ahsoka (season 1)

Remember when Star Wars used to feel special? The most significant challenge posed during the ongoing Disney era has been how to extract every drop of potential (“potential” being a gentle euphemism for “dollar”) from this incredibly lucrative brand without reducing it to fast food content. Let’s just say the challenge has not been particularly well-met thus far. Ahsoka - the latest streaming series on Disney Plus - is fine, the same way The Mandalorian is (by and large) fine, and proves moderately more fine than the likes of The Book of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi… but with the exception of Andor (a show whose brilliance was drastically overstated, but nonetheless had a semblance of a dramatic pulse), Star Wars is fast becoming the equivalent of a Burger King Whopper - mindlessly consumed and supplying minimal nourishment. In other words, “a galaxy far, far away” is starting to feel a lot more like “conveniently located on every street corner, with a 24-hour drive-thru.”   

Ahsoka is already a bit of a creative oddity, in that it’s essentially a live-action continuation of the animated series Star Wars Rebels - those without at least a passing familiarity with its cast of  characters might feel as if they accidentally skipped over the premiere episode (though it’s admittedly easy enough to get your bearings). A star map supposedly revealing the location of Grand Admiral Thrawn (last seen being dragged through hyperspace to parts unknown by a purrgil (basically a massive star whale) in the Rebels finale) is uncovered… which, for former Jedi Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson), is an opportunity to stamp out the Empire’s last remaining embers… but for her on-again/off-again Mandalorian apprentice Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), it’s a chance to find her best friend Ezra Bridger, who was also aboard Thrawn’s flagship when it disappeared. Meanwhile, the fallen Jedi turned mercenary Baylan Skoll (the great Ray Stevenson - sadly in his final screen appearance) and his apprentice Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno) also seek the map - along with Nightsister Morgan Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto), who previously appeared on The Mandalorian - in order to facilitate Thrawn’s triumphant return (the New Republic, meanwhile, feels a lot more like the Ministry of Magic in Harry Potter - all too content to thrust its head into the sand).

Creator Dave Filoni remains a polarizing figure in Star Wars fandom, though it’s hard not to interpret a lot of the stick he receives as old-fashioned jealousy. After all, he’s basically living the dream many of us grew up fantasizing about… signing on as George Lucas’s de facto Padawan and eventually being granted the enviable opportunity to create his own characters and stories within the Star Wars sandbox (with many fans confident - deep down - that they could have done a better job). Filoni did some excellent work in the animated space, between Clone Wars and Rebels - and has ably assisted Jon Favreau on The Mandalorian - but his ability to move between animation and live action is less fluid, less instinctual than, say, someone like Brad Bird. Casting isn’t the issue. Ahsoka Tano always seemed like an exceedingly tricky character to translate into live action, but in Dawson they found an actress who captures her essence almost seamlessly (even if she’s playing an older, wiser, more cool-headed incarnation than “Snips” on Clone Wars - Ariana Greenblatt portrays that version in flashback, in a jarring reminder of how young she was actually supposed to be on that show). She’s totally aces in the role. All of the Rebels characters are well-realized, with Bordizzo and Eman Esfandi as Ezra particularly spot-on… though Mary Elizabeth Winstead, as rebel pilot turned New Republic general Hera Syndulla, struggles to transcend the cosplay veneer of her pea soup complexion and cranial tentacles (technically known as “lekku” to all the Star Wars dweebs out there).     ​

The problem - as has been the case with almost all Star Wars streaming content - is how flat it all comes across dramatically… how unrousing it feels for a franchise that, at its apex, was as rousing as anything ever seen in cinema. The lightsaber battles feel like dance choreography that’s being staged for the tourists at Galaxy’s Edge. Thrawn is played by the Dutch actor Lars Mikkelsen, who has a slippery, calculating quality that made him ideal as the Putin stand-in Viktor Petrov on House of Cards… but shows up here looking like a paunchy, blue-skinned Elon Musk. After considerable buildup over multiple episodes, he just… casually strolls on-screen. Where’s the sense of the dramatic moment? Stevenson was born to play a Jedi mercenary with a compromised moral compass, and his screen presence is considerable… but his encounters with Ahsoka are restrained to the point of inertia. In other ways, the show has a light and limber touch. Dawson and Bordizzo’s affectionately frictive rapport goes a long way (David Tennant is also a reliable gem as the grumpy droid Huyang, who literally crafted lightsabers for the Jedi Order for millennia). Ahsoka is one of those exasperating shows, however, that seems to exist predominately to set up the *next* thing (supposedly the “Heir to the Empire” saga) and keep the content pipeline churning. Its own individual sense of magic is in short supply. And the Star Wars galaxy feels that much more ordinary as a result.