Ahsoka: Season One – Review
There has been a shift in Star Wars content from movies to television series, with some being better than others. The most recent of these series is Ahsoka.
The live-action version of Ahsoka made her debut in a recent season of the Mandalorian but Star Wars fans would have known about her long before that.
Ahsoka first appeared in the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars series and was later developed in the animated Star Wars Rebels series. Unfortunately, I did not watch those series and have only recently been going through Clone Wars.
While other series have been developing characters from the movies (e.g. Boba Fett, Obi Wan, Andor) or developing new characters (e.g. Mandalorian), Ahsoka had the added challenge of taking characters from an animated medium and translating them into live-action.
This was done extremely well. The first season was excellent. It was enjoyable on its own and was filled with added delights for those who watched the animated series.
While Ahsoka may not be a household name for many, she is an extremely important character. She was the Padawan to Anakin Skywalker, also known as Darth Vader. There has been a resurgence of interest in the prequels and Hayden Christensen has been able to revisit his Anakin character.
A spoiler, but not a major spoiler, is that Anakin appears in this season as a force ghost. Ahsoka takes place after the Return of the Jedi and thus after the death of Darth Vader. But we saw that Vader had turned back to the light. Having Anakin appear in this way was incredible and far beyond what fans could have imagined just a few years ago.
The basic plot of this season was that Grand Admiral Thrawn is rumoured to be hiding in a distant galaxy with remnants of Imperial troops, eager to restart the war with the Republic. While many in the Republic reject these rumours, Ahsoka and her Padawan, Sabine Wren, are determined to stop him from returning.
I will not give any more details, other than to say that this was extremely well done. Ahsoka rivalled the Mandalorian in quality. I often say that these shows are only as good as the bad guys and the villains in this season were fantastic. Not just Thrawn but Baylan Skoll and Shin Hati, two force users who are very good at their jobs, drew the audience in.
One of the highlights was a “flashback” to the younger Ahsoka, the one we saw in the animated series. This live-action portrayal of some of those events was incredible. From the sounds of things, we will see more of this.
If you are a Star Wars fan but have been overwhelmed with the new content that has been coming out, I recommend you check out Ahsoka. This is a great time to be a Star Wars fan!
