Ahsoka Remains True to its Characters: For Now, That's Enough
The series premiere, entitled "Master and Apprentice", does justice to what came before, with interesting hints as to what comes next.
Ahsoka feels right. The windswept vistas of Lothal match-up nicely with their animated equivalents. Despite a new set of actors and a shift in the medium, the show’s legacy characters seem like themselves. And their relationships still feel genuine, though much has changed in the five years since we’ve seen them on-screen together.
Maybe that shouldn’t be such a big surprise. Dave Filoni, the impresario of Star Wars’ animated enclave, both wrote and directed “Master and Apprentice”, the first episode of the new series. Filoni co-created the show’s title character with George Lucas and has become her caretaker. He’s also the creator of Star Wars: Rebels, the show Ahsoka owes its biggest debt to. And for many, he is the keeper of the flame for the Galaxy Far Far Away.
Despite that, my biggest concern walking into Ahsoka was the vibe (for lack of a better term). More than the plot, more than the lore, more than the latest chapter in the life of one of Star Wars’ greatest characters, my concern was that translating all of these players and their corner of the universe into live action -- with a different cast and a different era no less -- would make it all feel wrong, no matter how good the craft was. Instead, the first episode leaves them, and the viewer, feeling right at home. The rest is gravy.
And the gravy is good! Because despite that sense of familiarity, these are not the colorful, if intense, adventures of the Ghost crew that fans watched years ago. This time period is, or at least should be, an era of triumph for the onetime Rebels. They won! The Empire is torn asunder! Lothal is led with grace and a touch of wry sarcasm by Governor Azadi, with none other than Clancy Brown reprising his role from the animated series. Hell, even Huyang the lightsaber droid is back, and wouldn’t you know it, he still has most of his original parts!
Unfortunately, our heroes are nonetheless hung up on old battles and older wounds, and it gives the series a certain soulfulness in its opening hour. Ahsoka Tano is on a quest to track down Grand Admiral Thrawn, the man who hunted her allies back in Rebels, and she seems quietly restless in her effort to protect this hard-won peace against a looming, incendiary challenge. Her former protege, Sabine Wren, can’t bask in the afterglow of victory either, especially when she’s still mourning her lost comrade, Ezra Bridger. And both warriors share some lingering bad blood with one another, after an attempt to become master and apprentice went awry somewhere along the way.
With that, the first installment of Ahsoka is a surprisingly moody and meditative affair. That mode that works well for Star Wars as a whole and particularly for Filoni’s take on it. Sure, there's still a couple of crackerjack lightsaber fights to keep the casual fans engaged. But much of this episode is focused on characters with known histories reflecting on what’s been lost, what’s been broken, and what remains hard to fix. The ending of Rebels was triumphant, but it came with costs. To linger on them, and the new damage that's accumulated in their shadow, is a bold choice from Filoni and company.
So is the decision to focus on Sabine here. Don’t get me wrong, Ahsoka has the chance to shine in this first installment. Her methodical retrieval of a map to Thrawn, her badass hack-and-slash routine on some interfering bounty droids, and her freighted reunions with Hera and a former pupil all vindicate why fans have latched onto the character. For her part, Rosario Dawson has settled into the role after her prior appearances in The Mandalorian. She brings a certain solemnity that befits a more wizened and confident master, but also that subtle twinkle that Ashley Eckstein brought to the character.
And yet, the first outing for Ahsoka spends more time channeling Sabine’s perspective. It establishes the young Mandalorian as a badass who’d rather rock her speeder with anti-authoritarian style than be honored for her past heroics. It shows her grieving a lost ally and friend whose sacrifice still haunts her. It teases out the emotional distance and sense of rebelliousness between her and her former mentor. And it closes things out with Sabine using her artist’s eye to solve the puzzle du jour and defend herself against a fearsome new foe.
Ultimately, this is her hour, not Ahsoka’s. And while Sabine is older, more introverted, and all the more wounded than the cool-haired, spunky graffiti artist fans met almost a decade ago, this opening salvo for the series is better for it.
My only qualms are with the inevitable antagonists du jour. It turns out that yet another Jedi not only survived the initial Purge, but somehow managed to survive into the post-Return of the Jedi era without arousing the suspicions of Palpatine, Vader, Yoda, or Obi-Wan. In the show’s defense, Ray Stevenson brings a steady, yet quietly menacing air to Baylan Skoll, the former Jedi turned apparent mercenary for the bad guys. But there's enough rogue force-wielders running around already, thank you very much.
His young apprentice holds her own against both the New Republic forces and Ahsoka’s own former student, but is shrouded in mystery. The new force-wielder goes unnamed, which, in Star Wars land, probably means she’s secretly someone important (a version of Mara Jade from the “Legends” continuity?) or otherwise related to someone important (the child of, oh, let’s say Ventress?). And I’m pretty tired of such mystery boxes by this point.
Throw in the fact that Morgan Elsbet, Ahsoka’s source of information and prisoner, turns out to be a Nightsister of Dathomir, and you have worrying signs that the series’ villains will largely be rehashing old material instead of moving the ball forward. The obvious “We just killed a major character! No for real you guys!” fakeout cliffhanger ending doesn’t inspire much confidence on that front either.
Nonetheless, what kept me invested in Rebels, and frankly all of Star Wars, despite plenty of questionable narrative choices, is the characters. To that end, the prospect of Ahsoka trying to train a non-force-sensitive Mandalorian in the ways of the Jedi, or at least her version of them, is a daring and fascinating choice.
Even more fascinating is the notion of two people who once believed in each other, having since fallen apart, slowly drifting back together at the prospect of saving someone they both care about. In that, Ahsoka embraces, rather than shies away from, the sort of lived-in relationships that made its precursor series so impactful in the past, and the broken bonds that leave its reunions feeling fragile, painful, and more than a little bitter in the present.
I am here for General Hera Syndulla trying to patch things up among old friends. I am here for Sabine holding tight to her old rebellious streak while carrying new scars from all that went wrong: in the Battle of Lothal and in her attempts to learn the ways of the Jedi. And I am here for Ahsoka, once the apprentice without a master, now the master without an apprentice, reborn once again to snuff out the embers of the last war, and reclaim what was lost within its flames.
They all feel right. The rest can figure itself out.