ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - AHSOKA Episode 3 REVIEW - Is STAR WARS Turning Into STAR TREK?

Episode Date: September 1, 2023

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I'm Ryan Erie, and I want to talk about Asoka Episode 3, which I think is very promising for the rest of this series. But the episode still has some problems, which I'm going to get into in a little bit. And later, I'm going to be joined by two True Blue Star Wars fans. We have Heather Antos and Matt Singer. But first, here's my take. Let's get this party started. So I was a little mixed on the first two episodes of this show.

I mean, they looked great. They featured characters I love. But I thought they were slow-paced and bogged down in continuity. And Rosario Dawson's Asoka is, at times, shall we say, sedated. She's extremely calm, even when a bomb is about to blow up. I'm not sure we have a minute. So even though I didn't think those episodes are great TV, they were fun Star Wars. Like, I just love Star Wars.

Star Wars is a good time for me, even if it's like a little bit lazy and contradicts everything I love. about the original trilogy. Somehow Palpatine Returned. And by the way, everybody, we have a Somehow Palpatine Return t-shirt at our merch store, including The Hello There, The Apprentice Lives, Doug as the child, and of course, the original trilogy t-shirt. We actually designed these shirts ourselves, and the proceeds go to directly support our channel,

and guys, thank you so much for watching. Oh, I love you so much. Now, even though I love Star Wars, it doesn't mean that I'm always on board with every creative decision that Lucasfilm makes. Like, with the show Rebels, I never liked the premise that there were forced users in the rebellion, and running around right up until the events of a new hope. When Luke shows up, it should be special. Like, oh my God, a Jedi? Wow, you guys have been dead for years. Instead, now it's, oh, sweet,

another Jedi. Did you know Canaan and Ezra? They were just here. I mean, they fought against Sith Inquisitors and everything. So, like, I was never going to be the guy who stood in line to watch Rebel Season 5. Although, I do love Thron, and I am so into the mystery of where he and Ezra are and who they are with. And actually, the mystery is one of the strongest aspects of this show, which I'm going to talk about later. But you got to admit, those first two episodes were just a little bit stiff, and there's a lot of standing around in a room and talking. Like, Asoka is very stoic, when she's not really like that in either animated series. Remember, when I reminded you about the giant wall, and you said, don't worry, we won't be

anywhere near that. And I'd have to check, but I don't actually think that she and Sabine ever share a scene together in Rebels, so it took me a while to be won over by the new dynamic of their relationship. Like, in the first two episodes, we heard about their relationship a lot. I'm not sure she'll want to help. understand why things have to be so difficult. Well, considering your history, I'd say that's expected. But in episode three, we actually got to see their relationship grow through action in the show.

Hey, hold it steady. Remember. Learn to anticipate. Now's not the time for a lesson. You're just a little rusty. Overall, I like this episode so much, and it has none of the faults of the first two. But it does have a huge weakness that I want to talk about. You see there...

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Zbiotics is backed with a 100% money-back guarantee. So if you are unsatisfied for any reason, they will refund your money, no questions asked. Remember to head to Zbiotics.com slash screencrush and use the code screen crush at checkout for 15% off. Thank you to Zbiotics for sponsoring this video. Kill me. So let's talk about Asoka and Sabine.

Now, Sabine was hands down my favorite character on Rebels. Every time an episode focused on her, the show just came to life. The episode where Canaan teaches her how to use the Dark Sabres is one of my favorites, because it's the one where she has to finally release all of her pent-up emotions. I spoke out to save them. To save everyone! But like I said, it was kind of weird that they forced this mentor-mentee relationship onto Sabine and Asoka. This was not foreshadowed by rebels at all.

So, like Heather said last week, this is kind of like getting season five of a show, but we also missed a special in there where we got to watch Asoka and Sabine trained together. So that results in, like, a lot of exposition last week. quit on me. Just like I walked away from... Yeah, like at the time, I didn't care about any of this. To me, it seemed like they were adding a new Jedi just to have a new Jedi. But Sabine's arc is different. She is a different kind of Jedi because she has low force sensitivity. The past few Star Wars projects have introduced all these characters with force readings that were off the charts. We had Anakin, then

Ezra, then Ray. So it's nice to have a new learner who kind of sucks at the force. You win this round? It actually makes her relatable to the audience. And in this episode, it was most important that we actually saw her relationship with Asoka reflected through their actions. So the dual training sequence showed Sabine's weaknesses as a student that we saw in Rebels. She rushes forward with her emotions. But this also displayed Asoka's weaknesses as a teacher. She expects Sabine to submit to her like she did with Anakin. We even see their trainings parallel from Tales of the Jedi in the show.

Come on, let's go again. Asoka is trying to see something of herself and Sabine by repeating the training that Anakin gave her. But in this episode, Asoka realizes this method cannot work. Because fundamentally, Sabine is Mandalorian and Asoka is a Jedi. You realize, historically, there have been very few Mandalorians who ever became a Jedi. And Canaan realized this about Sabine years before. Sabine is blocked. Her mind is conflicted. She's so expressive and yet so tightly wound.

She's so... Mandelorian. But the space battle was not just a cool action scene with easy-to-spot Easter eggs like Shenhonti wearing the same communicator as Anakin and Revenge of the Sith. The space battle also moved the characters forward. See, action scenes should never just be cool action scenes. They should put pressure on the characters to grow and learn. It's the difference between this...

And this. So, in the space battle, the T6 Jedi shuttle is way outdone. I mean, these things weren't even originally designed to have weapons. They actually added them during the Clone Wars as a precaution. So this fight forces Assoca to learn. and grow to be a better master. Remember, she is a first-time mentor. She refused to train Ezra, refused to train Grogu,

although she did teach Ezra some sparring lessons. What are you doing? Teaching you. And in The Last Jedi, we saw that masters are often more flawed and conflicted than their students. Actually, that clip is depressing. Let's go with this one. We have what they grow beyond.

So in this battle, Asoka had to move in the direction that Sabine needed her to go. I mean, you can ask any coach. You have to shape your plan to your players. I also love that I don't know what's going to happen next. It has been forever since we've had a good Star Wars mystery. I mean, Star Wars started off with great mysteries. Darth Vader, who's the emperor? What were the Clone Wars? And then gradually, over the years, Star Wars started to explain everything,

and the galaxy got smaller and smaller and smaller. Every character was suddenly related to a Skywalker or a Palpatine. Because you're a Palpatine. So now, this sprawling saga really just became about one family. With the Disney Plus shows, the galaxy feels big again. There's Mandalorians, night sisters, another galaxy, the unknown regions, the Knights of Wren, Thrawn.

We have no idea what's about to happen. Who are Baylon and Shenhati? Where is Ezra? Who is Merrick? So much fun. And this episode had the member berries. With the blast shield down, I can't even see it. Yeah, how am I supposed to fight?

The spacewalk was silly, but like fun, Star Wars silly. And Hu Yang is a fussy-prodroid-sidekick like C-3PO, except he's also brutally honest, like if you set Kramer loose in Star Wars. Well, you're as pretty as any of them. Just need a nose job. And Hu Yang's play-it-by-the-book style perfectly contrast to Asoka and Sabine and highlights just how much Asoka needs an apprentice

that can anticipate and improvise around the needs of their missions. And Asoka actually cracked a smile when they had a lead on Ezra. I am very excited for where this show is going. And actually, once again, shout out to the brilliant score by Kevin Kiner. But the episode was not. perfect. First of all, last week I talked about how this is not really a show for beginners. Star Wars is getting too complicated for casual fans as I'm sure

Matt Singer will want to talk about later. But also a lot of Disney Plus Marvel and Star Wars shows are not really TV shows. They're like long movies cut up into pieces. But what does that even mean? Well, a lot of premium cable shows will have like season-long arcs and mini arcs and then like individual arcs contained within an episode. Andor is a great example. Like the whole season is about Cassie and Andor joining the rebellion. But there are many arcs like the prison story or the Aldowny heist. But each episode has its own individual theme and story. The axe forgets, but the tree remembers. And premium cable shows like The Sopranos and Breaking

Bad follow this same template. But shows like Asoka, the Book of Boba Fett, The Mandalorian Season 3, Secret Invasion Hawkeye, and many others, they don't really tell individual stories in their episodes. The story just kind of stops like it does here in episode three. I mean, look, this is a short episode, really more of like a vignette. But you can tell some great stories in short amounts of time, like how the bear had a single episode that was a 20-minute tracking shot that found time to tell storylines from each character in the show. Now, this episode was about Sabine and Asoka learning to, like, come together. But without other stories to balance this out, and made it feel like the entire episode was essentially three scenes. We had the training scene, which set up the emotional stakes for the chase scene.

Then we had Harris meeting, which sets up the physical stakes for the chase scene, that they're going to be all alone. And then, finally, we have the chase, which, like, forces them to work together. But, like, normally, a show would balance out an hour-long drama with, Other storylines. We did get a brief cutaway of Hara talking to the Senators, but if you didn't know Hara from Rebels, I don't think you're getting to know her as a character right here. And then, even the thing with her son was awesome for Rebels fans, but it's really just like this woman talking to her son. Meanwhile, we're not getting time with Morgan, we're not getting time with Bailen her shin,

making this kind of feel like segments of a movie rather than TV episodes. But still, I loved everything we did get in the episode. I just wanted more! But that's just my thoughts. I'm thrilled to be joined here by two of my favorite people. but we have Heather Antos, who is the senior group editor of licensing at IDW Comics and Screen Crush Editor-in-Chief and author of the forthcoming book about Siskel and Ebert called Opposable Thumbs Matt Singer. So, Matt, I didn't get to talk to you last week about this. I know you're not somebody who is seeing Star Wars Rebels or a lot of animated Star Wars TV.

So what are your thoughts on Asoka so far in this episode in particular? I feel like I'm coming in at the middle. I feel like I joined a class after the first month and I'm struggling to catch up. And the teacher is not making any accommodations for my feeling lost. And I'm just got to kind of just watch going, well, this might make sense to someone else. this character might feel more fleshed out if I had seen these previous things it is weird

although it is happening more it feels like it's happening more lately to like be someone who's seen every Star Wars movie every Disney live action Star Wars show to have read many many Star Wars comics through the years

and to be like vaguely, like, lost, or just feel like I don't quite understand, I mean, obviously, I can understand the story, but just like the, the subtext, the details, the connections between the characters, um, it's very strange for me to have that feeling, watching something from Star Wars, just because I've been watching it so much for 40 years. And, uh, that is kind of how I feel with this show. It's like, um, I don't feel like I'm watching the first season of a TV show. I feel like I'm watching the fifth, I don't know, is it the fifth? Would it be the fifth season of Rebels? It's essentially Rebel Season 5. Right. How is this affecting your enjoyment of this show then?

I'm severely, I would say. There's things that I like about it. There are things that I find interesting about it, but there's also a lot that I just feel like, um, I feel kind of excluded. I feel like the show is narrow casted to the fans of Rebels, uh, for the most part. And it's funny because there's even things that I assume, and then I later find out I'm not even right about that. Like, I, you know, like, I assumed that on Rebels, Asoka, and Sabine had this relationship as Jedi Master and Padawan. I only found out after the first couple episodes that that wasn't the case. Like, it just, the, the show made me assume that it did.

Like, so even, even just sort of making these assumptions, I'm incorrect. So, yeah, it just, it doesn't feel. like a show that makes any concessions to someone like me who hasn't seen these previous things, which if you have seen them and you're enjoying it, great. But from my perspective, it does feel like I'm missing, as I'm watching it, I'm going, I'm missing so much. And the show doesn't seem to want to try to bring me in in a lot of ways. And that's, yeah, that's just my experience. I would say most stories, thanks for that. I'd say most stories have a fundamental goal, and that is to introduce the character's need and to make the audience empathize with that

need. Are you, on a base level, are you getting that with Asoka, Sabine? Do you understand, like, what they want, and are you empathizing with that desire? I, I, the character that I most respond to on the show is Sabine, because I feel like she is the character that is not necessarily getting the most screen time, but has the most clear motivations. Yeah, and you did a piece on Screencrush.com about this, right? you did a piece about. Yeah, I wrote a whole piece about it. I mean, to me, the show should almost be called Star Wars Sabine. Like, it's, like, she's the character in that sort of traditional Star Wars role of this person who has to go on a journey and find somebody or something and, and wants something. Like, Asoka, I don't, like, I, like, I, yes, I get it. She's

sort of a Jedi. She's not quite a Jedi. It's not fully clear to me, but I know that she, left the order, or she doesn't do things the proper way. Um, but like, why is she doing all this? Well, she's kind of a Jedi and that's what Jedi's do. Like, beyond that, I couldn't tell you why she's doing anything on this show, really. Like, it's just she's the good guy. She's the Jedi. She's trying to stop the bad guys. But if you ask me, like, what is Sabine doing? Well, I can say, well, okay, she lost her friend and this, you know, and she's convinced that if she finds this other guy who supposedly died but didn't die, that this person is also probably not dead.

So she has this very clear motivation for that. And meanwhile, she's sort of had this falling out with Asoka over their master and student relationship. And so she's, you know, has something to prove in that way as well. So I can sort of like identify with her. I'm interested in her. But yeah, Asoka just kind of is this very cool looking, a very tough-looking, impressive presence,

but why she's doing what she's doing, how she feels about what she's doing, I really, I could not tell you with any sort of clarity. And so, yeah, it's very strange to be watching Star Wars Asoka, where that title character, to me, it's like, it's not even that she's like an interesting mystery. She's just sort of this blank presence. and I do find that a little frustrating.

Heather, you're not on the opposite spectrum of Matt because Matt's familiar with Star Wars, but you and I are very, very, very deep in Star Wars lore. You created Star Wars lore at Marvel Comics. You created some of the most popular Star Wars characters in publishing. So how is Asoka working for you in episode three? Yeah, I mean, I have to agree with Matt's last point in that one of my first notes on this episode is Asoka is not the main character and the, you know,

and she's the title character. This is so far is not her story. That may change. Who's to say, you know, we still have over half the season to go. But I do agree with Matt that in this, she is, I wouldn't even say, like, stoic. She's even just, like, kind of, she comes across as bored to me. in a lot of it. And,

but as for the episode itself, I thought it was perfectly inoffensive. It was fun, but it felt entirely inconsequential to me. I don't feel as if we learned anything new necessarily, and we were more so confirmed of just like, oh, you know, that thing we hinted at last episode that you could probably pontificate on your own.

You're right. There is a hyperspace ring. You're right. like um and uh and and therefore i feel like this though the space chase was fun i did like the designs of the bad guy ship um i agree i think osoka doing the spacewalk was pretty silly um extremely very silly and in space you wouldn't arc like that either you would just jump that's that's not at all how physics work however but it's how the force works but let's yes let's not start having a conversation about Star Wars physics.

That's another episode, you and I could do. But it was fun, but it still feels like filler to me. And you can get away with consequential filler episodes in a 20-episode season of Star Wars Rebels, but we only have five to go. And so I'm just, I'm really worried again. And we've had this conversation last season with Mandalorian. Where is this going?

What is it building to? Are we going to end on just, again, another giant cliffhanger for this season that didn't really amount to anything just to lead into this, you know, this movie, you know, where it's all supposed to wrap up? I don't know. So, yeah, I had fun this episode, but was it necessary? I don't think so. I don't know. I kind of disagree with a couple points there because, for one thing, in this show, I do feel like we can see where it's going. You know, they've pretty much laid out the stakes.

They're trying to get to Ezra and Thrawn. So at least unlike Mandalorian, you have a definite, we're going here. You know, whereas in the Mandalorian, it was like, well, are we going to go to Mandelora? Is it cursed? Oh, way, Mof Gideon might be around, like in the second to last episode. And the one thing I really did like about this episode was it showed that relationship between Master and Apprentice that we just heard about in the last episode. So there was finally more telling, or sorry, there was finally more showing instead of telling.

And Matt, hearing Heather talk about this, I don't understand. you know, how you could possibly be confused. It's very simple. I mean, before Luke, there was another Jedi being trained by an ex-Jedai who used giant space teleporting whales called Purgle to take an evil guy named Thron, who's not in the movies but was really important in the interim between the different movies,

and they went to a different galaxy somewhere, and now they're being hunted by force witches who were also extinct, by the way, who also father Darth Maul. What is not to understand about that? Is it clear and crystal. And don't worry, Ryan. What I, ugh, my bad. I was going to say those force witches,

were not in the movies either, so... No, but they were heavily implied. I mean, look, I will say to what, you know, to what Heather was saying comparing it this episode or this season of the show to the Mandalorian last season, the part that I totally agree with is that it's just the idea of, like, the focus of these shows seems so, I don't know, it's just strange where you feel like you're signing up for one show

and you're handed another show, basically. Yes, I do agree with Ryan that I do understand sort of like the stakes, and there does seem to be, like I understand where we're going and why and what that's all about. That is, I do think that is clearer on Asoka than it was on The Mandalorian. But I also feel like, just as The Mandalorian last season barely felt like it was about The Mandalorian, I don't really feel like this show is really about Asoka, so much as it is about these people from this other TV show that who are kind of, orbiting around her, who are sort of, she's sort of like, you know, like moving chess pieces around aboard very, um, sort of emotionlessly, uh, you know, and, and even the villains of the show, um, as you're sort of joking about, Ryan, like, I, I don't really understand any of them or who they are, or, again, it's, it's very like, well, they're the bad guys. Like,

why is Asoka doing this? She's the good guy. That's what the good guys do. Why are these bad guys trying to get the Thrawn? Well, they're the bad guys, and that's what bad guys do. They want the other bad guy. They want to get the bad guy to do other bad things. Like, that's all I'm getting. That's all I understand. And I don't really feel like, and maybe the show will eventually explain why these, again, they're like sort of Sith.

I guess they're, I don't really know how to describe the other bad guy. Actually, we don't either, which is one of the fun things about it. But that's the thing. Yeah. I don't know. That's super cool. Right. Okay.

See, but like, I'm not sure, like, if that was this kind of thing sort of like Asoka, where I should know exactly her status as a Jedi, but I just don't because the show hasn't explained to that to me. I couldn't quite tell if I was supposed to know about, again, if they're Sith, if they're not Sith, but those characters, like, they're sort of, they're just very vague to me. Again, their motivations, like we got a little of their backstory, but why they are doing this, because they're bad, and they, that's what bad guys. too. Like, I can't really explain much more than that. And in terms of this episode, yeah, I sort of agree, you know, when you have an eight-episode show and one episode is 25 minutes and about half of it is like an elaborate chase in space, like, yeah, I don't know that I would say it was a wasted episode, but it just, it's sort of a mildly diverting episode where, again, if I don't really understand who's battling who and why, I mean, you can make the coolest space chase in the world, but if I'm not all that invested in what happens in it, am I really going to care? It's sort of how I would feel.

And beyond that, like, watching the space chase, like, for me, well, it's our two heroes, and then one of the faced bad guys. So we know none of them are, you know, there's, everyone's going to survive this. There's, you know, that the stakes felt very low in that chase. um in and of itself it's episode three they ain't dying here um and uh yeah the stakes were more character based about asoka learning to trust for apprentice you know which

again i enjoyed heather back to kind of like what i was saying earlier about episode structure right you know matt's bringing up we don't really know about these orange sabred people i'm sure we're going to learn about them in episode six etc but in particular i was watching this episode and going gee i wish we were balancing these stories out better you know cutting between them a little bit more, maybe another scene with Hara, something in there to like create a running theme throughout the episode instead of it just kind of stopping. Do you think Heather, these shows are sometimes just feeling like longer movies that have been truncated into small sections? Is that part of the problem here?

Yeah, I absolutely agree with your points you made on this earlier. And I do want to clarify my previous point. I do know the intention is for these characters, you know, to go after Thrawn and Ezra. I just don't necessarily trust that that's going to happen within this season. I don't trust that we're necessarily going to find them within this season. That, you know, is that the big movie? Oh, that would suck. That would

together. That was when I when I watched, when I watched this episode, might, and yet again, we're not even close to reaching Thrawn and Ezra. You know, the hyperspace ring isn't even complete yet. It's true.

it's like dandy trying to get across the narrow sea now yeah like i thought on my head i'm like oh is this going to be force awakens and we just have the one shot of thron at the end of you know episode eight um hinting at what's to come i hope not i hope hope hope hope hope not but i also wouldn't put it past dave phillone based on previous storytelling choices that he's made in other in other seasons um i will say though most of the shots from the trailer we've all already seen. I think there's just like, and all the stuff seems like it's going to be in the next episode. There's some fights in the woods and then the throng shot. So we've got a lot of minutes of television, presumably, unless the episodes keep getting shorter, that we don't know what's going to fill them. And I really hope that you're wrong about some of the things you just said. I hope I am too. Oh, geez. Trust me, I hope I am wrong. I hope to God I am wrong. So I want to bring this over to something that's like getting near and dear to all of us. Matt, you and I talked about this. I don't, Remember if you actually wrote a piece on it about Star Wars becoming Star Trek, right? And Heather, you currently, you know, your group editor at IDW, you handle Star Trek canon,

which is a large, large, unwieldy beast to try to tame. I know that the IDW comics, you guys have this great series that, like, found all these different characters from 90s track, and you went, wait, there's one year where they're unaccounted for, where we can make this canon story. And, you know, with Star Wars, you know, there's novels, there's comics, all of its canon. So is it going to get needlessly complicated? And can Star Wars find a niche for itself within that? Matt, what do you think? Like, is Star Wars becoming Star Trek?

Yeah, that was something we had talked about. I haven't written anything about that. But it's something that's been on my mind watching, especially this show, where, yeah, it just feels like, I mean, Star Wars I always thought of, and I love both. I love Star Wars and I love Star Trek growing up. and still to this day. Same.

And to me, I always thought of Star Wars as more like, just more mainstream and broad, you know, broadcast, aiming for a very wide audience.

They're playing, you know, the movies are playing to the widest possible audience. And even when Star Trek was making movies, to me, it always seemed like,

um, hey, if you want to come and see our Star Trek movie, that's great. But like, we're, we're catering to our, our fans and we're giving them

what they want. That's always how I felt. maybe until the J.J. Abrams movies, which felt much more like Star Wars movies in that way to me. And I love those. Well, I love two of those three movies. And I just rewatched the first. Leave it a mystery.

Leave it a mystery. Okay, yeah, yeah. First and third. But I just like rewatched the first one and thought, yeah, this movie is really great. And it holds up. And it does feel a little like Star Wars to me. But yeah, watching this show,

show and the Mandalorian the last season, it really does feel like things that are aimed at a very narrow audience of people who have watched that cartoon canon of Star Wars. And, you know, listening to you guys, it sounds like you're generally enjoying the show. Maybe not as much as I would have thought just based on, well, watching it and going, well, this doesn't really feel like it's catering to me at all as someone who hasn't watched a lot of Clone Wars or Rebels. But that's who it seems aimed at. It's like it's aimed at those people who love these characters and wanted more of a conclusion to their story or wanted to find out what happened after the show.

And, you know, if you didn't watch that show, well, you know, well, okay, well, it's going to look really cool as everything Star Wars does. But that's, you know, it does not feel like it's making many concessions to that. wider audience, even of people who watched, like, The Mandalorian, the first seasons, you know, at least, where I really felt like anyone could watch, like, The Mandalorian Season 1, and just watch it, you know, like you maybe didn't even need to know the original Star Wars movie, you know, it was a Western in space. I don't know. I'm very curious to see how you make a movie for theaters that follows this, because this already feels hard,

not hard to follow, but just sort of not aimed at a wide audience. Let's put it that way. So how do you make a movie that follows this that I thought was supposed to be for theaters that is presumably based on what it must cost to make it has some sort of concessions to an audience that maybe hasn't even seen some of these TV shows?

I really, that to me seems like an enormous creative challenge. Heather, what about you? Since you've been tied into both these franchises, I don't mean to imply that being like Star Trek is a weakness. I just want to know how does the franchise like continue and evolve in the way that Star Trek has. But Star Trek is also, like Matt said,

it's a little more niche. Like our Strange New Worlds and Picard videos do nowhere near the traffic of our Star Wars videos. Yeah, I think it all comes down if you go into the core basics of the nature, of storytelling that these two different franchise uses. I mean, you know, at the end of the day, Star Wars is very traditional good versus evil fantasy. You know, they don't really give a shit about physics as we see in this episode, you know. And that's really, you know, every single Star Wars story is good versus evil, the underdog.

versus, you know, the great power that be in the galaxy. And Star Trek is about exploration. It's about esoteric, you know, studies of what it means to be a human. It's a lot more philosophical. And so that in and of itself, you know, Star Trek is something you have to really sit down and think about if you're going to understand what it is they're trying to say. They're not, you know, spoon feeding you good versus evil necessarily all the time. And so that in and of itself, I think, is fundamentally so long as Star Wars stays, very good versus evil fantasy.

It's going to be more easy to grasp and pick up on. However, and we did discuss this a little bit last week, where I think Star Wars is getting itself into trouble, is it is becoming too referential. It is becoming too reliance on past stories, past characters, past Easter eggs. I mean, that is my fear on the future of Star Wars is it's going to become, in order to truly understand it and enjoy it, you have to be a you or me, you know, where we consume everything. And that makes it hard to find new audiences. And this is where I'm really optimistic about the future of Star Wars.

Because if you look at what Lucasfilm is planning, now that they have a plan, they're going into the future and into the past. They're carving out these eras of Star Wars that theoretically you can just go to. And for the first time, Dawn of the Jedi, the High Republic novels are excellent because they take this basic idea, good guys have laser swords in space, and they're fighting pirates. And as long as they do this for creators, as long as they're giving them space out here and say, go do what you want. It's the unknown regions.

do whatever you like, then I think Star Wars can succeed. But the longer they stay in this era, which I love, but the longer they stay in this era, the more bogged down it'll get in continuity, which is fine for some fans. A friend of the channel, Adam Lance Garcia, loves to say that Star Wars is a restaurant. You can order whatever you want off the menu.

It's novels, it's Andor, it's this, it's that. And, you know, I'm starting to think this show is doing a great job of appealing to rebels fans and people who've wanted to see these stories told. But unfortunately, it means that some other Star Wars fans, like Matt might get left to the dust. Guys, I'm going to wrap it up there. Heather, where can the people find you? Yeah, everyone can find me at Heather Antos

on all of the things and pick up some Star Trek comics at your local comic shop. They are truly excellent. And Eisner nominated, correct, this past year? Congrats on that. And Matt Singer, where can the people find you? Screencrush.com and various social sites.

I'm at Matt Singer. And, of course, like I said before, don't forget Matt is author of the upcoming book on Siskel and Iber. Call it a opposable thumbs. Get your pre-order now. I can't wait to read it. But we want to hear from all of you. What did you think of episode 3 of Asoka? Let us know in the comments below or at any of us on Twitter or all the things. And if it's your first time here, hey, welcome the channel. Please subscribe. Ring that bell for alerts.

For Screen Crush, I'm Ryan Erie. And this is Business Cat. Hello. Thank you.