This show has fully integrated the Clone Wars into the Star Wars mainstream…at the expense of the OG trilogy. Ahsoka has been a very good success for Star Wars and the Clone Wars/Prequel legacy thus far, yet it has inadvertently made the OG trilogy completely useless.
I guess the OG characters must have danced away to fairy land after the Return of the Jedi. Despite Ahsoka’s great success with the majority of Star Wars fans and its masterful integration of the Clone Wars into mainstream Star Wars, the show has accidentally made the OG trilogy and the classic heroes of it completely irrelevant and useless in the Star Wars lore.
Now, I know a lot of people REALLY love this show as I’m now seeing #TanoTuesday trending on Twitter after every single episode, while the popularity of the Clone Wars into the mainstream Star Wars culture has never been higher.
And that’s all great for Clone Wars fans (which I most definitely am one of them) as it not only further validates the animated show’s popularity with the mainstream, but it’s live-action success supports the weaker aspects of the Prequel trilogy.
Essentially, Ahsoka has given the Prequel trilogy a renaissance into the mainstream, which is a beautiful thing as I’m a firm believer the trilogy was WAY TOO HARSHLY judged by Star Wars fans at the time.
It not only told a fantastic epic tale about Anakin Skywalker, his journey from slave boy to the Chosen One, and then his decent into being one of the most classic and feared villains in cinema history, but it also expanded the horizon of the Star Wars universe, characters, lore, and factions beyond the OG trilogy and the EU stories set years after the Return of the Jedi.
Yet, at the same time, Ahsoka’s cannibalization of the Heir to the Empire storyline, which is a EU book by Hugo Award-winning author Timothy Zahn about an invasion attempt by Grand Admiral Thrawn against Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, and the New Republic after the events of ROTJ, for its central plot makes the original characters and heroes useless in their own world.
I get that Disney has stupidly discarded the EU and all the stories that came out of it but using one of the most popular and “canon-recognized” ROTJ-sequel stories from the EU, removing all the OG heroes from it, and then copy and pasting a bunch of Rebels and Clone Wars characters is extremely disrespectful to the OG heroes’ legacy and undermines their roles in the Star Wars lore.
(Disney/Lucasfilm-Ahsoka-Phenomenon Trailer)
After Return of the Jedi in the Expanded Universe, Luke Skywalker helped create a brand-new Jedi order, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, Lando Calrissian, Mon Mothma, and a bunch of other Rebel leaders created the New Republic government, and Grand Admiral Thrawn consolidated the remaining Imperial forces in the outer galaxy to restore the Galactic Empire.
Of course, Disney got rid of all this compelling drama and political maneuvering for the crap that is the Sequel trilogy, but they clearly didn’t get rid of Thrawn’s plots and schemes. Rather, they took away his threat from the OG heroes and gave it to a bunch of characters that really shouldn’t be going against Thrawn on this galactic-threat level.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Ahsoka and her character arc in the Clone Wars. She’s easily one of the greatest characters to come out of the Star Wars lore and is the greatest character to not be specifally written by George Lucas. Still, the time after the Return of the Jedi should be about the trials and tribulations of the damn guy in the title of that movie: Luke Skywalker.
I’d definitely have Ahsoka and the Rebels characters be involved in this new story, yet the focus of the early Sequel trilogy era should be about Luke Skywalker and the OG heroes as it was set up with the final scenes of the movie.
Why would Luke Skywalker, who blew up the first Death Star, defeated Darth Vader and brought Anakin Skywalker back to the light side, and helped destroy Emperor Palpatine, not be heavily involved in the defense of the New Republic against Grand Admiral Thrawn and the final remnants of the Empire?
Putting aside the reason being Disney doesn’t want to recast the 70-year-old Mark Hamill and wants to milk his image as the OG Luke Skywalker, it just doesn’t make any in-world sense. The Grand Master of the Jedi Order not defending the New Republic and his Order against the remnants of the most powerful and successful Sith Empire in galactic history is stupid. I’m sorry, but it is.
In hindsight, it’s actually a real tragedy that Solo: A Star Wars Story, the movie that actually recast Han Solo and gave him a fresh look for the new Sequel times, failed at the box office (which was more down to The Last Jedi being a crap movie than Solo) as it gave Disney the wrong idea about how to handle the OG characters.
(Disney/Lucasfilm-Ahsoka-Phenomenon Trailer)
I love Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher (R.I.P) as much as any Star Wars fan, but even the legends must be placed on the mantel of excellence and remembrance in favor of new, younger actors for Star Wars. And when that doesn’t happen, you get shows and retcons like Ahsoka.
Images Source: Featured Image: (Disney/Lucasfilm) (Phenomenon | Ahsoka | Disney+ – YouTube)
In Text Image 1: (Disney/Lucasfilm) (Phenomenon | Ahsoka | Disney+ – YouTube)
In Text Image 2: (Disney/Lucasfilm) (Phenomenon | Ahsoka | Disney+ – YouTube)
