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S02E59: Rapidly Rewatching Mando, S2E5
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NOW we finally get to see Ahsoka Tano in real life... and boy, does it live up to the anticipation! Join us as we start this epic final arc to Mando season 2.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'The Jedi' Episode
00:00:00
Speaker
Mando finally encounters a Jedi and he's doing it real quick. Welcome back to Short for a Stormtrooper, a 15-minute Star Wars podcast where we are continuing our rewatch or watch in the first time for Phil.
00:00:13
Speaker
back to short for a storm trooper a fifteen minute star wars podcast where we are continuing our rewatch or watch in the first time for phil of The Mandalorian before May 22nd when The Mandalorian and Grogu hits theaters near
Ahsoka Tano's Introduction on Corvus
00:00:33
Speaker
you. But let us dive in with Season 2, Episode 5, which is Chapter 13, The Jedi, written and directed by who else is going to write one about Ahsoka...
00:00:50
Speaker
Dave Filoni himself.
Din Djarin's Mission and Grogu's Name Reveal
00:00:51
Speaker
Din Djarin arrives on the forest planet Corvus seeking Ahsoka Tano as directed by Bo-Katan. He's recruited by the local Imperial Magistrate Morgan Elspeth to kill the Jedi, but instead teams up with Ahsoka to liberate the town of Kaladin.
00:01:08
Speaker
Along the way, Ahsoka communicates with the child through the Force and drops a bombshell. His name is Grogu, and he was raised at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant before being hidden during the Purge.
00:01:20
Speaker
Ahsoka refuses to train him and sends Din to the planet Tython to find an ancient Jedi Temple.
Ahsoka's Cinematic Style and Influences
00:01:28
Speaker
Now, that summary by Claude did a very good job of hitting the beginning and the end. There's a lot in the middle that it conveniently skipped over, but that's what we are here for today.
00:01:39
Speaker
Ben Dyer, let's start with you today. Give us your thoughts on the Jedi as a, you know, seasoned Ahsoka Tano, at least knower, if not a fan.
00:01:51
Speaker
No, I i like Ahsoka Tano. I'm still, as you know, catching up on the backlog of Rebels and Clone Wars and all that stuff. But let's let's be clear about this from go.
00:02:02
Speaker
This is one of those amazing filmic moments where you get to see somebody really show you how much they love Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune. Absolutely.
00:02:14
Speaker
This is Ahsoka Tano the Samurai. This is ah one of the best kind of, you know, small beats movies, very kind of like a, you know, that kind of blasted land. There's this kind of,
00:02:29
Speaker
you know, really desiccated space that they're in and it has that kind of, um, that same kind of composition. I think there are even shots that are drawn straight out of Kurosawa movies for this one. So- there very well could be. Yeah, I'm not sure, but that makes sense. Yeah, I mean, it just reeks samurai movie.
00:02:50
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Kurosawa. I remember when this came out, there were like memes and people were like comparing them side to side. So like, ah you know, I couldn't tell you like which ones exactly now, but like, this is definitely a sort of a classic samurai movie.
00:03:04
Speaker
experience. um Love that we finally get Grogu's name. And the thing I think was funny about this is that everybody kept calling him baby Yoda for so long. And I absolutely sort were just like, fine, we're giving the name. His name is Grogu. Okay. It's not baby Yoda. It's Grogu. You hear me? Grogu, everybody.
Filoni's Intentions with Grogu's Name
00:03:22
Speaker
Well, you know what? So in some of my exploration of this episode, I found out Favreau told Filoni early in development that the child's name was Grogu. And And Filoni realized that Ahsoka was the perfect character to reveal it because she knew Yoda. She could connect with him through the force, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But also Dave Filoni was a little scared to bring Ahsoka in until season two because he was afraid that he would screw it up if he tried doing it in season one.
00:03:51
Speaker
So that's why we had to wait so long to find out his real name. But yes, yeah. Interesting fact. um Ben, I'm going to hit pause for you for just a second because I want to find out what Phil, as a novice to this series and to Ahsoka, thought about Chapter 13, The Jedi.
00:04:14
Speaker
This was great. I thought this was a really cool intro to the character of Ahsoka. As you said, Bob, I don't really have any of the context from the animated series or any of the extended Star Wars universe about this character, but man...
00:04:28
Speaker
Cool action, cool stunts, and you know surprisingly, even though maybe they don't show it as much, they or they show it sort of in the distance, but very violent. She is ruthless. And I particularly love, as Ben alluded to,
00:04:41
Speaker
a lot of the samurai and Kurosawa references, you can see that Filoni is a fan and is incorporating it into this episode. In particular, there's a couple shots. I think this is ah this is a device he uses in the beginning, but also a couple times in some of the ending action sequences as well, the climatic action sequence. that they show it from her perspective, her POV, as though like she is the hunter, the predator, and everybody else is the prey.
00:05:06
Speaker
And it's really interesting to show it show your protagonist's perspective, because that I think that does a lot from the the viewer's perspective as well. And I really like this intro, and I really like this episode obviously focusing on her a lot. And this, I must say, you know I've been a little down in some parts of season two, and I haven't really i haven't really liked it as much season one thus far, but this episode really brought it back
Casting Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka
00:05:31
Speaker
for me. Great, great episode.
00:05:34
Speaker
Well, the good news is, in my opinion, this last four episodes, the last half of season two is just a continually building, um it climb up the mountain.
00:05:46
Speaker
ah you're We're really in for a treat for the the rest of these three. um One of the key things of this episode is the guest cast.
Guest Stars and Their Impact
00:05:56
Speaker
So we've got Rosario Dawson who got this part because many years ago, i think somebody fan cast her and like this big uprising went of like, Rosario Dawson should be playing Ahsoka Tano. And i know that she got ahold of that and liked that idea and actually campaigned to get the role.
00:06:21
Speaker
um I was a little sad when they cast her, that they didn't give Ashley Eckstein, who did the voice, the opportunity to be Ahsoka in live action.
00:06:33
Speaker
But when I saw this the first time, I was like, no, Rosario is is definitely the one who can handle it. I don't think Ashley could have pulled off. especially the physicality of that role.
00:06:43
Speaker
Um, so that's interesting. Um, Diana Lee in Osanto as Morgan Elspeth, by the way, take a second to bask in that name. Like you say how much more witchy?
00:06:56
Speaker
yeah No, I can't. But like how much more witchy can you get than Morgan Elspeth? Um, And we'll find out more about that as the story progresses.
00:07:07
Speaker
But Diana Lee Inosanto is Bruce Lee's goddaughter. Like the Lee in her name is named after Bruce Lee.
00:07:19
Speaker
And she is a a stunning martial artist. She's been around the block. She was actually the double for Sarah Michelle Gellar on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
00:07:33
Speaker
I mean, she was hard-nosed and she did great in this role. You know it wasn't just the the acting and the fighting. It wasn't just the fighting. She was great in the acting. And then, of course, and I'm not sure exactly how to pronounce his last name, Michael Bean, Bane?
00:07:49
Speaker
Do you know? Bean, I believe. Yeah, there you go. Well, okay, Bean. See, no one knows. ah Kyle Reese in the Terminator, Hicks in Alien.
00:08:01
Speaker
ah Just fantastic to see him in this role. Well, and let's not forget that the one that is he's channeling here is Johnny Ringo from Tombstone. Yes.
00:08:12
Speaker
The bad guy. And he played that part, right? See, I never watched Tombstone. What? Oh, my gosh. Bob, that's that's required viewing. Look at Phil. People will tell you. Phil, back me up here.
00:08:25
Speaker
Yeah. I'm kidding now that he had that he played the villain role. in that i was It's funny because I heard his voice. i was waiting until later to talk about it. But since we're talking about it now, i heard his voice and i was like, That sounds a lot like Reese from the Terminator. And then I saw his face and he I looked at him and it was like, oh, he looks like Reese, but, you know, 40 years. Really old, right? Yeah. Yeah.
00:08:44
Speaker
And ah great, great performance. um I really love his his blaster shotgun. That was really cool. I had never seen that before. You know, again, not as familiar with it, but I always, have you know, imagine like the blasters is sort of like a pistol style, but I have this in some future episodes. We'll talk about some different variations on that that I think is really cool.
00:09:04
Speaker
And I think he had probably my favorite scene with the Mandalorian in this episode, right? Which is that kind of standoff at the end where your everything's just really tense. And he's kind of commentating and waiting to see which way the wind's going to blow as they hear the door next door.
00:09:22
Speaker
What a perfect scene for that guy. Yep. And then, you know, for just a second, you think that they're going to walk away peaceably, but nope. Nope. Did not happen. He does the classic, you know, Western villain thing of like, oh, I'm going to put my blaster down. And then, but you see in his eyes that he's got something up his sleeve, but Mando knows.
00:09:43
Speaker
He does. That was great. um One thing that was really cool.
Ahsoka's White Lightsabers and Backstory
00:09:49
Speaker
I'm just going to call back to fans of short for a storm trooper is ah we got to see a Soka with her white lightsabers, which We had seen in Rebels, but we hadn't seen in Clone Wars.
00:10:03
Speaker
And ah the story of how she turned her kyber crystals white, um or she purified the kyber crystals for these two new lightsabers, was told in the Ahsoka novel by E.K. Johnston, who was a guest on this very podcast in the past.
00:10:21
Speaker
Good episodes. So Kate, if you're watching or listening, shout out to you. Good job with that. um There was one other thing I want to mention. i'm going to let you guys just go to town on anything else you want to talk about is the score, right? So through this entire series so far, Goranson has avoided really even calling back to any Star Wars themes, but we get it here twice, right? So Phil, you probably recognized Yoda's theme. Did you win? Yeah. so Yeah.
00:10:54
Speaker
Which, oh my gosh, as soon as that happens, that brings a tear to my eye every single time. um But the other thing is he used Ahsoka's theme from the Clone Wars. So whenever you see Ahsoka and she's got that very ah identifiable theme, that is the original Ahsoka
Grand Admiral Thrawn's Future Role
00:11:12
Speaker
theme. And I did have a box of replica lightsabers from Galaxy's Edge that when you opened it up would play Ahsoka's theme and it was really cool but I sold them when I moved to Chicago so so Michael Fights if you're listening to this episode i hope you're enjoying those those lightsabers what else comes up for you guys in the last minute or two here well I do think it's it's important that we pick out a preview or ah a reference that happened at the very end of the episode when Ahsoka finally gets the information we want that she wants and it's grand Admiral Thrawn she's after.
00:11:53
Speaker
Yes. Yes. I first came across him in the nineties with the original Timothy's on air to the empire series of books. And what a fearsome calculating enemy that would be. And so of course, when you hear that name in this series, I understand he's had more exposure kind of in the rebels and, and, uh, yeah, the earlier animated stuff, but nonetheless, uh, if you understand who that guy is, the idea of seeing him in live action, uh, really is a, an exciting prospect.
00:12:25
Speaker
Absolutely. And, uh, I don't know. A couple of things. Yeah. Go
Filoni's Direction and Writing Praise
00:12:29
Speaker
ahead. phil yeah A couple of things just to shout out here as well. Um, You know, I got to say, this is a real, and I know we've been up and down on this series about Filoni a little bit in some of the episodes that he's directed and written, but I really feel like this might be this, you know, I'd have to go back and check the record, but maybe the strongest episode that he's written and directed of the ones I've seen thus far, I know we've, at least for me, I've favored some of the Favreau and some of like the guest direction ones a little more than some of the totally Filoni helmed ones, but this was great. And I really, ah ought to i would check back, but it's one of,
00:13:04
Speaker
the strongest entries from him, I think. Obviously, I know he's very involved in this series and the kind of the broader Mandalorian universe, but this is a really strong one from him. i agree. Absolutely.
00:13:16
Speaker
All right, boys, time to wrap it up. Time flies when you're having fun and when you only have 15 minutes. So we will be back next week and we will dive into episode six.
00:13:28
Speaker
And again, like I said, the stakes keep rising and that's a little sneak preview of what's gonna happen. So until next time. Ben, thank you. Phil, thank you. Listeners, thank you. may the force be with you. We'll see you next week.
00:13:42
Speaker
Bye-bye. Who's that mindless choice to do? Podcast, hope you see them through. Star Wars is your favorite in it. Let's chat for 15 minutes. Aren't you a little short?
00:13:53
Speaker
Aren't you a little short? Aren't you a little short for a sporn trooper? Aren't you a little short for a slur?