Ahsoka Episode 1 & 2 Review

(L-R); Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) in Lucasfilm's AHSOKA, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

This review was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA & WGA strike. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the series being covered here wouldn't exist. Please consider donating to the Entertainment Community Fund, formerly the Actors Fund.

In March 2018, after the Star Wars Rebels finale, I posted on The Geeky Waffle Tumblr: “So when do I get the novel about Sabine's and Ahsoka's adventure finding Ezra living amongst the space whales?” The idea of my two favorite Star Wars characters interacting and working together was a dream. For years fans have speculated, written fan fiction, and theorized about what happened after the Star Wars Rebels epilogue.

Little did any of us know that we wouldn’t get a book but a live-action series five years later by Dave Fiolni.

This isn’t the first time Star Wars brought a character who originated in animation to live-action. The first is Saw Gerrera, a minor character in the Clone Wars voiced by Andrew Kishino. Saw made his first live-action appearance in Rogue One played by Forest Whitaker. Katee Sackhoff voiced Bo-Katan in Clone Wars and Rebels and on-screen in The Mandalorian.

The Ahsoka series feels very different and new compared to other character transitions. Rosario Dawson has played the character in both The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, but she was playing the archetype of the wise sage helping Din and Grogu on their path.

In this series, three leads are from animation, and none are played by their original voice actors. Ashley Eckstein, Tiya Sircar, and Vanessa Marshall all have distinctive voices and are incredible performers.

Something fans, including myself, will have to accept is these characters are not how we left them. It’s been around a decade since the Battle of Lothal for our Rebels.

The Ahsoka of this series is very different than the one we knew from Rebels. The first two episodes left me with more questions than answers. How did Ahsoka go from “I’m no Jedi” in the battle against Vader on Malachor to taking an apprentice before this series began?

However, with each appearance by Dawson, she feels more and more like Ahsoka. Her scenes with the droid Huyang (voiced by David Tennant, who won a Daytime Emmy for the role in Clone Wars) bring back a spark of the Ahsoka we once knew.

I was cautiously optimistic about Sabine Wren coming to live-action. Sabine was the first female Asian main character in Star Wars, and as a lifelong fan, it is nice to see myself represented in this galaxy.

From her first moments on screen racing down the familiar lanes of Lothal, Natasha Liu Bordizzo embodies an older and even more stubborn Sabine Wren. She carries the burden of her friend Ezra leaving them all behind and him “counting on her.” Any breakthrough Sabine had when training with the darksaber in season three of Rebels is gone. She seems to have reverted back into her teenage self from season one. There were some scenes that I felt yelling at the screen, “You’re in your 30s Sabine!”

There is now the added tension between Sabine and Ahsoka is intriguing, but the question of why hangs in every scene.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead gives a subtle performance of Hera Syndulla. Hera was always the voice of reason in the Ghost crew; we can only imagine what a decade of fighting has done to her. Hera’s first scenes with Ahsoka are underwhelming and full of exposition. However, episode two gives Winstead a chance to shine; her brief mothering of Sabine and arguing with Chopper in the middle of a chase, it feels like Space Mom is on screen.

Fionli has called this series Star Wars Rebels season 5. These first two episodes have to set up brand new characters for those who never watched any Star Wars animation, but also, what happened to these characters in the years between the Rebels finale and now?

This series is the first Star Wars tv show to have a scroll as the trilogies do, and it definitely needs it. There is a lot of information to share, and parts of the first episode don’t use their time wisely. One of the first scenes spends around five minutes of Ahsoka pulling an Indiana Jones with no dialogue. There was an opportunity to learn more about her if she talked to herself or was even communicating with Huyang.

I’m curious to see if the general audience who only watches live-action Star Wars will be able to follow everything or even keep their attention. Will they care about Ezra? Do they understand how dangerous Thrawn can be? Do they know what Dathomir witches are?

I can see a repeat of 2018 when Solo came out, and three of my friends texted me asking how Darth Maul is still alive after Obi-Wan sliced him in half in The Phantom Menace.

Ray Stevenson as Baylan Skoll and Ivanna Sakhno as Shin Hati are intriguing, possibly Sith, lackeys to Diana Lee Inosanto’s Morgan Elsbeth. Their introduction was underwhelming, most likely because we have seen the hallway fights scenes done a number of times before, and many of the shots were from the trailer. The best part of the opening is the music. Composer Kevin Kiner's music is ethereally beautiful and different but still feels like Star Wars.

However, I am still hopeful for this series. It has proposed some interesting ideas about what it means to be Jedi, who can use the force, and the relationship between master and apprentice.

Ahsoka premieres on Disney+ August 22, 2023 at 6pm PST, 9pm EST.