Ahsoka: A Star Wars Autopsy
Now that the Ahsoka season one has completed its lifespan, what lessons can Lucasfilm learn from a creative and business standpoint?
While I enjoyed parts of Ahsoka as much as the best of any other Star Wars series, the show also had some significant flaws that placed it near the bottom of the list of Star Wars streaming seasons and could be diminishing returns if they do a second season. But two factors are crucial in determining a show’s success and staying power:
- Did the people who watch the show enjoy it overall (fans and critics)?
- Did the show hold most of its viewers/or increase in viewership week-to-week?
It seems like most fans who watched the entirety of the series (eight parts/episodes total) enjoyed it, while critics were more mixed but leaning positive. From a viewership standpoint, according to Disney, Part One had 14M global views within the first five days of release (Disney defines views as total stream time divided by runtime). Samba TV (a third-party tracking company for the US) estimated that 1.2M US households (HH) watched Ahsoka Part One within its launch and five days. However, by the time the finale was released, the viewership found itself 42% less than the finale of The Mandalorian season three (1.5M US HHs) but above Andor season one (591K US HHs) with 863K US HHs.
Losing viewers week-to-week is the rule, not the exception (which makes shows like The Last of Us incredibly special), and Ahsoka did perform better than Andor. So, these are positive results, but there are some warning flags that Lucasfilm should recognize and adjust accordingly so that they do not have another Solo situation when Star Wars finally returns to theaters. But let’s kick things off with the positive.
What Worked
Anakin Skywalker
There are some benefits to being “the greatest Jedi,” according to Dave Filoni. Filoni did help shift negative opinions about the Prequel Trilogy and Anakin with The Clone Wars series. When Hayden Christensen was announced as returning for the Obi-Wan Kenobi series, it was a natural conclusion that he would also be in Ahsoka. Christensen impressed in Obi-Wan, both behind the mask and during Anakin and Obi-Wan’s sparing flashback as a Padawan. In Ahsoka Part Four, Anakin returns from beyond to teach his former Padawan a lesson. While the execution of that lesson is not as cohesive as it should be, how everything plays out between Anakin and Ahsoka is pretty cool to watch. Christensen proves to have great chemistry with Rosario Dawson and Arianna Greenblatt as young Ahsoka. Christensen shined so much as Anakin that he has been included in a considerable amount of promotion for the series.
The World Between Worlds Adaptation
Another element that Ahsoka explored in Part Four was The World Between Worlds, which was already a controversial part of Star Wars canon before its live-action debut. In Rebels, The World Between Worlds was introduced as a place outside of time (Loki-ess but no TVA). Its true purpose was so Dave Filoni wouldn’t have to kill off his favorite Star Wars character when Ahsoka fought Darth Vader and was about to die.
Ezra found his way there through a Lothal Temple, pulling Ahsoka out of time to save her life. Ahsoka then returned after Vader left (her whereabouts between this time and her appearance in The Mandalorian season two are unknown).
If The World Between Worlds was presented as in Rebels, casual Star Wars fans would have more questions than answers. However, Filoni mostly left things open for interpretation, leaning towards showing it as a type of purgatory. The only contrast is that Jacen Syndulla could hear Anakin and Ahsoka fighting with their lightsabers, but the adaptation worked for this storyline.
What Didn’t Work
The Nightsisters
I know many fans enjoyed the Nightsisters, but for those watching who have not seen any of the animated series or played the Star Wars Jedi game series, these are new elements introduced. And having your main characters say “witches” every episode does not explain anything. There is no explanation of how they use the Force or the rules of their powers, leading to some ridiculous inconsistencies. How can they sense the exact location of a Jedi who just arrived on the planet (Ahsoka) but fail to sense the location of a Jedi who has been there this whole time (Ezra)?
A more significant issue is that it is never made clear that their powers come from the Force. Having read canon novels and seen the animated series, Magick is an aspect of the Force that uses the dark side. But The Nightsisters are neither Jedi nor Sith, but a separate entity that have historically had their own agenda.
There is no mention of that in Ahsoka, which could mean Lucasfilm might be leaving room to rework their origin, or Filoni just decided not to pile more exposition. But there already was a lot of telling, not showing, going on, thanks to Morgan Elsbeth, who was used as a Nightsister exposition dump truck before she was tossed out.
Thrawn really should have been enough of a threat without three “witches” and their magick that can create zombies, which brings me to the next thing that did not work.
The Tone
By throwing in hyperspace-traveling whales, another galaxy, and the undead, Ahsoka is more disconnected from other Star Wars shows. It feels like a nested story within an actual canon storyline. Even including usually separate mythos like witches within Star Wars is jarring.
And, to be fair, this is not the first live-action witch in Star Wars. A long time ago, in a film series, Ewoks, a witch character named Charal was introduced in Ewoks: The Battle for Endor. There is no confirmation that these films from the 80s are canon, but Charal was retconned after the film series to be a Dathomir Nightsister for consistency in the Legends stories. On the other hand, Ewoks feels like it belongs in the Willow universe more than Star Wars.
Ahsoka needed more time to ground this new galaxy into the rules of the Star Wars universe because, right now, there are too many new concepts that are so different from what we are used to in Star Wars introduced with little explanation.
Lessons to Be Learned
Creative Lesson: Take the Leap and Have a Writers Room
Star Wars has never been known for its stellar dialogue or character prose. And, for a long time, it has survived (and even thrived) with subpar to downright horrid writing of often 1–2 writers. But now, Star Wars has its feet firmly planted in television and is competing with shows that have writers’ rooms. Andor was a step in the right direction as Tony Gilroy (as capable a writer as he is) even held writers’ rooms.
With all due respect to Filoni, while he improved Anakin Skywalker, some of his lines strayed too close to George Lucas’s Prequel Trilogy for comfort. Want to make your head explode? Try imagining Morgan Elsbeth (as written by Dave Filoni) having a conversation with Luthan Rael (as written by Beau Willimon). His lack of experience as a live-action writer is evident. Lucasfilm needs to help him (and themselves) out by surrounding him with more seasoned writers who can improve his story direction.
The Acolyte will also have a writers’ room as showrunner Lesyle Headlund brought in a mix of backgrounds, including writers who had never seen a Star Wars film (a blend of Star Wars superfans and newbies).
Andor and The Acolyte are outside the MandoVerse (creatively), but the writing quality cannot be drastically different. Filoni or Jon Favreau did not write the best-written episode of The Mandalorian: that belongs to Rick Famuyiwa for season two’s The Believer. Per Disney Gallery’s Making Of The Mandalorian, Famuyiwa loves exploring the grey space of Star Wars that involves ex-Imperials, which comprise a large part of the story arc of this corner of Star Wars. At the very least, bring Famuyiwa (recently elevated to Executive Producer) into the writing process more.
Favreau appears to be stepping back from Star Wars (I’m sure he wants to pursue other creative endeavors while remaining Executive Producer), and the reins have fallen to Filoni. While he is improving as a director, Disney and Kathleen Kennedy can continue to help him succeed by improving the writing. And the best way to do that, for now, is to bring in more skilled writers.
Business Lesson: The Mandalorian Should Still Be the Center of this Star Wars Universe
In the end, even with Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka landed closer to Andor than The Mandalorian, which remains the crown jewel of Disney Plus. The series launched Disney Plus and was strong from the beginning with viewership and engagement (mainly in part to an excellent marketing campaign and the introduction of Baby Yoda/Grogu) and received an Emmy nomination for Best Drama Series. And while interest has dipped slightly, the show remains the most popular series on Disney Plus next to Loki (the only MCU series with multiple seasons).
The character of Din Djarin is popular and, in turn, has elevated Mandalorians, both in Star Wars and, more importantly, pop culture. It would be ridiculous not to lean on this (as well as Pedro Pascal’s rising star from The Last of Us) in the planned Filoni film. Do not make the mistake of thinking that Ahsoka is the headliner and not the opening act.
Business Lesson: Adjusting the Release Strategy Accordingly
Disney finally did what most people believe they should have a while ago and changed the release time of their Star Wars and MCU shows to 9 PM ET / 6 PM PT. With all love and respect to fans in the Eastern Hemisphere, the goal is to reach prime HBO-level awareness ( Game of Thrones, House of Dragon, The Last of Us).
If you think those comparisons are crazy, remember that the Star Wars series have garnered just as much Emmy attention and have beaten the fantasy/science fiction prejudice by getting nominations for Best Series or Best Limited Series for three different series now. As such, releasing these shows weekly in the middle of the night for the US audience has followed the law of diminishing returns. If you want to be the best, at the very least, you can follow their release time. A late drop can work for Netflix because a) Netflix has many more international subscribers, and b) most of their series release the whole seasons are not built as appointment viewing past their first day of release.
When deciding on release day, Disney must also look at each series and the whole television landscape. For example, Tuesdays in the fall are great because there is no American football to compete with, versus Sunday, Monday, or Thursday. Loki season two is currently released on Thursdays, which does compete with Thursday night football, which might affect its viewership.
But none of this will matter if the series themselves are lacking. The Mandalorian hit immediately, but now the novelty of a Star Wars series has started to wear off, so these shows need more than nostalgia to keep people tuning in week to week. The Acolyte has the best chance of being the next hit because it will not require prior knowledge from other Star Wars films or shows, taking place long before The Prequel Trilogy. Until then, I hope Lucasfilm has been taking notes.
Originally published at http://creditsandcanon.com on October 22, 2023.
