You can definitely accuse creators inside the Star Wars franchise of needlessly injecting their media with heavy doses of fan service, and Ahsoka sequence creator Dave Filoni is perhaps the guiltiest of all of them. There’s a cause a tweet from April 2023 sharing a pretend web page from a Filoni script that follows the well-known “and my ax” format from The Lord of the Rings however with Star Wars characters is so humorous—as a result of it feels, partially, like one thing the person blessed with George Lucas’ belief would attempt to pull off.
There are moments all through the primary episode of the brand new Disney Plus Ahsoka sequence that really feel a bit like that tweet, and a bit like Filoni, who helmed the animated Star Wars: Rebels sequence, simply wished to complete telling that present’s story. However although the frequent nods to content material and characters from that beloved sequence could generally make Ahsoka really feel prefer it’s just for the initiated, it nonetheless manages to be a compelling standalone story in its personal proper—possibly not in addition to Andor does, however much better than, say, The E book of Boba Fett.
The beginning of the Ahsoka sequence
Ahsoka begins with one thing that makes me genuinely squeal with delight: a conventional Star Wars opening crawl (although in a placing purple font), filling you in on the important thing story beats you’ll must know entering into. This can be a sensible transfer by Filoni—not solely does it assist Ahsoka really feel extra like a full-blown movie (which it does all through the primary two episodes that aired on August 23 due to implausible VFX and glorious pacing), however it offers just a little little bit of context for followers who could not have sat via some 200 episodes throughout two totally different children’ exhibits.
The crawl tells us that Morgan Elsbeth, an ally to Imperial Grand Admiral Thrawn, has been captured by Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) and is being transported by the Insurgent Alliance. Cue a large Insurgent ship sweeping into view, and a pleasant take a look at how the brand new authorities is working—a ship sending out an outdated Jedi sign is asking to board, however the Insurgent captain thinks its passengers are bluffing. A lot of the Jedi have been worn out throughout The Clone Wars, bear in mind?
The captain was proper to suspect them, as a result of it seems they’re two red-lightsaber-wielding unhealthy guys named Baylan Skoll (RIP Ray Stevenson) and Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno). Each Stevenson and Sakhno shine of their respective roles—Stevenson taking part in Baylan like a classically educated Shakespearean villain, Sakhno imbuing Shin with a feral, twitchy vitality like a nook feral cat. They kill everybody on the ship and launch Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto, who first performed the position on The Mandalorian), who tells Baylan that there’s somebody after the “map”: Ahsoka Tano.
That is an early reminder that Filoni likes the toys in his sandbox a bit an excessive amount of, as Inosanto’s considerably weird line-read (she simply says the identify “Ahsoka Tano” earlier than it cuts to the present’s title card) would have been a lot extra highly effective if she by no means stated all of it. As a substitute, we simply get snapped proper to the identify of the present. Pay attention, Ahsoka is Filoni’s finest lady (and mine, too), so I’ll let him have this one.
Then we see Ahsoka herself, strolling via the ruins of what seems to be an outdated Jedi temple. It’s nice to see Dawson bodily embody the position—she is reserved, virtually stoic as she strikes via this area, however nonetheless sometimes gives flashes of playfulness that remind us of a youthful Ahsoka. And, fortunately, her fucking lekku are lastly the correct size. In a scene that feels straight out of Indiana Jones, Ahsoka makes use of her twin lightsabers to slice via the bottom and drop straight right into a secret room that calls for she full a puzzle to get the article she’s on the lookout for. She does so with ease, however when she tries to speak with Huyang (a Jedi engineer droid voiced by David Tennant), she realizes one thing’s not proper.
She’s attacked, and we get our second lightsaber battle of the present earlier than we even hit the 15-minute mark (hell yeah). The battle is choreographed effectively, and it’s clear that the staff made certain Dawson’s actions (and that of her stunt double, Michelle Lee) echo Ahsoka’s competency with many combating kinds—she will transfer swiftly and lithely when wanted, however stand tall and highly effective to deflect arduous hits or blaster photographs as effectively.
It’s a fantastic battle, however it’s the scene afterwards that offers me pause—Dawson, clearly making an attempt to embody an older, extra stoic Ahsoka than the one we all know from the animated exhibits, can sometimes really feel stiff, a stark distinction to the vigorous take that voice actor Ashley Eckstein delivered to the character. This might, maybe, be as a result of this can be a a lot older Ahsoka Tano than the teenage lady in Clone Wars (she’s definitely extra reserved in Rebels, and she or he’s in her forties now), however it feels jarring, particularly since she is such a beloved character. As my companion stated in the course of the first episode, “These contacts don’t assist, do they?” Dawson feels essentially the most like Ahsoka when she invokes a type of bemused disdain, which we fortunately get extra of within the second episode.
Ahsoka and her rebels
Ahsoka believes the map will assist lead her to the placement of Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen), the final chief of the Empire and its inheritor obvious. On the finish of Rebels’ closing episode (which aired again in 2018), Jedi Ezra Bridger used hyperspace-traveling area whales referred to as purrgil to banish himself and Thrawn to the remotest nook of the universe. Ahsoka hopes that the map will discover them each, in order that she will save Ezra and likewise stop Thrawn from retaking his mantle as imperial chief and plunging the galaxy again into struggle.
She’ll need assistance, nevertheless, so she turns to 2 of her oldest and closest allies: Common Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo). Right here is the place Ahsoka slows down a bit an excessive amount of for some, because it tries to offer the viewers a greater understanding of the dynamics between these three girls, which have been correctly fleshed out throughout 75 Rebels episodes. Ahsoka used to coach Sabine, a Mandalorian warrior and shut good friend to Ezra, as her Padawan, earlier than it grew to become clear that the 2 weren’t a very good match, they usually each fought alongside Hera (who misplaced her companion, a Jedi named Kanan Jarrus) within the rise up for years.
Sadly for Dawson, her reserved method to Ahsoka solely makes it tougher to completely dig into her relationship with Hera (who Winstead performs like a involved however feisty aunt via a number of kilos of a few of the worst FX make-up I’ve ever seen) and Sabine (who Bordizzo portrays superbly as a brash, angsty riot grrrl who makes use of her cool speeder bike to do an Akira-esque slide once you first meet her). Every time they’re interacting, she feels extra like an exasperated mother than a former ache within the ass herself (which Ahsoka was, simply ask her older grasp, Anakin Skywalker). It’s unlucky, however I’m hoping that the three girls stretch and flex into their roles in future episodes.
Apart from the trio’s dynamic, nevertheless, Ahsoka appears to be like and feels nice. The lovingly recreated places from the animated sequence (Ahsoka’s ship, the planet Lothal, Ezra’s crow’s-nest house that Sabine now lives in), all look wonderful, like one thing out of a full-fledged Star Wars blockbuster. The animatronic Lothal cat has dethroned Grogu because the cutest Star Wars puppet for my part, and apart from Ashoka’s contacts and Hera’s far-too-cartoony outfit, the costuming and set-dressing are all top-notch. The lightsaber battles crackle and snap—there’s vitality in each swing of the sword or blaster deflection that feels purposeful and well-directed, and the ASMR-heavy moments (Ahsoka twisting and turning stone columns to finish a puzzle, Sabine shifting a steel sphere to disclose a map) are tactile and virtually sensual.
The episode ends with a implausible lightsaber battle—Sabine, ever the cussed one, takes the map off of Ahsoka’s ship regardless of her protestations, and discovers precisely the place it leads earlier than she’s attacked by Shin and her droids. Sabine will get a saber straight via her stomach, one thing that Star Wars doesn’t do all that usually (I gasped so loud I awoke certainly one of my cats), and it fades to black. We all know Sabine survives, however will her already fractured relationship along with her former grasp, Ahsoka?
There’s love in each Ahsoka element. Like a jade coronary heart sewn into the pocket of your denims, you simply have to permit for the hope that, like all issues, it’ll get higher with age.