Ahsoka Ep. 5 Force-moved me to tears.

A journey into the past evokes that "May the Force be with you" feeling.

The Short Take: 

A breathtaking fistful of Star Wars, with all the mystery, wonder, heart, and hope that I associate with the franchise. At the same time, it’s an intensely focused character study. The entire cast brought their A-game, but certain actors give performances for the ages. 

[SPOILER WARNING: Spoilers for Ahoska to date, as well as The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels.]

Image Credit: Den of Geek

The Long Take: 

May the Force be with you.

There are many declarative sentences from science fiction and fantasy that have become iconic. Live long and prosper. So say we all. May the odds ever be in your favor. The night is dark and full of terrors. They do a lot of world building work, instantly signaling to readers or viewers that the characters in the story inhabit an entirely different culture than our own, no matter how much it may resemble it. None, however, have achieved the ubiquity that “May the Force be with you” has. It has transcended Star Wars fandom, woven into the fabric of popular culture. People have tattoos of it. They place it in their email signatures. They abbreviate it to MTFBWY and send it text messages. Of course, my perception may be skewed by the crowd with which I run, but even so. It’s universally recognizable. 

As such, it has the potential to be overused. To lose its meaning. Yet it hasn’t, at least for me. I am astonished at the way this phrase, when well-placed in a Star Wars story, can make me feel. It is the only nerdy catchphrase on the list that evokes an emotional response. 

I have not, in some time, had as acute a response as I did by the end of this week’s episode of Ahsoka. When Hera says goodbye to Ahsoka as she rides in the belly of a purrgil, hoping to find Sabine and Ezra in an unknown galaxy, I felt deep emotion swell up like the crashing waves of Seatos. Hope in the face of loss. Hope in the face of failure. Destiny. The sense that all that has come before, good and bad, has led to this moment. The serenity, the sign of mental fortitude and readiness for the trials ahead. An openness. A childlike wonder at that which we do not yet understand. It was all there in that final line, completely earned. 

Infusing so much emotion into one iconic sentence is the culmination of substantial character development and reflection on Star Wars history, both of which Dave Filoni has densely packed into this episode.

In what I believe to be the World Between Worlds, a Force manifestation of Anakin says that he needs to complete Ahsoka’s training.

“What’s the lesson?” she asks. 

He ominously replies, “Live. Or die.”

Image Credit: Kotaku

We quickly learn that the battle for Ahsoka’s life, as she floats in the waters of Seatos, is directly tied to her ability to resolve inner conflicts about her past. As a Padawan, she had to become a child soldier during The Clone Wars. She quickly took on huge military responsibilities, commanding entire fleets and, inevitably, learning that her mistakes would cost hundreds of clones’ lives. Later, she learned that Anakin, her master, had fallen to the Dark Side and become Darth Vader. Both of these formative, devastating experiences have weighed her down. And, according to World Between Worlds Anakin, if she cannot move past her failures, fears, and guilt, she will not survive. 

The two A Christmas Carol style flashbacks that follow need to take place in the World Between Worlds not because the ethereal plane appeared in Star Wars Rebels, and not even because it is a beautiful, cosmically vast backdrop, perfect for surreal Force-induced visions. Ahsoka goes to the World Between Worlds because through that omni-temporal access point, she is able to relive her past in a way that allows her to reflect and illuminate her present. And yes, I choose to believe that’s where she really went. I don’t have an airtight argument as to why; I just think anything less undermines the meaning and impact of what we see.

I will refer you to my appearance on Coffee with Kenobi this week for more of my take on Dave Filoni’s approach to the flashback scenes, why I think they’re more implicit or ambiguous, and how I think we should interpret them. Here, though, I’ll jump ahead to what I didn’t have time to provide on the show: a more detailed analysis of the scenes themselves. Nearly every line brilliantly serves as a signifier on two levels: for young Ahsoka fighting in the Clone Wars and for older Ahsoka fighting for her life in the World Between Worlds or the waters of Seatos (depending on your point of view). 

Image Credit: Empire

I mentioned Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol just now. Dan mentioned it in passing on Coffee with Kenobi too. There’s something distinct about walking through reanimated scenes from the past as if you were a passive observer of them. It’s perhaps the most recognizable feature of the classic holiday morality tale. But it’s important to note that in Ahsoka’s version, her older soul inhabits her younger body, and yet seems to speaks with the confusion of Ebenezer Scrooge being haunted by ghosts of the past (“This is the Clone Wars!” “Yea, no kidding.”) She simultaneously re-experiences her past while also gaining the perspective she would from being a more passive observer like Scrooge. That, to me, indicates that the double meaning, or the simultaneity of past and present, serves a special Star Wars-specific purpose. 

Enter Dave Filoni’s philosophy on lightsaber fights.

On last week’s House of R podcast, Joanna Robinson said that her biggest hope for this episode was that it would be what television writers call a bottleneck, with all events exclusively taking place in the World Between Worlds, so that Ahsoka could battle her demons. I remember she said that she hoped it would be more of a talking it out therapy session than just a lightsaber fight. When I initially watched the episode this week, I became concerned that Robinson would be disappointed in such a lightsaber heavy episode. (I also should note that haven’t heard this week’s deep dive, so I am not yet sure how she actually feels about it.) I then remembered that Dave Filoni said that great lightsaber duels are not great because of the fight choreography; they are great because of the dramatic stakes. And I feel as though the stakes here were very high — not only would we fight for Ahsoka’s life, but we would fight for her soul. More broadly, we would fight for the legacy of the Jedi, with which she has had such a complicated relationship. As fans, we would confront the legacy of Star Wars across trilogies. 

During a behind-the-scenes featurette for The Mandalorian, Dave Filoni holds court at a table populated by his fellow directors, delivering a monologue about how he understands George Lucas’ vision for Star Wars, connecting the Prequel Trilogy to the Original Trilogy. He explains that “The Duel of the Fates,” in which Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn go head-to-head with Darth Maul, actually sets Anakin/Vader’s fate into motion because he loses a father figure in Qui-Gon and gains a brother who cannot fill that father figure void in Obi-Wan. And then we keep going and going with a chain reaction until ultimately, at the end of Return of the Jedi, “Anakin…has to decide to be the father that he’s never had; he has to give up all the power in the Galaxy and save his son.” My excerpting of this monologue does it an injustice because it is so comprehensive and thoughtful, combing through Star Wars history to establish an emotional through-line from character to character, lightsaber fight to lightsaber fight. I am in awe every time I watch it.

 

To conclude, Filoni says, “I draw that line all the way from Phantom Menace to [Return of the] Jedi. That’s the story of Star Wars. It’s all part of why it works and why we care. It’s not about X-Wings. It’s not about all the things we decorate Star Wars in. That’s important; it’s part of the genius of it. But we soulfully react. We don’t just want an action movie. We want to feel uplifted. And Star Wars is an adventure that makes you feel good.” Not only do Filoni’s words echo my reaction to this episode — that feeling I described at the start of this review. They reveal how Filoni approached Ahsoka’s World Between Worlds duel against Anakin/Vader, and against her own inner demons. He creates a similar through-line from Anakin to Ahsoka to Sabine (and perhaps even young Jacen). To me, it seems Filoni’s primary goal in this episode is to get us to soulfully react to Ahsoka’s re-discovery of strength and hope. His secondary goal is to continue the lineage that George Lucas established, so that the significance of Qui-Gon Jinn’s death does not die with Darth Vader at the end of Return of the Jedi. 

The key to understanding the whole WBW sequence is to acknowledge that the lesson Anakin teaches Ahsoka is not literally to live or die, but rather to learn what it takes to choose to live. Through two powerful, nostalgia-packed flashbacks, as well as the “intense” (Huyang’s still crackin’ me up) conversations Anakin and Ahsoka have during them, Ahsoka learns that choosing to live means accepting your mistakes. Even if they come at a great cost, these follies should not paralyze you, stopping you from trying to lead and do what’s right. When Ahsoka says “It was my fault. They were following my orders. I got them killed,” in a manner very similar to what she expresses in an early The Clone Wars episode called “Storm Over Ryloth,” Anakin says “This is war, Ahsoka. As Jedi, it’s our job to lead. That doesn’t mean we don’t make mistakes.” Yes, the Jedi Order became corrupt and lost its way. They became political pawns in a war when they should have remained keepers of the peace. Yes, Anakin fell to the Dark Side. Yes, Ahsoka had a falling out with Sabine. According to Baylan Skoll last week, she cost Sabine her family on Mandalore. 

But that doesn’t mean Ahsoka should give up. When Anakin says, “Come on, Snips. The battle’s not over yet,” he is, at face value, referring to the battle taking place in the flashback. There’s literally a battle going on around them and Ahsoka would have needed a pep talk during it. But in the context of Ahsoka’s final training, taking place in the current timeline, he’s encouraging her to cling to life and return to her friends because there’s still more for her to do. Failing them before is no excuse for not helping them now.

Thinking of the Mando-verse more broadly, Ahsoka must be the light side’s leader in the upcoming battle against Thrawn and the other Imperial remnants. Because it’s pretty clear that, despite Mon Mothma’s and Leia’s attempts to hack away at endless red tape, the New Republic will be of no help. Even though Ahsoka says she never wanted to be a soldier, that “This wasn’t what I trained for,” and that she’s tired of fighting, Anakin says, “We must adjust to the times.” In the context of the flashback, he’s referring to her life as a soldier Padawan, thrust into a war she didn’t start. But the same sentiment also applies to the current conflict of the Ahsoka series. No one wants to fight another war. The New Republic is flat out denying that there is anyone left to fight, plunging their heads into the sand. But Thrawn is coming, nevertheless. And Ahsoka, Sabine, and Hera must “adjust to the times” too, even if it’s simply because no one else will.  

I could go on, as the entire screenplay for this episode is rich with double meanings. And, as I’ve alluded to before, that doubling, that echo is very Star Wars. One of George Lucas’ most famous quotes, when he made the Prequel films, is that Star Wars is “… like poetry so that they rhyme. Every stanza kind of rhymes with the last one.” Every film, every trilogy, and now every Disney+ series kind of rhymes with the last one. This episode of Ahoska embodies that ideal, as every line uttered carries meaning for the past and the present simultaneously. That is why the best way for Ahsoka to learn and grow right now is to look back to lessons she learned in her youth. 

Ariana Greenblatt, by the way, inhabits young Ahsoka as if she’s been playing the character for years. She captured that signature cocktail of naive and sassy that Ashley Eckstein defined the character with in The Clone Wars. I was blown away by how seamlessly she and Rosario switched back and forth. I felt as though I was witnessing two ends of a spectrum of one character’s life. They both nailed the playfully arrogant banter between Snips and Skyguy. That Greenblatt was able to hold her own and play off Hayden Christensen, who is legendary in Star Wars fandom and quite possibly giving his career best performance here? Incredible. The fact that the Internet is now making fake Disney+ posters for a live action Clone Wars series with the two of them speaks volumes. 

I want to circle back to that feeling I get when I hear Hera say “May the Force be with you” to Ahsoka. And, obviously, I’m exaggerating in implying that all of the emotion in the episode is concentrated in that one moment. From Ahsoka saying, “I choose to live” as she snarls and tosses Anakin’s lightsaber into the abyss, to Anakin shedding the veneer of Vader to smirk and say “There’s hope for you yet.” (Again, bravo to Hayden Christensen.) To Ahsoka reaching her hand out and closing her eyes to communicate with the purrgil, with a newfound sense of purpose and lightness. All of that evoked that Star Wars feeling. That soulful reaction. That uplift. 

Image Credit: Inside the Magic

Scholars would call this filmic or cinematic affect. And I don’t mean the verb form of effect. I mean a separate concept about the conjuring of a bodily reaction, pronounced more like the vowel sound in apple or the insurance company Aflac. (I know, I think it’s confusing too.) Understanding how cinematic affect is different than just plain old emotion was always very difficult for me to grasp, but I think that the main distinction is that affect is a spectator’s reaction, which can include emotion, that is generated in response to witnessing moving images and not necessarily from the emotion that characters within any given film may express. Theorist Gilles Deleuze, for example, establishes that the extreme close-up, independent of the emotion expressed on an actor’s face, could generate an ineffable response for the viewer.  I found a piece on Medium by Daniel Coffeen that made this concept much more accessible, though he explicitly says he puts his own spin on it, much more focused on unquantifiable moods, like those conjured by filmmakers Pablo Larrain and Sofia Coppola. 

So, it’s the whole scene in which Hera says “May the Force be with you” to Ahsoka, in its entirety, and how it’s composed that makes me feel these complex things and NOT Hera herself feeling bittersweetly hopeful about parting ways with Ahsoka. It’s not emotion generated by empathy or identification with her character in that moment. It’s, in this case, the scene itself — Hera’s utterance combined with the journey that Ahsoka has just created combined with the music and the cinematography (the purrgil in the background! gasp.) — that generates the kind of soulful reaction that Dave Filoni describes. It’s not just hope, though that’s a part of it. It’s more complex and intangible than that. 

Visually, a huge part of what generates a Star Wars-specific affect is Ahsoka’s transformation from Ahsoka the Gray to Ahsoka the White. Her emerging from a near death experience and the World Between Worlds, while also being rescued by Jacen, Chopper, Hera, Carson, and the rest of their crew seems like the perfect time to transition the character’s look… even though I have already seen it in animation. 

Image Credit: Star Wars News Net

Back at the series premiere, I was confused by the nearly shot-by-shot recreation of the epilogue of Star Wars Rebels, in which Ahsoka appears in a white cloak and Sabine joins her after wistfully touching a painting of long lost Ezra. The most noticeable difference is that Rosario Dawson wears the same gray costume in the live action version. After that episode aired, the question of whether we would ever see live action Ahsoka in a white cloak was very open. Did this mean she had already undergone an illuminating experience, affording her the wisdom she seems to possess by the time we meet her again in The Mandalorian Season 2? Or would her “Ahsoka the White” moment come at a later time? And if so, how much later?

Image Credit: Games Radar

I realize now that I have been stubbornly operating under the wrong assumption that what I have seen in animation is fixed in the Star Wars timeline. Ahsoka going through her gray-to-white transformation here confirms that Filoni has adapted some events from Star Wars Rebels for the live action context rather than working around them. In this episode, young Ahsoka fights in what she calls one of her and Anakin’s first missions, but she wears an outfit that she wouldn’t have in the animated series, The Clone Wars, until much later. I completely support this change because what we see Ariana Greenblatt in here is much more fashionable and befitting of a warrior Padawan than the space tube top Ahsoka initially had in animation.

Image Credit: Empire

While I do feel slightly unmoored by this revelation about Star Wars animation as invulnerable canon, I don’t mind it at all. Live action has different demands than animation does, and Filoni should make changes that make Ahsoka’s story more accessible and palatable to a wider audience. And, as

Greg

noted on Rebel Base Card this week, live action Ahsoka the White’s chunky wool cloak looks cozy beyond belief. With all the tea cups and comfy clothing, I’m starting to think that Ahsoka and I approach our middle age with the same creature comfort mindset. 

Costume changes aside, as long as this series keeps invoking that Star Wars brand affect — that deep, soulful feeling — Filoni can veer from the animated canon as much as he needs. As Ahsoka herself says at the end of this episode, going anywhere, no matter how unpredictible, is better than going nowhere.

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