediction is that by the end of the series, basically every named Jedi we've met, several we haven't yet met, plus Osha and Mae will be dead, the Sith Master will have killed quite a few of them, and the Order will have no clue that the death of so many Jedi was due to Sith.

 

My parents seem to like it, but my sister and I both left. It was much more Bobf than Andor unfortunately.

 

The dialogue could use some cleaning up, and I would really appreciate a more talented cinematographer a la Ahsoka and Andor for that lived-in feel, but I otherwise enjoyed the first 2 eps.

Sad to see that the ragegrifters have zero'd in on this as their newest culture war target. It was at 40% on RT with 500+ ratings before the first 2 eps had even aired. Now it's 30% and 5000+. Smh.

 

There is a rather interesting theory going around that Qimir

Spoiler

may in fact be Mae‘s master.

There are a couple of reasons why I would find that charming:

• He clearly knows more than he is letting on:
  • Figuring out that Osha was posing as her sister when he shouldn‘t even know Mae *has* a sister, nevermind an ostensibly dead one)
  • Knowing where the Jedi are hiding & Torbin’s weakness at the very least
  • Quoting part of the Sith code at Mae
• He’s at least adept at hand-to-hand combat (evading Mae when she confronts him about ratting her out to the Jedi)
• He‘s also a very good actor – lying to two Jedi and a couple of Padawans is no mean feat
• Keeping an eye on Mae while in disguise would be a rather Sith thing to do.
  
• Lastly, Manny Jacinto is great, so I‘d be delighted with him having a bigger role over the course of the season.

 

Spoiler

That is a real possibility, but I don't think the current evidence supports it as strongly as the current proponents of it believe. My thoughts of them in same order as listed above:

1. Qimir clearly has some history with Mae, and it seems heavily implied to me that part of her wanting to join the Sith is that she blamed the Jedi (rightly or not) for the "death" of Osha and that would have come up during her recruitment
2. This is the strongest piece of evidence, but it doesn't rule out him being a "higher" ranked Sith cultist assigned to assist/monitor Mae during her tasked assassinations. Knowing Torbin's weakness could arise from knowledge of Mae's background plus knowledge of the Barash Vow, and he could know the Jedi's location from the Sith Master. But as I said, this is the strongest evidence.
3. Being a Sith cultist would entail knowing the Sith code.
4. Jedi aren't the end all, be all of combat. A sufficiently trained person could fight a Jedi and win (see General Viess, who had killed multiple Jedi with a beskar spear and fought legendary High Republic Jedi Porter Engle twice and survived), and Mae certainly isn't to the same level as a Jedi trained in hand-to-hand combat.
5. Not all Jedi have the skill to tell when someone is lying through the Force, and must instead rely upon their own instincts and observations. An example comes from the book Star Wars: Master & Apprentice by Claudia Gray where we learn that Qui-Gon lacked the ability in the Force to tell truth from lie.
6. Fair, but I'm not sure how much the Sith Master is willing to risk in giving the Jedi a chance to learn about him, which is why I think there is a strong chance of Qimir being a cultist.
7. I'm unfamiliar with Manny Jacinto, but he was great in episode 2.

I know it seems like I am holding on tight to my own personal theory of him being a Sith cultist. It looks that way because I am really hoping it turns out that way. While we know from previous entries in canon that Sith cultists exist, we don't know much about them beyond what we saw in Episode IX, the Vader comics and the book Shadows of the Sith and even then we only really know anything about Ochi of Bestoon. I give it a 50/50 chance of Qimir being the Sith Master or not.

 

Spoiler

Headland has been talking a lot in interviews about the show's focus on Rule of Two, and using established EU characters. So I'm fairly certain Jacinto's Qimir IS the helmeted Sith we got a glimpse of, and an apprentice of Darth Plagueis (or Darth Tenebrous if this is pre-dating Plagueis), and is grooming Mae to be his apprentice for when he takes power.

 

Spoiler: Star Wars racism inbound

If "using established EU characters" means what the words say, don't trust a single male Muun we see, he'll probably be Plagueis. If she meant the non-show current canon Star Wars stuff, she was probably talking about things like Rwoh and other long-lived Jedi and doesn't actually know that current canon is supposed to be flat.

Though Abrams and Filoni have both fucked that, goddammit.

 

Spoiler

Only partway into the episode, but can we get an independent Force using group that aren't a coven of witches for once? It's just so very one-note feeling.

Edit:

Spoiler: Further into the episode

Yeah, I don't feel a lot of sympathy for this coven. And oh boy, dark side alchemy? That's kinda fun.

Edit 2:

Spoiler: Fuck it, I'm live blogging

Cool to see the test from Ep I return but I have to wonder how you would test an aphantasiac Force-sensitive. And yeah, I really don't like these witches or Mae. I knew she had some dark side going on early. A good example of the dangers of attachment.

Unrelated to spoilers: one of the cool things of the High Republic books was that Jedi kept their lightsabers in holsters instead of just clipped to a belt. Sad to notice in episode three that they are back to up to clips now.

 

Spoiler

So yeah, very clearly setting the stage for Plagueis and his obsession with creating life via the force. I'm imagining his interest in Mae (and Osha) is that he finds out they're a dyad created by alchemy.

 

Spoiler

Annoying they're obviously going with "he stole the idea from witches" though.

 

Spoiler: All right dammit

I'm now on the "Qimir is the Master" train. Just the way he was questioning and pushing Mae seemed a bit... intense.


Don't think I mentioned it earlier, but I love hiw the Sith's helmet is remoniscent of Kylo Ren's while the "teeth" reminds me of Darth Vader's skull motif.

 

Spoiler

I love Manny Jacinto, so happy he’s in this show (I had no idea going in, so to see Qimir pop up and be like “he looks/sounds so familiar…” was a real delight). They’re definitely laying clues that lead back to Qimir = The Master. Though I wonder if they’re laying it on too thick, and it might be a red herring. I think bare minimum he’s an Acolyte himself- the way he said the task wasnt impossible made me think he knows from experience. Either way, excited to see the Master in action next week. Looking forward to the new Jedi’s in the group to be redshirts and get got.

 

Would you mind giving some examples on what you disagree with? Perhaps everyone just think its shit.

 

I mean the fact that it had hundreds of negative reviews from fans before an episode even dropped is pretty telling that a significant chunk of the bad reviews aren’t coming from a place of legitimate criticism.

There’s legitimate criticism to be had against the show, but I think its already cemented itself as a solid show. Certainly better than Boba, Obi Wan, and probably Ashoka as well depending on how the rest of the season goes.

 

That might have been a good faith argument had all the biggest ragegrifter accounts not literally been directing their users to review bomb the shit out of it. Like... it's in writing and video, and they are ongoing trying to get it down to 10%.


As for the common points brought up in reviews with actual substance that I'd disagree with:

1) Disney Bad. Ruined Star Wars. Star Wars dead. Blah blah blah

- No. Disney has put out some of the worst offerings to Star Wars canon, but also some of the best (Clone Wars final arc, Bad Batch, Andor, Ahsoka [ymmv], Mando). Star Wars is the most popular franchise on the planet and it is not even close to dead. Be fucking for real right now.

2) The writers don't know Star Wars.

- Headland is a huge EU lorehead and has demonstrated as such on numerous occasions.

3) waaaaah poc in leading roles

- Go fuck yourself.

4) changing Ki-Adi Mundi's birthday that was only ever listed on a Topps film companion card (not even c-level canon) has destroyed my entire childhood

- lol

5) having twins created by the dark side / force alchemy makes Anakin unspecial

- double lol. A) It is already hard G-level canon that Plagueis could create life via the force. It is right there in Phantom Menace's most famous quote.
B) Anakin is the chosen one. He was immaculately conceived by the Force itself pushing back against the failed Grand Experiment of Palpatine and Plagueis. If they tie this whole shebang into Plagueis, Osha and Mae being successful dark side creations will 100% ENRICH Anakin's story.



Like... there are definitely valid criticisms to be had for the show: lackluster acting from much of the cast, amateur cinematography, bland costuming, and the witches were more than a bit cringe aside from Aniseya.

But that is nowhere near enough to justify 13% RT audience score with 25k+ reviews. Most non-bombed SW shows barely get 5000 ratings by the end of their runs. This show has more reviews than all three seasons of Mando put together after 4 episodes. It also has less viewers than Ahsoka.

Trying to argue that it's not being blatantly bombed for disingenuous culture war-y reasons is just going to get you laughed at, especially when most of the reviews are just saying something like "woke trash" and "Disney shit". That they also went after a fan project named The Acolyte, and a completely unrelated drama called Acolytes, which both saw hundreds of 1 star reviews all at once, is the icing on the 'media-illiterate culture-warrior' shaped cake.

Spoiler: Unrelated major leak/spoiler for ep5 and beyond

Darth Teeth is confirmed to be Manny Jacinto in a leaked image. So yeah, I definitely think he's the Apprentice, not the master.

 

Emphasis mine. I want us to be very clear about this. Anakin was NOT made by Palpatine. In the current canon, It is only a theory that he exists due to a pushback from the Force on Plagueis's and Palpatine's experiments. Right now, we don't even know when Plagueis died. In Legends (EU) canon, it was only a THEORY postulated by Plagueis that Anakin was conceived by the Force as part of a pushback against his failed experiment to create life from nothing through the dark side in the Darth Plagueis novel by James Luceno. It should also be noted how obviously deluded he is throughout the novel, so we can only take that theory with a grain of salt.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

...

Don't even get me fucking going on all the idiots who don't understand the Jedi code or the hypocrisy/lies of the Sith code.

 

Almost forgot: Want to be clear again. Technically we're not supposed to be utilizing a tiered canon anymore with the Disney purchase. Part of the goal was to have the Star Wars canon be flat, with all of it being built to fully consistent with the rest of it. Of course, JJ Abrams went and fucked that by not consulting with the loremasters on Episode IX (Star Wars Bloodlines had already explicitly stated that Leia had no Jedi training). But we officially aren't using the old hierarchy (G, T (still hate this one), C, S, N).


I may like Star Wars.

 

I'm never going to stop calling the films and Words of George G-level canon. It is too solidly ingrained in my brain.

100%. Too many people are still taking Darth Vader 25 as "what happened".