As a “Star Wars” fan who has seen almost everything, it’s hard to be so genuinely lost in what’s happening in a story. Still, however, “Ahsoka” has never had such a badly edited, shot and produced a show before besides “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” which is a bad place to be. Before we get into the actual plot, it’s good to go over the worst parts of the production of this show, with one good highlight.
The worst part of the editing of this show is the dialogue, actors would say their lines and then pause for multiple seconds, which at first made me believe that the episode wasn’t working, or the internet was struggling. But both ideas were wrong. They are part of the series and it looks like amateur hour. To say the editing is bad is nonsensical, it’s so amateur that I could do a better job. It’s something you need to see to understand the full context.
“Star Wars” TV shows can be classified into two different sections in terms of writing: Gilroy and Filoni writing. Tony Gilroy, the showrunner and writer for “Andor,” did a great job of fleshing out characters, making a believable world with politics and spies when there was a conflict it was for a reason. Dave Filoni is a writer for “The Mandalorian,” “Star Wars: The Bad Batch,” “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” and “Ahsoka.” His writing comes off as a first draft as many things will happen one after another with a basic throughline but ultimately most of the episode is filler, while Gilroy condenses his shows with zero filler.
Filoni has a great track record with animation, both “Star Wars: The Bad Batch” and “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” are great shows, and Filoni is better suited for the 22-minute episode mark, as it would force him to cut filler and condense stories. With everything Filoni does in live action, they could be shortened by hours and would be better for it. With that out of the way, let’s begin our journey into Ahsoka.
Ahsoka begins with a title crawl, something new for the “Star Wars” TV shows and not seen from “Star Wars” in four years. However, the best part of the crawl is the music. Kevin Kiner, who produced the soundtracks for “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” and “Star Wars: The Bad Batch,” does an amazing job with the score. It’s up there with John Williams’ scores for “Star Wars,” and is the best part of the show.
The show officially begins with the transporting of Morgan Elsbeth, the character from the second season of “The Mandalorian” when Ahsoka was introduced to live action. While she’s being transported for a trial, another ship appears and claims they are “old Jedi.” Mind you this is after “Return of the Jedi,” and when this new ship gives a bad clearance code and says they want to see a prisoner, they are let on the ship. Of course, it all goes wrong and they are revealed to be Sith. They never say what kind they are, but since the writers don’t want to use their brains to come up with an idea there’s no point in speculation.
Other great instances of “good” writing follow after Ahsoka solves a video game-esque puzzle and gets something called a “star map,” which is contained within a ball. When Ahsoka is trying to leave, she is confronted by some robots who somehow set off a nuclear self-destruction sequence when they die. It makes no sense for them to have that because it could have destroyed the map, which is what the robots wanted in the first place.
However, the worst part of the show, and the thing that changed the opinion from OK to terrible, is at the end of the first episode. Throughout “Star Wars” it’s clear that getting stabbed by a lightsaber means you are dead. It goes through your body, which would of course kill you. In “Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace” this happened when Qui-Gon was stabbed in the chest with a lightsaber and died immediately. In Disney, “Star Wars” characters will be stabbed in the chest with a lightsaber, showing it go through their stomach and moving around the body, but somehow they don’t die. At the end of the first episode, one Sith stabs someone directly in the stomach and at the start of the next episode, it’s as if nothing happened.
“Ahsoka” has also brought back characters from the “Star Wars Rebels” show, which I haven’t seen, but know the basics of the characters. Characters like General Hera Syndulla or Sabine Wren seem to stay the same, that is Sabine is an annoying brat and Hera seems to be a motherly figure.
The second episode of “Ahsoka” is as good as the first one. It’s mainly a filler episode with bits and pieces of important information that make little sense. The villains keep talking about things never explained like the “Eye of Scion,” which looks to be a base of some sort. With an hour and 30 minutes between two episodes out of six it seems easy to explain the basics of the plot, but “Star Wars” and Disney shows are always vague and blank because the writers always don’t know the answers to their own questions. It's infuriating.
“Ahsoka” seems to be much of the same. While the creators try and trick you into thinking this is something exciting and brand new, it’s going to end up being the same sludge as usual, quote me on that.
Rating: 2/5
