Star Wars series “Ahsoka”: Women are simply the better heroes

2023-08-22 17:57:02

Women in Space: A warrior widow and general in a new, democratically shaky galactic order, a veteran of the Clone Wars struggling with her role in responsibility for herself and others, and a perpetually pubescent Mandalorian emo girl. Here they are, the heroines of Disney’s new Star Wars series Ahsoka.

Or so they will be described by the refusers of social discourse and progress, who recently with the hysterical glee battle cry “Go woke, go broke” about the failures of Disney’s “Arielle” (black mermaid), “Snow White” (dwarfs are not dwarfs ) and especially the fifth part of the “Indiana Jones” series (too fast, too ironic, too funny for the knights of the holy status quo).

also read

Mandalorian creator Favreau

Yes, Ahsoka has three female protagonists. Is that a felt gender knee-jerk of the mouse again? No, of course not, although here too one cannot rationally discuss with dogmatists. The constellation of the three heroines results from the basic lineup of the eight-part series, which now starts with a lavishly long double episode on “Disney plus”. For everyone whose horizon is not the last shred of foam that wafts in front of the mouth, a brief explanation:

Ahsoka is more of the fifth season than an entirely new series of the excellent animated series Star Wars: Rebels, which opened in 2014 and brought a new narrative dimension to the Gospel of Lucas in a galaxy far, far away. Do you have to know “Rebels” to understand “Ahsoka”? Radio Yerevan replies: “Of course not, if the flickering of colorful images is enough for you while playing a game of Solo Uno.”

So a quick recap: At the end of the series about a rebel group that liberates the Empire-occupied planet Lothal, there are heavy casualties. The lover of Hera Syndulla (the general) and father of her unborn child, sacrifices himself for a good cause, the main hero Ezra Bridger is taken to the far reaches of the… hyperspace sucked. Only the women remain: Hera, Ahsoka and Sabine Wren.

Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) and Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) in „Ahsoka“

Quelle: © 2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

Men dead. Men gone. women left. Therefore many women in series. Occident not in danger. So could we tick that part off please? Thank you very much.

But what does Ahsoka, the most anticipated Star Wars series of the year, mean for the epic? Let’s layer it.

First of all, the eight episodes are the first live-action adaptation exclusively related to the third phase of the story (after the original trilogy and the prequels) designed by producers and writers Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau. Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Boba Fett, Obi Wan Kenobi, Chewbacca – all these heroes are only indirectly present as part of the fictional historiography, showing a different, then new, generation of heroes.

Here you will find content from YouTube

In order to display embedded content, your revocable consent to the transmission and processing of personal data is required, since the providers of the embedded content as third-party providers require this consent [In diesem Zusammenhang können auch Nutzungsprofile (u.a. auf Basis von Cookie-IDs) gebildet und angereichert werden, auch außerhalb des EWR]. By setting the switch to “on”, you agree to this (which can be revoked at any time). This also includes your consent to the transfer of certain personal data to third countries, including the USA, in accordance with Art. 49 (1) (a) GDPR. You can find more information about this. You can withdraw your consent at any time via the switch and via privacy at the bottom of the page.

Ahsoka Tano, the titular heroine, is one of the best-told characters in the entire franchise, in formats ranging from cartoon to comic book to animation to now live-action. We even witnessed her birth and the awakening of her power. Originally introduced as a supporting character and student of Anakin Skywalker (later Darth Vader) in The Clone Wars, the character quickly became a crowd pleaser. And went through a coherent and understandable development.

The thoughtless teenager (nicknamed “Snips”), an intelligent reflection of her mentor Skywalker, became – like him – a victim of the encrusted Jedi order. Ahsoka was an outsider in a galaxy of hierarchies and clans. The final episodes of “The Clone Wars” (which were released in 2020, already under the Disney regime), especially the last one – “Victory and Death” – are among the best ever written in the franchise. She brings a core Star Wars drama arc, the tension between sin and loyalty, perfectly and to the point with harrowing imagery.

So it’s not surprising that the first double episode of “Ahsoka” is extremely dark, less in the plot than in the setting, the (there is a prelude again) opening credits, the brute and minimalist soundtrack. In terms of tonality, this is not very far removed from the sensational series “Andor”. But while Tony Gilroy’s story focuses on life in the newly established imperial dictatorship and the beginning of the resistance, the darkness of “Ahsoka” is shocking because it takes place in an era in which evil seems to have been vanquished on the surface.

Make the most of history

But the democratic community of the new republic is fragile. You already suspected that in the “Mandalorian” seasons and “The Book of Boba Fett”. And of course you knew it from the three ill-fated sequels that, at least with parts VII and IX, represent the low points of the franchise. There, Star Wars lost all grandeur, all traceability, all authenticity for the first time and degenerated (first) into a cheap restart (like the alleged mastermind JJ Abrams had already pulled off with “Star Trek”) and ended in a helpless attempt to all to somehow violently tie loose threads together (which Abrams had failed to do early on in “Lost”).

For years, Filoni and Favreau have sincerely and successfully tried to make the best possible out of the failed end of historiography – with clever pre-narratives: In the soldier series “The Bad Batch” the use of cloning technology, which is used in the sequels like a deus ex machina about the spectators came, deduced. After “The Mandolorian” it is (somewhat) clearer why the New Republic is so weak and why there can suddenly be a resurgent empire (“Last Order”) in “The Force Awakens” (Theatrical Part VII).

also read

According to the unanimous opinion of fans, the sequels would have looked completely different and based on the “Erbe des Empires” series of novels, which Timothy Zahn had written from 1991 as a continuation of the classic trilogy. In it, Grand Admiral Thrawn is the resurrector of the Empire and heir to Darth Vader as an exquisite villain. But when Disney bought Lucasfilm, everything that was good was declared “uncanonical”, i.e. invalid, in addition to a lot of uncontrolled growth. Thrawn was gone. Until Filoni resurrected him in Rebels, a bold move at the time.

“Ahsoka” is now about the search for that Thrawn. He seems to have entered a parallel galaxy. His loyalists, fallen Jedi, sectarian Sith, one does not know exactly, at least collaborators of the empire, led by the Thrawn disciple Morgan Elsbeth (who know we from The Mandalorian and this shows how closely Favreau and Filoni weave) want to bring him back – so do our heroes. Ahsoka wants to face the potential new Emperor, rescue her ex-turned-pupil Sabine Wren and soulmate/teen crush Ezra Bridger from the parallel world.

also read

„The Book of Boba Fett“

Here the plot becomes clearer than the previous story. The first two episodes are the – elaborated and told at a skilful pace – report on how the team comes together and the opponents form, i.e. how the war is to be waged. Above all, probably with lightsabers, unlike in “Andor” it goes deep into the crunching framework of the Jedi order and its adversaries. This opposite polarity of the series – there the unpretentious life of suffering of mortals, here the archaic game of the mystics – shows how far the arc of Star Wars is now stretched and how well it harmonizes.

The Ahsoka overture is more of a short feature film than two long series episodes. Perfectly equipped, dirty and rusty, like the Star Wars universe, in which every landing flap opens with the usual hissing and steaming of hydraulic mechanisms and it only howls in silent space when fast ships compete in a duel.

In this respect – we had already dealt with the initially missing male heroes – “Ahsoka” is not modern, not woke, not diverse, but very, very classic space opera. Today’s reference is Sabine’s speeder ride over Lothal’s high-speed tracks, a crazy-paced, techno-soundtrack homage to the classic video game Wipeout. And it’s from 1995. At that time, Wokisten and their counterparts were still screaming children in the arms of their unfortunate birthing persons/mothers.