Disney+’s Ahsoka Goes A Long Way To Righting A Listing Ship

To be clear, after the first two episodes of the new Disney+ Star Wars series Ahsoka, it’s obvious that it isn’t the same level of quality as Andor. But it is parsecs beyond the most recent seasons and series that have come from the drivers of all things Star Wars on the streaming platform, Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau. Below I will explain without any spoilers why I think Ahsoka is just what the Star Wars franchise needs right now, and point out the few areas (luckily very few) in which it slips a little back into the mire that was season 3 of The Mandalorian, and the entirety of both Obi-Wan Kenobi and The Book of Boba Fett.

There are three main things that Ahsoka does right — cast, choreography and direction. The writing is solid, if not inspired like in Andor. It’s also pretty economical with dialogue, allowing scenes that don’t need someone explaining the action to be free of needless chatter.

Say what you will about her statements as a person (they have been, at best, troublesome in regard to trans people), Rosario Dawson has always been an arresting presence on screen, and that is no different as the show’s lead, Ahsoka Tano. Her Ahsoka is older, more mature, reserved — maybe even a bit cold. Definitely not the take I was expecting, but I like it. She is written as being very economical with her words, and again, it works. There are a few scenes in just these first two episodes I got a chance to screen in advance in which Dawson is facing a fight, and simply gets in a stance without saying anything — but her body language and expression is all but shouting “Come over, eff around and find out.” You’ll see going forward that bad-assery is a common theme in what makes Ahsoka work.

By contrast, Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Sabine Wren is all hot-headed rebellion and attitude. She may be the least experienced actor in a primary role on the show (and it shows at times) but Bordizzo compensates by being an actual trained martial artist (a black belt in Taekwondo if the bio info on IMdb is accurate) and you can see that in her fights. Bordizzo isn’t bad, by any stretch, but in comparison to the rest of the cast and their depth of experience, you can tell who is basically the rookie.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Hera Syndulla is the glue that holds the disparate acting styles together among the three main leads. Winstead has decades of experience delivering really nerdy dialogue, and it pays off. She has such a casual delivery that at times it seems like you are watching an early 2000s indie drama — that happens to use lines like “Jedi apprentice” and “hyperdive unit.” Well, that dialogue and her green Twi’lek skin and lekku (head tails, but maybe better to call them head tentacles) make it clear this isn’t Factory Girl.

Then there is the late, great Ray Stevenson. On IMdb, he is listed as being in just one episode, but he is in both of the first two at least, and I hope they managed to get all of his performances in before he passed away. His Baylan Skoll is definitely an antagonist, pretty clearly a villain, and absolutely menacing when he is in kick-ass mode. But he also plays the character with much more depth than just a surface-level bad guy. When you compare this role to his cartoonishly evil villain Scott Buxton in RRR, it is a remarkably nuanced performance. (Which isn’t a knock on RRR — that role worked perfectly for that movie.) I’m glad I get to see such a great performance as Stevenson’s final one.

Next up is choreography. Stuntwoman and actor Ming Qiu is listed specifically as “stunt fight coordinator” as opposed to the two overall stunt coordinators credited. She did stunts on Boss Level, The Matrix Resurrections and the live-action Mulan. One of her bio photos shows her holding a jian sword, so you can bet it was her swordfighting experience that makes the lightsaber duels in Ahsoka so amazing.

Let me be more blunt — the lightsaber fights in this series (so far) are better than anything in the Star Wars canon since probably the massive arena fight in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones. Maybe even since the duel between Obi-Wan and Darth Maul.

Some of the credit for that also has to go to the episode directors. The fights are done in clear daylight or lighting, with every move and flourish easily visible. None of this “fight in darkness with nothing but the blue and red of the lightsabers for lighting and extreme close-ups” that made the fights in Obi-Wan Kenobi so disappointing. Filoni himself directed the first episode, and experienced TV episode director Steph Green did Ep. 2. Green has directed episodes of American Gothic, Preacher, Luke Cage, The Man in the High Castle, Watchmen and … The Book of Boba Fett. I can’t hold that against her though — it was absolutely series showrunner Robert Rodriguez that screwed up that show. I hope all episode directors meet the standard of quality the first two have set for Ahsoka.

I haven’t even mentioned the production design, which is overall excellent. Or the music. There is a song used as a needle drop in the first episode that is so good, I had to crawl through all the end credits to find out what wild-ass group did it, and it turns out it is an original written by series composer Kevin Kiner and collaborators. And I mean a needle drop that is as exciting as “Sabotage” in Star Trek, or “Immigrant Song” in Thor: Ragnarok. Damn, I wish that was a real group with albums I could buy.

There are problems in Ahsoka, to be sure. The swing in acting approaches can be jarring at times. The production design sometimes fails — you can see the effects of the Volume in a couple of shots (but only a couple, otherwise it is seamless), and the design of the New Republic uniforms is … amateurish. That might be a story choice — it is after all a brand-new governmental body and hasn’t had much time to come up with cool uniforms. Or, it could be bad production design.

As a whole, I give the first two episodes of Ahsoka an 8 out of 10. I’m excited to see if it holds up throughout its short 8-episode run. The two episodes I got a chance to see will premier tonight at 9 p.m. EST.