rainydayjapan

I was a teenager when Toy Story was released in 1995. This means that I was both too old (and too young) to have much interest in it, and I gave it a miss.

I thereafter ended up spending a couple decades of my life living in a world surrounded by Toy Story stuff, but never having seen it or any of its sequels.

It was only after growing up and having kids of my own that I finally got around to watching it, with them. And only then did I realize what an absolutely wonderful movie this was.

The existing reviews already cover all the things that make it so good and I'm not sure I can add much too what has already been said. I will just say that I've watched it (and its sequels) several times now (at my kid's requests) and somehow it doesn't get old or tiresome with repeated viewing, for them or me. The story and the character's emotional pull is just incredibly resilient. It makes me laugh, it makes me cry. I don't know of any other movie series that has done that to me.

The first three episodes of this series were hampered by ridiculously slow pacing, boring dialogue and stilted acting.

This episode is a bit of an improvement. That is sort of like damning it with faint praise, but it is what it is.

The story actually seems to move forward in this one. The three rebel leads don't get as much chance to stand around talking slowly and pointlessly at each other, which helps a lot in that regard (though there is still a bit of this). Also there are some fight scenes between Ahsoka, Wren and the two baddies which actually had some tension in them, which was a refreshing change.

But the overall problems with the series kind of persist. The story doesn't make much sense, the writing and direction is mostly sub-par and the acting is pretty bland. The bad guys remain the only characters where you feel any effort is put into actually acting the part, as was the case in earlier episodes. Hera is a particular weak link, her character is still poorly played and doesn't make much sense (she brings her 8 year old kid into a battle for no apparent reason).

This episode might (emphasis on "might") turn the series around from the absolute snoozefest we watched in episodes 1 to 3. I'm not very confident though.

This feels very much like a show done in the tradition of the Mandalorian Season 3 rather than that of the Mandalorian Season 1 or 2.

I've watched the first three episodes. Its been pretty boring. Its one of those shows where most of the story unfolds by people talking about what is happening rather than showing us what is happening. The dialogue is wooden and dull. Lots of throwback lines to the original trilogy that are supposed to still make us excited after 40 years of watching endless Star Wars stuff full of throwback lines to the original trilogy.

The acting is pretty bad for the most part, despite the talented cast. Many of the parts seem miscast. Winstead as a veteran alien rebel general named Hera is a good example. Her take on it seems to be to play the role entirely as her normal self, except with green makeup on. Actually, with the exception of the bad guys who are mostly played by actors trying to be their characters it seems like everyone playing a good guy in this one, no matter how exotic their alien species, is basically just delivering lines casually as themselves like they were doing a run through of the script rather than the actual show.

All around, you can give this one a miss.