Ahsoka: Star Wars’ ultimate Rebel makes the leap from cartoon to live-action in style

REVIEW: It’s back to the future, as Disney+ unveils its latest Star Wars series

Not only does the new, eight-part Ahsoka (the first two episodes of which are now available to stream) begin with the franchise’s trademark screen crawl and camera glide across a vast spaceship, but the show itself is a live-action continuation of the cult animated series Star Wars: Rebels which aired for four seasons between 2014 and 2018.

Set in the same time period between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens as The Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett, the now Star Wars-regular Dave Filoni’s tale sees Anakin Skywalker’s former padawan continuing her Rebels’ quest to locate her fellow former Jedi and Ghost crew-mate Ezra Bridger.

Despite having seemingly sacrificed himself to ensure the defeat of the Galactic Empire’s Admiral Thrawn, Ashoka and others are convinced that – somewhere in space – he and Thrawn are still alive.

It’s a belief that sinister agents working to undermine the fragile peace also share – and while Ashoka has captured one of the ringleaders – Morgan Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto) – and learned of the existence (and whereabouts) of a secret map that could pinpoint the pair’s location, it doesn’t take long for her headstart to evaporate.

While clearly lessons have been learned in the 24 years since The Phantom Menace – a character notes that “the average worker doesn’t care about the nuances of galactic politics” – Ahsoka’s all-action narrative does contain some curious dead-spots in the opening pair of episodes.

Our re-introduction to the eponymous Jaffa-skinned Togruta is a wordless, slightly ponderous heist that feels more like a scene from an Indiana Jones movie (which uncovers what looks like a bigger version of Harry Potter’s Golden Snitch), while the inevitable early liberation of Elsbeth has a strange Star Trek vibe about the interactions between the crew and the interlopers their captain severely under-estimates.

More recent or strictly old-school Star Wars fans should also note that a working knowledge of Rebels would definitely be helpful to your understanding of who’s who (and who means what to whom) – although it’s not completely essential. It’s true, the interplay and banter between the likes of Ahsoka, her former padawan Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), Ghost pilot Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and droid Huyang (voiced by David Tennant) is one of the show’s highlights (there’s a lightness of touch mixed with a hint of menace that echoes say the crews featured in Firefly, or the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy), but there’s also plenty of lightsaber action (featuring a variety of different shapes and combinations) and more than a hint of “The Force” for those for whom actions speak much louder than words.

And although this is very much a tale of four women (Winstead perhaps just shading her former Death Proof co-star Dawson in the stakes for best performance so far), it’s hard not watch Ahsoka without reflecting on the poignancy that you’re watching the last hurrah of Northern Ireland actor Ray Stevenson (Rome, RRR, Dexter) who died age 58 in late May. He gives great villain as the powerful Baylan Skoll.

Yes, the plot feels more than a little borrowed from Force Awakens, and there is a sense that this is simply another piece of the franchise jigsaw that apparently, ultimately leads to a feature film that will tie all the similarly set series together, but Ahsoka is also a slick and smart conversion of a popular cartoon (something that is definitely no easy feat) with characters you’ll be more than happy to spend time with – and actually look like they have some place to go.

Ahsoka is now available to stream on Disney+.