Anakin brandishes his classic lightsaber, calls Ahsoka “Snips,” and turns into Darth Vader for a while, and ultimately — she doesn’t learn a thing. So why is it included? Because it plays on our nostalgia and instantly captures our attention, and it works like magic.
Watching Hayden Christensen reprise his iconic role is a true joy to behold, and that’s sort of all there is to that. It’s awesome, no matter how much I knew that I was being taken for a ride. Which would be fine if it was the only instance of innuendo, but it’s not.
“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…”
It’s a phrase meant to ignite our imagination and has laid the groundwork for each beloved story that follows. Yet, lately, Disney’s interpretation of Star Wars has become much more about this preliminary sentence than the opening crawl it attempts to quantify — and that’s my larger point. Star Wars isn’t about story anymore. That galaxy far, far away has become so self-obsessed that it doesn’t really care about what sort of myths get made in the process.
No, Star Wars is all about Star Wars now. It’s about hype. Fan service. Key-jangling. Whatever you want to call it, it’s clear that Star Wars is inspired by itself alone and not the types of stories that influenced George Lucas to begin with.
“Star Wars isn’t about story anymore.”
We’re given Hera (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Chop, Loth-cats, Sabine’s Mandalorian armor from Star Wars Rebels, and tons of other little plugs from former shows that are meant to amuse us — but they don’t. As a series, Ahoka relies far too heavily on alluding to the content that came before, and there’s no excuse for that. Not with something as innovative as Star Wars.
What once was an ongoing narrative built on risk, rebellion, and the occasional joke has been brought to its knees by the thought that namesake alone can keep people interested — and I’m here to tell you that It can’t. Search your feelings. You know it to be true.
Don’t believe me? Episode 6 of Ahsoka proves my point, and I’ve never been more proud to make a prediction — or saddened to realize I was right in the first place.
If you haven’t seen the show’s latest entry, then here’s your warning. Spoilers ahead.
During the opening moments of Episode 6: Far, Far Away, Ahsoka and her droid Huyang are finally making the trip to find Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen) and Ezra (Eman Esfandi) in the mouth of a giant space whale — which is a totally different swath of criticism I don’t have time to get into — so back to the task at hand…
