I like Ahsoka. No, honestly. The first couple of episodes of the Disney+ show in the Star Wars Universe weren’t great, I must say, but the show helmed by Lucasfilm heir apparent Dave Filoni, starring Rosario Dawson as the titular Jedi, has been getting better steadily. The characters of this show are poised to merge with those from The Mandalorian for an Avengers: Endgame crossover event, and many fans are salivating for this impending new Star War.
Sad that it is meaningless.
While the fans are insisting Filoni should succeed Kathleen Kennedy as the studio head, he has a thankless task ahead of him. He has to make his characters fit into a post-Empire/pre-First Order narrative wherein everything he has built for so many years – through the Clone Wars and Rebels shows – have no bearing, no shadow or hint, within the story of Episode Seven, The Force Awakens.
It’s not Filoni’s fault, and in fact, he follows in the footsteps of many talented people including Star Wars creator George Lucas himself, who have inherited the curse. That curse is: All New Star Wars Make Old Star Wars A Little Worse.
Warning – spoilers ahead. Secondary warning – if you haven’t been following Star Wars lore up to this moment, not much of what follows will make logical sense.
Look at it chronologically:
1. Order 66 found the Jedi almost entirely wiped out, shot to pieces by blasters.
But by all means, Jedi…keep training with that lightsaber.
2. Obi-Wan Kenobi had two opportunities to take out Darth Vader and passed on both.
3. Obi-Wan Kenobi knew Leia was Luke’s sister. Leia knew Obi-Wan when she was a kid. Neither seem to know much about each other later.
4. When Luke started getting a little hot about Leia, Obi-Wan wasn’t kind of disturbed by the N’Zesty-ness?
5. Luke and Leia tongue kiss.
6. Obi-Wan knew Leia but couldn’t tell she was force-sensitive, so, “That boy was our only hope.” Yoda says no. Seriously, all this makes Kenobi look like the dumbest Jedi.
7. Leia “somehow…always” knew Luke was her brother, even when she was cleaning his tonsils.
8. Oh, and NO ONE knows a damn thing about Cassian Andor, Jyn Erso, Saw Gerrera, Orson Krennic, Galen Erso, need I go on?
9. After Death Star 2, no one was paying attention to the remnants of the Empire to make sure they wouldn’t regain power?
10. No one had an idea that another Death Star type of weapon was being built until the First Order built it? Everyone saw the big lens being carved into an entire planet and said, “Hmm, must be another Spirit Halloween?”
11. With these supposed force-sensitive types running around, no one could suss out that Rey was a Palpatine, not even Luke? Not Leia?
12. Oh, and NO ONE knows a damn thing about Ahsoka Tano, Admiral Thrawn, Ezra Bridger, Sabine Wren…
Space witches, space whales, Din D’Jarin, Bo-Katan, Baby-fricking-Grogu, need I go on?
I get it. George Lucas in 1976 couldn’t know how big the first (fourth? See how screwy this all is?) movie would be in ’77, couldn’t know how to advance the story without stepping on his own feet a bit, and more with Return of the Jedi. But everyone (including Lucas) knew AFTERWARD, and continued to complicate things with fixes that did not fix. Going into the past makes future events more problematic, and makes our heroes look more idiotic.
The only way this mess of retcons and anachronisms can be cleaned up, saving the franchise from self-inflicted pocket-universes of irrelevance to itself is that once this storyline is completed, get out. Set the story many years into the future. Do NOT focus the story upon the already divisive Rey “Skywalker.” Write a new history and stop trying to repair old continuity sharts.
The Filoniverse is a kind of wondrous creation, but makes little to no sense in the same timeline as the Sequel Trilogy, where all these TV show characters have nothing to do with any of it and are best thought of, at worst, as dead, gone, and long forgotten…
I like Ahsoka. It took a bit of time to get there but I got there. Nonetheless, it is a prequel with no impact because every single character in it, and the presumed war yet to come with them, is nonexistent in the storyline immediately following it. You can love the Filoniverse, but it is at heart only making a present mess that much messier.
Comments