Ahsoka: Season One (2023) | REVIEW

Series created by Dave Filoni — Episodes directed by Dave Filoni, Steph Green, Peter Ramsey, Jennifer Getzinger, Geeta Vasant Patel, and Rick Famuyiwa.

Ever since the now-Disney-owned Star Wars franchise ended its sequel film trilogy to mixed reception in 2019, the stories about a galaxy of heroes set a long time ago have had its live-action portion relegated to streaming television, even though its films once revolutionized and forever changed Hollywood. On the one hand, it makes sense to try to grow the franchise on the small screen and win over new audiences that may one day follow the lasersword-wielding heroes back to the big screen. However, what I find to currently be the case is that rather than telling bold new stories to gain a new audience on the small screen, what the head honchos at Lucasfilm are doing is, instead, servicing die-hard fans. Now, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing if the shows are executed at a relatively high level, but, more often than not, what we have been getting are these almost vapid easter-egg-filled series that either don’t have enough meat on the bone to justify a full series (and thus ought to have been a film instead) or a series that doesn’t have enough episodes to have complete and rich story and character arcs.

As a massive Star Wars fan, I still get a great deal out of these aforementioned oddly designed but undeniably entertaining shows, but, with only a select few exceptions, what we are left with are empty calories from a franchise that once was much more than that. Star Wars can still be something more than empty calories, though, as the thought-provoking series Andor proved with one of the best seasons of space opera or science-fiction television in recent memory. The latest straight-to-streaming Lucasfilm series, Ahsoka, is yet another series from George Lucas’ cowboy-hat-sporting protege Dave Filoni (Star Wars: The Clone Wars; Star Wars: Rebels; The Mandalorian; The Book of Boba Fett), and, while I really enjoyed the season for what it was, throughout it all it never felt like the show was doing enough to service people who weren’t already familiar with the animated series — or people who, I guess, went down a recap rabbit hole on YouTube.

Ahsoka takes place sometime around the events of The Mandalorian: Season Three. In the series, we follow the titular character and former Padawan to Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano (played by Rosario Dawson), as she joins up with her apprentice Sabine Wren (played by Natasha Liu Bordizzo), a Mandalorian warrior, to prevent the return of a powerful threat who could bring the fallen Empire back to full force, Grand Admiral Thrown (played by Lars Mikkelsen, reprising his role from animation). At the same time, Sabine is also desperate to be reunited with her friend Ezra Bridger (played by Eman Esfandi), a Jedi who sacrificed himself to save the galaxy from Thrown years ago. Meanwhile, the Twi’lek general Hera Syndulla (played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is trying to convince the New Republic that Thrawn’s return could be a genuine possibility. Fighting to bring back the Grand Admiral are former Jedi Baylan Skoll (played by Ray Stevenson) and his Dark Jedi apprentice Shin Hati (played by Ivanna Sakhno), who have been hired by the Dathomir nightsister Morgan Elsbeth (played by Diana Lee Inosanto).

I want to reiterate that I enjoyed this season, but I am of two minds when it comes to whether or not it does enough to clue in and entertain casual Star Wars fans who weren’t interested in the animated series. Because, in summation, this live-action series is about one of the main characters from the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars who teams up with one of the pivotal characters from the animated series Star Wars: Rebels in an attempt to prevent the return of a popular mastermind villain who previously appeared in legends novels and the animated series Star Wars: Rebels, but also to bring back the main character of Star Wars: Rebels, both of whom disappeared in the series finale of, you guessed it, Star Wars: Rebels. At the same time, it builds upon a master-padawan relationship that was established in the Clone Wars between two voice actors who aren’t reprising their roles. Now, I’m not saying these elements don’t work. What I am saying is that this show is built on the foundation set by animated series which casual Star Wars fans don’t all acknowledge. By taking these animated characters into live-action, you can’t just rely on fans like myself — who watched the animated series — to tune in, you also have to hook casual viewers, and I’m not sure it does that. 

I suppose you could argue that a change in medium from animation to live-action doesn’t necessarily mean that you must adapt for new viewers, but the change in medium is a deliberate one and the same goes for the fact that characters like Ahsoka, Sabine, Hera, and Ezra have all been recast. Now, some voice actors are more easy to see in live-action roles than others, but, specifically for the title character, I’m not sure that role needed to be recast if you merely wanted to service fans of the animated series. Thus, I am under the assumption that Lucasfilm wanted to grow an audience with the series by casting well-known actors like Rosario Dawson and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. And if that is true — if this series isn’t just supposed to be a follow-up to the animated series, but also to popularise characters that some might suggest were previously only popular with a niche audience — then I’m not sure this season of television succeeded. Because, ultimately, the elements that worked best here were based on prior attachments.

Since I’ve opened up with some questionable aspects of the show, I’ll now continue with some of the elements that definitely hold the show back. One of these is the constant exposition that comes out of the characters’ mouths. It’s as if the showrunners knew they had to explain things to casual audiences, but didn’t know how to do it other than to have characters blurt it out (it almost feels like the show expects us to forget who Ahsoka’s master was every episode). And, look, I get why this is how they do it, but it does feel unnatural. I think, however, that my biggest problem in early episodes was with the stiffness of it all. Even though Rosario Dawson did play the character previously in live-action in The Mandalorian (and did a really solid job there), in the first episodes of Ahsoka many scenes just felt like they were playing dress-up. This is perhaps partly because of the heavy make-up and prosthetics it takes for Winstead and Dawson to play their non-human characters, but it isn’t entirely down to that aspect. What I mean by the aforementioned stiffness is that because of the fact that there are several slowly paced dialogue scenes between characters whose prior relationship doesn’t gel initially — e.g. Ahsoka and Sabine’s past history — episodes become unevenly paced and you don’t immediately buy into the translation from animation to live-action. 

Furthermore, I think certain characters were wrongly directed to appear stoic when insisting on that approach makes it difficult to warm to characters. There is an energy and a rapport that feels missing in the first episodes, and the titular character’s tendency to cross her arms gets predictable. I’ll add that Mary Elizabeth Winstead got a raw deal here. While I actually think Mary Elizabeth Winstead does a solid job here as live-action Hera (in spite of distracting contact lenses), she is saddled with a New Republic subplot that never fully works. There is a disciplinary hearing that just looks too much like a television location, and you never get the feeling that something is ever actually on the line in this subplot. And while there are moments in the primary storyline that also lack tension, that portion of the show is far better executed than the New Republic aspect which should be much better, especially since it features Genevieve O’Reilly as Mon Mothma, who was so good in Andor.

Ultimately, though, the good outweighed the bad for me. One of the reasons is that I liked that this show insisted on sometimes coloring outside of the lines that live-action Star Wars normally insists on staying inside of. In animation, Star Wars goes to some strange places and takes risks. There are gods, there are witches, there are living dead, and there are space whales. Years back, casual Star Wars fans might have written off some of these inclusions as stuff only meant to excite a younger audience, but I loved that Dave Filoni’s Ahsoka insisted on transporting many of these elements into live-action. This show goes to some strange places, points us in a direction that fans of the animated series will be terribly excited to see in live-action, and embraces aspects of Star Wars that previously only existed for die-hards to enjoy and casuals to ignore. And, I’ll add, these additions work for the show. It’s never too much, nor is it treated like something they’ve approached as a one-time thing to satiate audiences. Ahsoka wants to make Star Wars weird again, and I think that’s admirable.

Now, this next section does go into spoilers, so if you haven’t seen the series, then feel free to jump down to the next section. I’ll add that while not all of the animated characters work extremely well in live-action here, the ones that do perfectly capture the energy of the original characters. I’ll highlight Winstead, Esfandi, and Mikkelsen, who I thought all worked extremely well. I also think that the showrunners have smartly picked and chosen when certain characters pop up for appearances. Because certain characters, manage to liven up the duo at the heart of the show — Dawson’s Ahsoka and Bordizzo’s Sabine — who were suffering from that stiffness. Esfandi’s perfectly pitched energy does so much for Bordizzo, whose rapport with Esfandi is better communicated than her relationship with Ahsoka (but it is a problem that we don’t really get to see Ezra and Sabine ever have the talk about how she risked the fate of the galaxy to get to him). And then there is the big one, the surprise appearance of Hayden Christensen. The fifth episode of Ahsoka, which features Christensen prominently, is epic. Christensen smoothly adjusts his performance as Anakin Skywalker to that of the animated version of the character (once voiced by Matt Lanter). Christensen’s scenes are the best part of the show, as they not only help Dawson’s version of Ahsoka lose some of that aforementioned stoicism, but they also include some memorable imagery and lines that echo iconic Star Wars moments. I’m thinking specifically of the “But you’re more than that. Because I’m more than that,” line, as It speaks to Anakin Skywalker being a complex character, but it also echoes the “we are what they grow beyond” line from Star Wars: The Last Jedi. I also really enjoyed the central lesson in that episode — that the titular character must survive and live (i.e., dare to go somewhere — to go on) rather than cling to regret and despair — dying (i.e., going nowhere).

I do think that, in general, both Star Wars and Marvel need to work on creating something that is unexpected in their streaming series because too often the major moments in their streaming series are devoid of tension and feel like more of a checklist being checked episode by episode. Part of this is due to modern spoiler and easter egg culture, as well as with how Hollywood reporting and marketing tends to reveal who will eventually be in the show, but I think only a select few things in Ahsoka were ever truly edge-of-your-seat stuff. Frankly, the most surprising and interesting things about the show are, one, the episode discussed in the previous spoiler-filled section, and, two, the character played by Ray Stevenson.

Ray Stevenson, who sadly died a couple of months prior to the series premiere, plays a mysterious former Jedi with a lot of knowledge about both the Force and past events that he theoretically shouldn’t be privy to. From minute one, I loved how Stevenson played the character, and I think Kevin Kiner’s wonderful music also did a good job of introducing the character. Stevenson is terrific in the show, and his character is arguably the most fascinating thing about the show. It’ll be interesting to see what Lucasfilm will do next with his character, and it is such a shame that Ray Stevenson never found out how much of an instant fan favorite he would become.

Dave Filoni’s Ahsoka is far better than both the third season of The Mandalorian and its disappointing spin-off The Book of Boba Fett, but it doesn’t consistently reach the highs that Star Wars can at its best. Although there are notable issues with pacing and stiffness, Ahsoka is also filled to the brim with the kind of animated weirdness that I think Star Wars could use a dosage of right about now. Ultimately, Dave Filoni’s love for his animated series creations is infectious here. This will be enough for some, but I suspect that the fact that it is steeped in animated lore makes it something that some people would rather not become invested in. At some point, though, Lucasfilm — and Marvel, for that matter — needs to consider how to lower the barrier for entry. Eventually, audiences just won’t want to engage with entertainment that requires a ton of homework.

B-

– Review Written by Jeffrey Rex Bertelsen.