![]() In the finale of Rebels, Ahsoka and Sabine end on a mission to find Ezra. There’s a blank spot that the whole of the audience shares, Rebels fans or no. So what’s the deal? All the Things Left Unsaid We’ve seen what she can do on The Mandalorian. It’s certainly not a Rosario Dawson problem, either. What I also understand is that this is meant to be an Ahsoka series, but, because we’ve forgotten the importance of pilots, she’s barely featured in the first two episodes and we don’t know why she no longer has any personality to speak of. I understand the archetypes that our three leads fill, and why they’re important to the galaxy as a whole. (Yes, I’ll get there eventually.)Īnd it’s not even a full blind spot! I’ve seen an errant episode or two and enough clips to know that I’d die for Hera. But, despite being relatively knowledgeable when it comes to Star Wars as a whole, Rebels is one of my few blind spots. I’m not here to give you my entire Star Wars resume, but Mara Jade is my favorite character and I’d like the Grey Jedi to get their butts back into the main canon conversation because I’m tired of all this black and white. What’s frustrating about the lack of needed context in Ahsoka is that many of the folks who are confused aren’t new fans. ![]() So it feels like the wiser move would be to help new fans understand what’s going on, no? No matter what you do, some folks are going to complain. This has also led to another popular criticism: story redundancy. While some of those complaints are justified, the franchise will typically give at least some kind of base primer for what the audience needs to know to understand whatever new story is kicking off at a given time. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been consistently criticized about how difficult it is for viewers to hop into new stories after years of storytelling. Given the premiere’s reticence to use flashbacks to explain important Rebels plot-points, I worry that the excitement of something feeling Star Wars-y will wane as the series continues to commit a cardinal storytelling sin: telling, but not showing. And while I love me some cranky ladies, you’ve got to give the audience an understanding of why the character is where they’re at if “generally annoyed” hasn’t always been their default setting. Meanwhile, Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) is hardly a character in the first two episodes of what is supposed to be her own show. From the audience perspective - at least for those who didn’t watch Rebels - his narrative purpose has concluded. But Ahsoka’s first two episodes do nothing to help us understand why we, the audience, should care if he’s found again. You know why the characters care about him, of course. The problem is, if you didn’t watch Star Wars Rebels, you have absolutely no idea who Ezra Bridger is, let alone why he is important. Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) doesn’t seem to be concerned with Thrawn at all, while Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) just wants her friends to get along and for the fragile galactic peace they fought so hard for to remain intact. Ahsoka insists that it’s finding Thrawn, of course, but what we see doesn’t really support that. (Read: setting the narrative bedrock for the rest of your series.)įor example, the first two episodes of the show make it clear that rescuing Ezra Bridger - should he be alive - is priority number one. The second is that streaming series as a whole seem to have forgotten the importance of a pilot episode. That confusion is a two-fold problem: The first issue is that since Ahsoka’s story has largely occurred in animation, the live-action series doesn’t offer the ever-important “previously on” that would give those who hadn’t watched Star Wars Rebels the context that they need. ![]() But among those positive reactions is a lingering sentiment of “what the hell is going on?” The series boasts admirable scores on Rotten Tomatoes and has seen generally positive reactions from fans (once again, myself included). I’m hoping that will also be the case for Star Wars: Ahsoka.įrankly, it’s not even that the first two episodes were poorly received. Over time, though, the reckless but endearing hot-shot padawan of one Anakin Skywalker won the hearts and minds of Star Wars fans the world over. Ahsoka Tano has been in our lives for so long at this point that many of us - myself included - sometimes forget that she wasn’t actually well-received in the beginning of her run in The Clone Wars back in 2008.
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