After the first two episodes of Dave Filoni's Ahsoka, there was a ton of hate being thrown at the show by those who have been attacking Disney for years for a great many reasons, most of them justified. Disney did ruin the Star Wars sequel Trilogy. Kathleen Kennedy should have been fired many, many years ago. Disney's decision to stand up against the rights of parents in Florida who didn't want their six-year-olds taught gender ideology and inherently disordered sexual orientations was absolutely atrocious. The Disney parks are increasingly falling into disrepair as attendance continues its steady decline. Disney's repeated decisions to cast the most obnoxious woke actresses in the most obnoxiously poorly written roles defies all logic. There is a lot to be upset at Disney for right now.

Ahsoka is not one of those reasons.

I don't think Ahsoka is for everyone, however. Unlike The Mandalorian, Book of Boba Fett, or Andor; where viewers need only have watched George Lucas' Star Wars Trilogies and are rewarded with amazing easter eggs if they saw the many seasons of the animated Clone Wars and/or Rebels; Ahsoka absolutely DEMANDS viewers watch both animated shows in their entirety.

It blows my mind that critics of the Sequel Trilogy are bashing Ahsoka when Ahsoka has made the animated canon a necessary part of the live action cannon; meaning Disney won't be able to erase what happened in the animated shows like they did in the "expanded universe" novels; which were widely loved and gave birth to legendary characters such as Grand Admiral Thrawn. Why is this important? Because it canonizes The World Between Worlds! More on this later!

The Good

Rosario Dawson must have watched every episode of The Clone Wars at least three times because she absolutely nailed her portrayal of Ahsoka Tano, the titular character. In fact, her portrayal is by far the best of any character pulled from an animated series into a live action adaption. Not just in Star Wars, but in anything! She did an absolutely phenomenal job.

The addition of Huyang was incredible. I honestly don't know whether he was CGI, a prop, or a combination of the two. I hope to watch the "Making of" special sometime soon to find out.

The series also introduced former Jedi turned Dark Side user Baylan Skoll; who damn near stole the show from Rosario Dawson's Ahsoka. The intrigue of his character leaves Star Wars fans itching for more, dying to figure out what he's up to. In fact, he would have stolen the show if he didn't start taking a back seat as the antagonist once Grand Admiral Thrawn was introduced.

Lars Mikkelsen as Grand Admiral Thrawn was probably not the best choice to capture the look of the character, but he sure as heck captured the personality of the Thrawn found in Timothy Zahn's famous Thrawn Trilogy; which you must read even if you have to keep in mind it was written before the prequel trilogy was created. It helps that Mikkelsen voiced Thrawn in the animated series.

Even better, all of these powerful, memorable characters survived to continue their roles in the "Filoniverse"!

Finally, we also got to see Ezra Bridger, too! Even better, Ezra looks like he was the runner up to being cast as Jesus in The Chosen. With Mark Hamill giving up his role as Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars universe, the galaxy needs a Jesus like savior to save everyone from the abomination that was the Star Wars sequel trilogy. Even better, Ezra already knows about the World Between Worlds; which is essentially a Force Time Machine and gives Filoni the power to hit a big old reset button if necessary to save Star Wars.

The Bad

There's not much to complain about.

I loved how long it took Sabine to control the Force enough to manipulate an object. I dislike how she immediately became powerful enough to enable Ezra to "double jump" onto Thrawn's Star Destroyer in the season 1 finale.

Also, once the season was over, it kind of felt like this might have been better off as a 3-hour Ahsoka movie. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to have the expanded edition footage broken up into eight episodes, but I'm not sure all of it was totally necessary.

Overall Impressions

There was little not to like here.

Sabine's ability to Force throw Ezra at the end is particularly irritating mostly because of Rey's "Mary Sue" character from the sequel trilogy making everyone particularly sensitive to this type of character. Still, we do see Sabine struggle and grow as a character in the process. Dave Filoni is actually really good at this. When he originally created the Ahsoka character, he wanted her to be arrogant and very unlikable. As she grew as a person, Star Wars fans went from universally hating her to universally loving her. While the change in Ahsoka took two or three seasons, it's been accelerated a bit for Sabine. If I had to guess, that's because Kathleen Kennedy and Disney wouldn't guarantee the budget to tell a story over three seasons, so he had to find a way to do it faster. It felt a bit rushed, but her character arc was really fun to watch.

A common critique is that Star Wars is becoming overly "female centric." However, in this particular case, it made sense. Aside from Hera and Sabine, all of the female characters were created by George Lucas or Dave Filoni under George Lucas' tutelage.

Star Wars Rebels ended on a cliff hanger, with Ezra's master dead and Ezra and Thrawn pulled into a distant part of space. The only other male member of the crew is a Rebel pilot now, so that left a female cast for this show. Mon Mothma as the leader of the New Republic was something done in the Expanded Universe because George Lucas made her the leader of the Rebel Alliance in Return of the Jedi. On top of that, Mon Mothma's portrayal in Andor, Rogue One, and Ahsoka makes her appear to be a far weaker leader than she was in the Expanded Universe. I don't mind having female characters as long as they're not perfect, and none of these characters are. It's awesome!

Ahsoka may not be bringing the viewers to Disney+ that they perhaps wanted, but that doesn't mean it isn't a good show. I would highly recommend that absolutely everybody who has watched Clone Wars and Rebels watch this show. And if you haven't watched the animated shows yet, it's worth it to watch those to get the payoff here.

Something awesome is starting in a galaxy far, far away and it probably has to do with Thrawn's return: the enemy that should have been the star villain of the Sequel Trilogy. Dave Filoni was wise to send him away while Disney ruined Star Wars.