Star Wars: Ahsoka is the fifth live-action Star Wars series (following The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Andor) to premiere on Disney+ after the streaming service launched back in the fall of 2019. I was fortunate enough to attend an advance screening of the first two episodes of the series last week at Hollywood’s El Capitan Theatre, and below are my initial thoughts based on those installments.
Though I consider myself a lifelong Star Wars fan, I was not an early adopter of the Ahsoka Tano character. After feeling burned by George Lucas’s prequel trilogy of films, I avoided the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars series when it debuted in 2008, only catching up on it in recent years after getting back into the franchise in the years following Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm. But in that time I have come to embrace Ahsoka, not so much for the Clone Wars, but for her recurring role on Star Wars Rebels and in the “Mandoverse” of live-action Star Wars series. She wasn’t designed with fans like me in mind– I’m generally not a particularly big fan of Force-users– but I definitely appreciate how many fans have admired and looked up to her over the past fifteen years. So now, as a follow-up to the cliffhanger 2018 series finale of Rebels, Ahsoka’s co-creator (alongside Lucas himself) Dave Filoni has been given the opportunity to weave more adventures with the character in the post-Return of the Jedi period of the ever-expanding Star Wars timeline.
And Star Wars: Ahsoka does indeed pick up where Rebels left off, though it leaves some story gaps in-between, so I’d recommend checking out that rather wonderful animated series if you really want to appreciate everything happening here. We pick up with former Jedi Padawan Ahsoka Tano (played in live-action by Haunted Mansion’s Rosario Dawson, stepping in for voice actress Ahsley Ecktein, who originated the role) continuing her search for Grand Admiral Thrawn (Headhunter’s Lars Mikkelsen in both animation and live-action) after having captured the devious Magistrate Morgan Elsbeth (stunt performer Diana Lee Inosanto) in The Mandalorian’s acclaimed season-two episode “The Jedi.” This is where the interconnected nature of all of Lucasfilm’s current-canon Star Wars content, really starts to pay off, though I can see that aspect being frustrating for those who may not have the time or desire to consume all of that content. When a New Republic ship experiences an incident involving the two mysterious villains seen in the Ahsoka trailers (played by the late Ray Stevenson of Thor fame and Ivanna Sakhno from the High Fidelity TV series), Ahsoka is called in by her old friend and Rebel Alliance General Hera Syndulla (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World’s Mary Elizabeth Winstead in live-action) to figure out what exactly is going on and how it all connects to the still-missing Thrawn.
To aid her on this quest, Ahsoka travels to the Outer-Rim planet of Lothal (see Rebels for much more of that location) to enlist her seemingly abandoned Mandalorian apprentice Sabine Wren (now played by Natasha Liu Bordizzo from The Society)– fear not: just how and why Ahsoka was training Sabine, and why that apprenticeship came to a sudden end, is addressed in these first two episodes. Together these two characters, assisted by Hera, begin to put together the pieces of what exactly happened to that New Republic ship… and use it to continue their quest for Thrawn and Sabine’s good friend Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi from King Richard in live-action, though he only appears in hologram form during these first outings). And this is the first big compliment I’ll pay to Star Wars: Ahsoka– though it only has one character’s name in its title, it’s really more of an ensemble piece, with Tano, Wren, and Syndulla heavily featured throughout episodes 1 and 2. But there’s also the very welcome return of the droid Professor Huyang (voiced once again by DuckTales’ David Tennant), and the above-mentioned villains, all of whom (with the exception of Thrawn, so far) get a significant amount of screen time.
But my absolute favorite thing about Star Wars: Ahsoka– and the first thing I said to my guest at the screening after it came to an end– is how much it takes its time getting where it’s going. Pacing-wise, the tone of this show feels much more like Andor than The Mandalorian, and I think that’s terrific. Scenes are allowed to breathe and play out organically rather than being rushed along by the rapid-fire editing that plagues most movies and television series these days. And by the end of episode 2, the adventure is really only getting started, which also reminded me of Andor’s first arc. I suspect that by the end of this season, Ahsoka is going to feel more like an extended movie than an episodic TV show, and to me the part I’ve already seen works spectacularly. The cast is great, the direction and use of the Volume virtual-production stage is masterful (with Filoni and company having built on their StageCraft experience via the other above-listed series), and the action– when it does arrive, skillfully punctuating the quieter moments with excitement– is a lot of fun. I’m really thankful that the creators of Ahsoka, including everyone at both Lucasfilm and Disney, are going against recent trends and letting the show play out at a more subdued, restrained rate than might be expected. Not everyone is going to love it for that reason, but I definitely appreciate it, and it only makes me more excited to see the rest of the season. Speaking of which, I’ll be doing individual episode recaps and reviews beginning tonight, so check right back here at LaughingPlace.com for more Star Wars: Ahsoka content coming very soon.
Star Wars: Ahsoka premieres this evening at 6:00 PM Pacific / 9:00 PM Eastern Time, exclusively via Disney+.