Star Wars: Ahsoka
The Ahsoka series is good but, they should have called it Star Wars Rebel’s Season 5. Don’t get me wrong this series is my most anticipated Star Wars project of 2023. But I wasn’t expecting to focus so much on characters from a different series. You should know upfront that Ahsoka is one of my top five characters in Star Wars. With that being said, expectations were super high going into this series.
I was frustrated with Rosario Dawson’s portrayal of Ahsoka at the beginning of the series. Not because she is a bad actor or anything. It’s the exact opposite. Her performance seemed quite dry to be honest. Even if it was intentional, that isn't a characteristic I would associate with Ahsoka. It seemed as though the influence from "The Mandalorian" rubbed off a lot in this series. Especially when deciding the direction for the character. So much so that I was begging for some drama to happen to snap her out of this auto-pilot-type performance.
That all changed once episode five came out. It was everything I wanted and more. It changed the pace for the rest of the series and set us on a course for something big in the Star Wars universe. The return of Thrawn. What's crazy is that it wasn’t even the biggest reveal. No, we saw the “G.O.A.T” Anakin Skywalker with one last lesson for Ahsoka to learn. This episode is one we will come back to for years to come. This is when Ahsoka was reborn and finally, I got the drama I was looking for.
The main storyline is very straightforward. It has the added benefit of being connected to a previous series. The more intriguing one is happening in the background with Lord Baylans. It has profound implications for where season two is going.
The main takeaway from this series was sacrifice. Both sides of the conflict had to make major sacrifices. Without those sacrifices, the whole series would have fallen flat. This series is a success because it accomplished two things. One, it gave us a big bad & hero to reignite the Star Wars movie franchise and two, we got to see Ahsoka face her trauma head-on. Something that we have gotten glimpses of here and there but never to this extent.
Star Wars as a franchise is in a sweet spot where their best work comes from filling in the gaps. The last trilogy love it or hate it, gave them enough wiggle room to hash out and expand on these big ideas. In closing "Ahsoka" is a good series with great moments. Based on the finale they have only scratched the surface of what this series could be. That's why I can only give it an 8/10 G-Files score.
