I just finished watching the first two episodes of the Disney+ Star Wars series “Ahsoka” and, as the title of this entry suggests, for me it wasn’t half bad. I see potential in the story and generally enjoyed the overall experience of the episodes, but there were some aspects I didn’t like that I feel are worth mentioning, hence this sort of “first impressions” article.
This isn’t a thorough review, by any means, and I’ll try to keep it spoiler free. It’s really just an off-the-cuff little entry on the show in general. That being said, I’ll open with the bad and move to the good.
My biggest complaint is that the series is, from my perspective, really just a full on follow up to the Star Wars Rebels animated series from late 2014. Ahsoka is full of references to the events of this series and from some quick research while writing this paragraph, does seem to be a continuation of that shows final plot points.
This isn’t a bad thing intrinsically — the Rebels series is supposed to be well regarded and is loved by its fans. The problem is that Ahsoka seems to rely on you knowing and caring about the characters in Rebels – that you are already familiar with them. While yes, it does explain character interests and motivations well enough to follow, and give you at least some knowledge on events in the past, it does this in a way that implies direct knowledge of the previous events — that you know more than the characters are telling, rather than the other way around. It just feels different, is all. A bit forced, like the only way to truly appreciate Ahsoka will be to binge watch Rebels, something I’m not interested in doing.
My only other complaint is that much of the environment CG feels a bit off. I honestly really hate the idea of virtually everything in the world being CG to begin with, be it edited in or displayed on some crazy screen system that’s apparently used for everything now, it just gets old, and the effect in sections like the ancient temple at the beginning of episode one really look like something rendered on an Xbox or PlayStation. Good, but still synthetic…
Granted other times the show does look amazing, but everything still has that “soft” feeling that computer generated graphics intrinsically have; something that hasn’t changed since Episode II way back in 2002 — it always just looks strange to me. That, however, is another rant for another time.
On to the good, I do have to say I did enjoy the characters more than I expected, and while some of the acting felt a bit forced, and still had all the hallmarks of being “too modern” to fit the Star Wars universe in some sections, I can say that Rosario Dawson does play Ahsoka amazingly well. Her speaking and her behaviors oddly match the feel of Jedi in the prequels, and I mean that in a good way — she isn’t complaining about sand or anything like that.
No no, I just mean she feels like she belongs in this universe and is from the time period she is supposed to be from — the Old Republic Era, as opposed to feeling like she just came out of 2023 Earth.
I will say some of my concerns proved to be unfounded in that, while a very heavy percentage of the core cast is femal, the show fully refrains from any of the oh so popular “girl boss” tropes that plague the entetainment industry these days: Characters are allows to have emotions, to fail, to learn and to grow. They aren’t perfect. Even skilled characters like Ahsoka can fail in battle. The villains are equally capable of failing, yet still survive in ways that felt proper. So far the story hasn’t been plagued by anything overpowered or a concept which felt forced in: the plot progress felt natural for a Star Wars story and there isn’t anyone I intrinsically don’t like: a very rare thing when it comes to me and entertainment in the past 15-20 years.
I should say my favorite aspect is that this show is very heavy on the fantasy front. Star Wars is often considered science fiction when it’s more properly fantasy with a science fiction setting, and Ahsoka episodes 1 and 2 certainly take the fantasy and run with it, but not at the sacrifice of the sci-fi that makes Star Wars what it is. It’s a very healthy mix that I’ve honestly not seen done in a Star Wars story quite this way since A New Hope: Hopefully it will stay like this, only using the “World War 2 dogfights but in space” aspect of the franchise where it really belongs.
The show isn’t perfect – no show is, but I did enjoy these episodes and will continue to watch. As the story grows into itself the fact that it’s a direct successor to Rebels won’t be as much of an issue, and I’m quite excited to see where it does go. I can safely say I’m enjoying this a bit more than I did Andor after its first two episodes.
That being said, see ya for episode 3 next week.