Skip to main content

Did Andor ruin Ahsoka, and maybe the entire Star Wars franchise, by being too good?

Ahsoka Tano holds one of her lightsabers in Ahsoka episode 4.
Lucasfilm

Disney+’s Ahsoka is a lot of things: A quasi-sequel to Star Wars Rebels, a spinoff of The Mandalorian, a rollicking space adventure. Above all else, though, Ahsoka is a show made by and for Star Wars fans. Created by George Lucas’ chosen protégé, Dave Filoni, the series is overflowing with details, Easter eggs, and characters from past Star Wars films and TV shows — namely, Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Rebels. These various references have all been collected in a story that seems designed to serve as the bridge between the Rebels finale and Filoni’s now-announced Star Wars crossover film, which will purportedly close out the New Republic story first introduced in The Mandalorian.

Recommended Videos

At the center of said story is the villainous Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen) and the Imperial Remnant’s quest to bring him back into the fold. That mission is the driving narrative force of Ahsoka, which pits the show’s heroes against those who wish to find Thrawn and rescue him from his years-long exile in a foreign galaxy. The series is, in other words, a lot less about Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) and her personal journey than its title would lead you to believe. In fact, of all of its concerns, Ahsoka’s characters feel increasingly less like its top priority.

In that respect, Ahsoka stands as the polar opposite of Andor, the initially underseen live-action Star Wars show that premiered to widespread acclaim last year. Unlike Ahsoka, Andor couldn’t care less about the greater Star Wars universe. Over the course of its 12-episode first season, the Disney+ series has just one thing on its mind: its eponymous antihero, Cassian Andor (Diego Luna). That’s not only what separates Andor from Ahsoka, but it’s also what makes the former great and the latter so dramatically inert.

Why Andor was so great … and why it’s so hard to emulate

Cassian Andor stands by a hillside in Andor season 1.
Lucasfilm

Andor’s first season is essentially divided into four chapters, but regardless of whether it’s forcing him to break out of an Imperial prison or participate in a risky heist, the Disney+ series never loses sight of its eponymous hero. When the season begins, Diego Luna’s Cassian is a non-interventionist hustler with little-to-no interest in taking down the Empire that wiped out his entire family and killed his adoptive father. Everything that happens throughout Andor season 1 is, therefore, designed to push Cassian one step closer to becoming the radicalized rebel fans met for the first time in 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

Through Cassian’s journey, the series is able to make a broader point about how a rebellion becomes a revolution, and it supports that argument with a pair of secondary storylines involving behind-the-scenes rebels like Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) and Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård). The season also creates counters to its Mon Mothma, Luthen, and Cassian stories, all of which are united by the same philosophical ideas, in the form of characters like Syril Karn (Kyle Soller) and Dedra Meero (Denise Gough), who bring a human face to the fascistic systems that Andor’s heroes are trying to upend. All of which is to say that, as broad as its points about oppression and freedom are, Andor’s themes only land as forcefully as they do because they stem directly from the very specific fears, desires, and dreams of its central heroes and villains.

Ahsoka prioritizes spectacle over character development

Ahsoka Tano crosses lightsabers with Baylan Skoll in Ahsoka episode 4.
Lucasfilm

For its part, Ahsoka has struggled to connect its titular former Jedi’s story to its larger, franchise-centric plot. Across the series’ initial installments, Rosario Dawson’s Ahsoka hasn’t been given much of a personality or personal struggle. Her entire story has been tied to her master-apprentice relationship with Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), which is informed by a previous falling out between them that viewers haven’t been given any real insight into yet. Other characters have suggested that Ahsoka isn’t trusting enough of Sabine, but every setback that has happened throughout the series’ first season so far has been because Ahsoka has put too much faith in her student.

Sabine’s decision to ignore her master’s warnings and give Baylan Skoll (Ray Stevenson) his prized star map in Ahsoka‘s fourth episode is frustrating for this very reason. Many have compared the scene in question to Star-Lord’s misguided attack on Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War, but that decision notably ties into and reinforces its film’s core theme (i.e., that heroes have to be willing to put their own emotions and interests aside for the greater good). Sabine’s decision, conversely, carries no thematic weight because Ahsoka has yet to present any kind of philosophical, moral, or emotional argument.

The moment doesn’t speak to Ahsoka’s failure to trust Sabine, nor does it reinforce any broader ideas about the value of putting one’s personal relationships over the greater good. It just makes Sabine seem even more foolish and self-interested than she already did. Baylan’s offhanded remark about how one of Ahsoka’s past mistakes resulted in the deaths of Sabine’s Mandalorian family members, meanwhile, only further reveals just how undercooked the show’s core relationship has been up to this point. It is, frankly, hard to be genuinely invested in Ahsoka and Sabine’s bond when so much of it depends on events that viewers have not been privy to. Ahsoka itself hasn’t devoted the time necessary to make up for that fact, either.

The way forward

Sabine Wren holds a star map in Ahsoka episode 4.
Lucasfilm

As occasionally entertaining as it’s been so far, Ahsoka has failed to ground its biggest moments in the emotions and personal journeys of its characters. More often than not, the show’s heroes have felt like nothing more than pieces being moved around on a board — one designed to further a larger, Thrawn-led conflict. That’s been particularly disappointing to see, especially coming off Andor, a show that frequently feels only tangentially related to the Star Wars universe at large, but which imbues its character-driven story with so much emotion and thematic weight that it’s impossible to ever fall out of sync with it.

Suffice it to say, one need only watch an episode of Andor and an episode of Ahsoka to see what it looks like when a TV show prioritizes its plot over its characters and vice versa. Unfortunately, no amount of Easter eggs can make up for a mistake like that.

New episodes of Ahsoka premiere Tuesday nights on Disney+. Andor season 1 is available to stream now on the platform.

Alex Welch
Alex is a writer and critic who has been writing about and reviewing movies and TV at Digital Trends since 2022. He was…
Star Wars: Skeleton Crew was originally supposed to be a movie
Jude Law sits in a starship's pilot seat in Star Wars: Skeleton Crew.

Lucasfilm is on the verge of debuting its second live-action Star Wars series of the year, Skeleton Crew. Set after the events of Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi, the show follows a group of adventure-seeking kids who end up stranded in space with a starship of unknown origin and are joined on their journey home by a mysterious, potentially untrustworthy adult Force-user (Jude Law). The new series comes from the minds of Christopher Ford and Spider-Man: No Way Home director Jon Watts, and it has the potential to be the Disney+ hit that Lucasfilm has been in desperate need of over the past two years.

As well-suited as it may seem for the studio's Disney+ model, though, Skeleton Crew was originally pitched to Lucasfilm years ago as a movie, Watts recently revealed. "I pitched it right after the first Spider-Man [Homecoming] movie. It was initially pitched to Lucasfilm as a film, and then I had to go make two Spider-Man movies, because the first one did all right," the filmmaker told TVLine. "Over time, [Jon] Favreau made The Mandalorian and Disney+ came into existence, so it evolved, as the Spider-Man movies were being made, into a show."

Read more
Star Wars: Skeleton Crew’s Disney+ release date moved up
Two kids drive a vehicle down the road.

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew is arriving earlier than expected. The eight-part series will debut with a two-episode premiere at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT on Monday, December 2. Subsequent episodes will be released on Tuesdays at the same time, with the season finale airing on January 14, 2025.

Disney also announced the directors for each corresponding episode. Series co-creator Jon Watts will helm episodes 1 and 8. The Green Knight's David Lowery directs episodes 2 and 3. The Daniels (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert), the Oscar-winning duo behind Everything Everywhere All at Once, direct episode 4. The remaining three episodes will be directed by Beef's Jake Schreier (episode 5), Bryce Dallas Howard (episode 6), and Minari's Lee Isaac Chung (episode 7).

Read more
Andor creator says season 1’s success has given him complete creative freedom
Cassian stands by a hillside in Andor season 1.

When it premiered in late 2022, Andor's first season quickly emerged as one of the most critically acclaimed Star Wars titles of Lucasfilm's entire Disney-owned era. The show went on to earn eight Emmy nominations, including one for Outstanding Drama Series. According to Andor creator Tony Gilroy, the Rogue One prequel's extremely positive reception has helped him convince Disney and Lucasfilm to follow his vision for its second and final season.

Speaking with Empire, Gilroy told the outlet, "The critical appreciation of the show was really helpful, if not essential, in helping Disney choke down the price of what this is." Andor season 1 reportedly had a sizable budget of $250 million, and it seems likely, based on Gilroy's comments, that the show's second season will end up costing the same amount or more. Unlike some other blockbuster shows of the past few years, though, most Andor fans would argue that its first season's budget was used well and visible in every one of its episodes.

Read more