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Ahsoka 1st Impression: Is Star Wars' Latest Accessible to Newcomers as 'Rebels' Come to Life

Ahsoka features live-action characters first introduced in Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Rebels, as well as The Mandalorian — so just how accessible is this sequel upon sequels to the casual fan?

There’s no doubt that Disney and Lucasfilm have a potential hit on their hands, and they know it. The latest Star Wars series, Ahsoka, was handed an early Disney+ debut — and in prime time no less (we’re sure the ongoing strikes have something to do with this, too). The series proceeded to trend at number one on X (née Twitter) all night!

Even more impressive, several of the premiere’s characters were also trending, like fan-favorite droid Chopper and the highly-anticipated Grand Admiral Thrawn, a beloved villain dating all the way back to some of he earliest “Expanded Universe” novels.

Fans even got “Clone Wars” trending, a node to Ahsoka’s debut as Anakin Skywalker’s young Padawan. Fans have followed her journey through so many ups and downs across multiple series, culminating in her live-action debut, played by Rosario Dawson, in Season 2 of The Mandalorian.

Now, Ahsoka takes center stage, but as you can see just by what’s been written above, that comes with a lot of baggage. Star Wars has always been a massively complex and interwoven universe of stories, which can be a blessing and a curse. For showrunner Dave Filoni, he had to thread a very careful needle.

Yes, Ahsoka can find success as a live-action sequel to Rebels and The Mandalorian. The problem is that this inevitably leads to diminished returns as any long-running series knows all too well. So his job was to somehow be both a sequel to Ahsoka’s well-established saga as well as completely accessible to new viewers.

So how did he do?

SPOILER WARNING As fair warning, this is going to be more than just us declaring that he did a good job or that he blew it. We’re going to look at the entirety of this two-part premiere, breaking down character moments, the new cast, and the story so far, so consider this your final SPOILER WARNING

Fan Service

Before we get into how well Ahsoka stands on its own, we’d be remiss if we didn’t take a moment to talk about how much it gets right for longtime fans of Star Wars’ extensive universe of animated series, which includes the aforementioned Clone Wars and Rebels, as well as anthology Tales of the Jedi, Resistance, Visions, The Bad Batch and Young Jedi Adventures.

Ahsoka showrunner Dave Filoni held that position for the entire seven-season run of The Clone Wars, all but one season of Rebels and Tales of the Jedi. As Ahsoka’s story has woven through all of those, there is perhaps no one more suited to bring her story to this next chapter than her co-creator (with George Lucas).

For fans who’ve consumed the more than 200 episodes of those series, this new series offered so much fan service and love for their loyalty, from an animated-style drawing of the Rebels crew to their live-action counterparts, and even surprise appearances by Jai Kell (now a Senator for Lothal) and the return of Clancy Brown as Lothal’s Governor Ryder Azadi.

If those names don’t mean much to you, that’s okay. While these were gifts for the franchise’s loyal fans, they also serve as the kind of careful continuity Star Wars has always been know for, while not requiring you to know anything about their back story.

As an example, when Governor Azadi grabs Senator Kell to talk to the crowd in a moment of desperation after his guest of honor fails to show, the humorous moment works without having any idea who these two men are. But, knowing Kell’s story makes this a huge reveal for longtime fans.

Different experiences for different types of viewers, but that doesn’t mean that casual viewers who are new to perhaps all of these characters are necessarily missing out. When Star Wars fans first met Han Solo, Lando Calrissian or even Mon Mothma, they did not know these character’s backstories.

Even now, many newer fans will watch the original trilogy and have no idea how much lore has been created for all of those characters. But it will do nothing to diminish their enjoyment of the series.

Animation to Live-Action

For longtime fans, seeing the Rebels characters come to life is exciting. For newcomers, Filoni and the team did a great job of making them interesting as brand new characters, too. The difference, perhaps, between these characters and the original trilogy is that there is clearly history there.

It’s not history we necessarily need to know in detail. All we really need to know is that there was this crew that used to fly together that Ahsoka was associated with. Things did not end great and they lost one of their own, having something to do with a certain blue-skinned Grand Admiral.

The fun thing about Thrawn, in particular, is that he has two histories. For decades, he was a novel-only character, established in Timothy Thrawn’s original 1990s trilogy that kicked off an empire of “Expanded Universe” novels.

Then, after Disney bought Lucasfilm and rebooted most of those stories out of continuity, Thrawn was reintroduced into this galaxy far, far away. Now, he’s being introduced yet again, in live-action for the first time. Yes, it ties to his animated continuity, but even that isn’t essential knowledge.

For the first time in a live-action series, Star Wars brought back the crawl, though not in the traditional format of their feature films. Like the movies, though, the crawl establishes that we are coming into this story a little after the action has started and we’ve missed some things.

Missing some things has been baked into the DNA of Star Wars since its very beginning, when Lucas was inspired by those old movie theater serial shorts that always seemed to start and stop at the most dramatic moments.

Plus, it gives the universe a more lived-in feeling to know that things happened before we joined the story, and things will happen after. That’s why it’s not a big deal that there is clear history with these Rebels characters.

Rebels Live Cast

We also have to give huge props for the casting department. It’s never easy to bring characters from one format to another without alienating fans, and recasting is always risky (just ask the Solo team). That said, we’ve delighted with each of these new characters (to live-action).

Mary Elizabeth Winstead is level-headed and strong as General Hera Syndulla while Natasha Liu Bordizzo is perfectly hot-headed, pig-headed and sullen as Sabine Wren. She is so much like Ahsoka in so many ways, they’re clashing here needs no further explanation or history.

David Tennant returned to voice the lightsaber-expert droid Huyang, but he injects so much personality into his characterization, it again does not matter what history we’ve missed. He’s a great character for exposition, helping to explain the awkward silences and issues between Ahsoka and her one-time Padawan, Sabine.

The same goes for Filoni himself, stepping back into the role of astromech Chopper (C1-10P). Like R2-D2, Chopper has a ton of personality. Star Wars always has to have droids for fans of all ages to fall in love with, and both of these have the charm and wit of their mechanical predecessors, without feeling like carbon copies.

Perhaps the most challenging connection for Ahsoka to pull off without demanding past knowledge was the character of Ezra Bridger. Like Ahsoka herself, Ezra’s arc saw him go through a lot on Rebels. Luckily, though, most of that proved irrelevant here.

In fact, Bridger could almost be seen as a role reversal of the trop of the dead or missing female character serving only to motivate or drive the male character. For now, Bridger’s absence is motivation for Sabine. She’s been harboring a video recording of him that gives his relevant backstory as it relates to Thrawn and suggests how tight of a bond they had.

It’s just enough information that newcomers can feel the depth of their connection and the pain of that loss to her, even after all this time. While it’s not established how much time has passed since things fell apart with this crew, it’s clearly been at least a few years.

With Bridger as a motivation on one side, the other big connection is Ahsoka and Sabine themselves, former Master and Padawan, it was Ahsoka who gave up on her young student, just as she once gave up on the Jedi Order. Don’t worry, this is explained, as well.

Everything that’s relevant to this story is explained. We would argue that Filoni did a great job of creating that balance of serving the die-hard fans who’ve seen her every prior appearance (and more), as well as making this interesting series that might draw in casual fans who’ve heard about this Ahsoka character, but maybe don’t know much.

Quest for Thrawn

It helps that Ahsoka is establishing itself for now as a classic quest saga. Taking place after the original trilogy, the New Republic is trying to establish itself as the new influential power in the galaxy, but Empires don’t die easy.

The remnants of the Empire are searching for the last of the Grand Admirals, with hopes that he can be the unifying force to bring them back together and again attempt to crush the Rebellion (now the New Republic).

As it turns out, Thrawn and Bridger’s fates were intertwined, as both characters disappeared after a final battle for the planet Lothal. Yes, this is from Rebels, but again, we’re given the pertinent information here.

While Ahsoka is keen to not stop a new war from breaking out, the fact that Bridger vanished with Thrawn is enough to galvanize the old crew, and Sabine in particular, to want to be a part of it. It never hurts to have a personal motivation. In fact, we basically get a live-action remake of a Rebels flash-forward scene that reunites Ahsoka and Sabine to go on the hunt for their friend (another bonus for Rebels fans that made perfect sense to newcomers).

On the other side, we get a connection to The Mandalorian, but again one we don’t necessarily need to know about. This series opens with a new “Master and Apprentice” freeing a woman from prison who turns out to be pretty important.

We’d compare that to when Princess Leia was first introduced as a prisoner of Darth Vader and the Empire. We didn’t know who she was or why she was important, but we quickly learned enough.

One of those things we learned about this new prisoner is another bit of fan-service, but for casual fans, it’s an exciting possible expansion of what’s understood about the Force. Morgan Elsbeth was imprisoned by Ahsoka in The Mandalorian Season 2.

Her cruelty and connection to Thrawn were both established there, but are reiteratd here. It’s also revealed that her ancestors were the Nightsisters of Dathomir, a faction of Dark Side Force users who almost wield it like magic. Certainly, this reveal has an impact on Baylan Skoll (the late Ray Stevenson) and his apprentice Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno).

If you needed any further proof that Filoni balanced things just right, these are brand new characters. And yet, we feel no closer or further in our understanding of them or their allies than we do any of the other characters. Of course, a basic understanding of Star Wars lore helps a little.

It is said that among the Sith who wield the Dark Side there can be only two, a Master and an Apprentice. Could it be that in this post-Emperor and Darth Vader galaxy, this is how Baylan and Shin are positioning themselves?

Huyang, who recognizes his lightsaber hilt, reveals that Baylan was one of those Jedi who went into hiding when Order 66 was given. For years, fans were left clueless about so much to do with The Clone Wars and this pivotal order that saw their clone troopers turn on the Jedi, it’s just further proof that we needn’t know everything all the time to enjoy a good yarn.

Nevertheless, Baylan was clearly trained as a Jedi and he’s clearly gone over to the Dark Side now. There’s certainly plenty of precedent for this, most recently (in the timeline) Anakin Skywalker himself, aka Darth Vader. Anakin Skywalker who was Ahsoka’s Master when she was a Padawan.

Another new character is Marrok, an Inquisitor working with Baylan and Shin. As Inquisitors are Force-wielders who hunt Jedi, there is already a potentially heartbreaking theory about the identity of this one circulating online. If you don’t want to know, skip to the next paragraph NOW so we can share that some people online are theorizing it could be the very person the crew is hoping to find with Thrawn, which would make for a brutal reveal for all of them, and Ahsoka herself.

By the end of these first two hours, we’ve still not seen Thrawn, nor did the teased appearance of Hayden Christensen’s return as Anakin Skywalker materialize. He’s a Force Ghost by this point, so he could certainly return to speak with his old Padawan, just as he bothered his old Master in the Obi-Wan series.

With six more episodes to go, there is plenty of ground to cover as it looks like the quest is underway to finally find out what happened to both Thrawn and Bridger. It’s new territory for newcomers and Rebels fans alike!

We’ve gotten enough in these first two hours to feel like we know these characters, even if we’ve never met them before. Think about how successfully Rogue One introduced a whole new crew that we fell in love with in a single movie.

We can feel it happening here, a testament to this creative team in front of and behind the cameras. Ahsoka is proving a show that can be fully enjoyed on two levels. Hardcore fans can enjoy the continuation of these stories they’ve been following for years, and maybe get some closure.

Newcomers are getting some great performances and exciting worldbuilding exploring one of the most exciting and unknown periods of Star Wars history, between the end of the original trilogy and the controversially-received sequel trilogy.

For years, fans clamored to know what happened between the prequel trilogy and the originals, finally getting those answers in The Clone Wars. Rebels started to peel back the era after the original trilogy, as did The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and more to come. Ahsoka continues to tell to fill in that gap with its interconnected — and yet completely stand-alone — journey to stop a war and maybe save a friend.

Ahsoka drops new episodes every Tuesday night at 9pm ET/6pm PT.