How Ahsoka Speaks To Larger “Star Wars” Problems
This leads one to think about “Star Wars” quality assurance and executive gatekeeping and the contradictions and unfairness of “Star Wars” accountability—super strict for films, seemingly checked out when it comes to TV.
On one level, Lucasfilm has utterly micro-managed “Star Wars” filmmakers in recent years, firing Lord and Miller from “Solo: A Star Wars Story” for not strictly sticking to the ingredients in the special sauce, replacing/(supplementing?) director Gareth Edwards with Tony Gilroy when ‘Rogue One’ veered off course, and canned, scrapped or delayed innumerable ‘Star Wars’ projects for various reasons some of them being the scripts weren’t up to par. (Patty Jenkins’ ‘Rogue Squadron,’ Rian Johnson’s new trilogy, the ‘Game Of Thrones’ mooted ‘Star Wars’ trilogy, Kevin Feige’s ‘Star Wars’ film, and the Taika Waititi film that may never come to pass, etc.).
So, in one regard, Lucasfilm and Kathleen Kennedy have tightly managed “Star Wars,” at least on the big screen (Taika Waititi once said “Star Wars” was much stricter than Marvel ever was). On the other hand, with “Star Wars” TV on Disney+, the creators there seemingly get carte blanche to dick around in their meaningless, very episodic, and villain-of-the-week cul-de-sacs that lead to the next adventure. The one exception might be “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” which was scrapped in its original iteration because it was said to be too similar to “The Mandalorian” and its “Lonewolf And Cub” father/son dynamics of reluctant Daddy Mando and Baby Yoda, but one can guess “Ahsoka” wasn’t any better than that original ‘Obi-Wan’ draft.
Another exception might be Tony Gilroy’s “Andor,” which seemingly has carte blanche but is so filmmaker-driven it might as well be in a totally different masterclass of what’s happening with “Star Wars” TV. And yes, sure, “Star Wars” TV doesn’t have to answer to the box-office grosses and thus arguably has the freedom to do whatever it wants, but the quality disparity here is borderline ludicrous.
The only interesting character in “Ahsoka” was Ray Stevenson’s Baylan Skoll, former Jedi Knight turned mercenary and gun for hire if only because he’s the equivalent of a Gray Jedi, not entirely evil, certainly not good, ambivalent about his boss Grand Admiral Thrawn’s plans. And yet, Skoll was still admiring and even nostalgic about some of the old ways of the Jedi, even as he had renounced them—an intriguingly ambiguous and morally gray character with a lot of complexity to him.
Ashoka was the opposite. Without any real character problems, her biggest emotional challenges were all centered around Sabine. And yet, even for viewers of “Star Wars: Rebels,” familiar with these characters and interactions, many of these choices were baffling as Ashoka and Sabine essentially had no relationship to speak of on the show. The series ended with the two characters going off into space to find Ezra (clearly, they failed), and then “Ahsoka” informed us—through expository dialogue, none of which was seen on screen—that they essentially had a falling out. So the premise of the show is: that the most significant thing to ever happen between these characters, Ashoka attempting to train Sabine as a Jedi and failing, was something you never saw, and the audience is now supposed to be convinced by a sudden big irreconcilable rift between them. Uh… ok?
Either way, all the storytelling choices of “Ahsoka,” like many of the choices of “Star Wars” TV, have been perplexing, making for wooden, stilted, highly episodic, and poorly written TV that’s supposed to be about the character or extended second act problems and instead is disposable, inconsequential fight sequences with almost little value and certainly no “Star Wars”-like resonance (and hey, ‘Rebels’ and ‘The Clone Wars,’ when they were at their best were great).
So much of this season hinged on and over-relied on the understanding that you knew who Ahsoka and these characters were, that you actually watched ‘The Clone Wars’ and ‘Rebels’ and thus had some emotional impact when Ezra—a character most live-action fans weren’t familiar with— appeared on screen (years older than the animated character anyhow, and basically looking nothing like him). But “Ahsoka” never really made a convincing case as to why they were characters you needed to care about (and as a big ‘Rebels’ fan, their live-action introduction was deeply underwhelming; let’s not even speak of how sidelined Hera and Chopper were, mostly just appearing to set up more later).
Most of the storylines were built around geography. Ahsoka and Rebels journeying to the new galaxy, find Ezra, Thrawn plotting his way out of this galaxy back to the original one he came from and thus the only character plot line that was of interest, again, Baylan Skoll—because his motivations were unclear, mysterious and pointed to him not really interested in Thrawn’s plans or the Rebels, but some secret agenda. An agenda was left dangling, completely unclear other than him standing next to some statues of Jedi lore once brought up on ‘Clone Wars’ (there’s a final shot of him in the finale that is supposed to have some greater meaning, but was essentially just puzzling to anyone who’s not a die-hard; Worse, Stevenson has passed so they’re going to have to recast).
This is all to say, aside from not having to answer to the box-office bottom line, why is “Ahsoka” allowed to exist in this soulless skeletal form while other “Star Wars” narratives are so rigidly controlled? It’s certainly not doing any favors to the quality of Lucasfilm’s storytelling on TV. We know Kathleen Kennedy is steering the ship, but the disparity between the quality of TV and film writing is alarming, even if the financial stakes are much lower. Disney’s Bob Iger has already suggested the company will make Marvel/Star Wars TV content because it’s “diluted” the focus and attention away from the main film brand, but that might be a polite way of saying the TV content pales in comparison to the work on the big screen. And with three new “Star Wars” films in the works, the company might already be signaling that the TV era is coming to an end as they pivot back to the cinema.
Has the grand TV franchise experiment failed? See what’s happening with the current reckoning over at Marvel TV for more evidence and thoughts. Honestly, it would be premature to say yes, but clearly, Disney is already rethinking the great franchise migration to TV, and maybe some of the aforementioned criticisms are part of that decision.
The great George Lucas may have said it at one point, but the chief defense of poor “Star Wars” storytelling is often, “’Star Wars’” is for kids,’ i.e., it’s no longer for you and was arguably never aimed at you in the first place—you were a kid when you loved it, and this is why you complain, move along now (because fans and creators don’t want to hear it). Well, “Star Wars” became a phenomenon in 1977, and I can guarantee you one thing: it was not just children who made it a hit. One hates to contradict George Lucas, but good storytelling is made for everyone of all ages and always has been. Will this disturbance in the Force continue? My lack of faith is probably disturbing to hard-core fans, but as always, I would love to be proven wrong.
Post-script:
Screen Junkies is obviously way too glib, but they do make some good points here, including highlighting how terrible some of the dialogue is.
