I love animation, I don’t just mean Disney animation. I mean all animation. In fact, some of my favorite films and TV shows are animated because they are able to tell stories in ways that aren’t possible in live-action. When it comes to Star Wars, their animated content is viewed by fans as being some of the best in the franchise. From Clone Wars to Rebels and (my personal favorite) Visions, Star Wars has provided fans with some of the most creative stories and some of the best characters in the series.
So it was only natural that I was looking forward to Ahsoka. People who had worked on the show described it as a fifth season of Rebels after all. Not just because it features many of the same characters from that show but also picks up on plot threads from it as well. As the series began though, I began to wonder whether Lucasfilm may be overestimating its fanbase and just how much of the audience will actually understand some of the arcs further explored in the show.
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Let me back up a little first. There’s a massive twist at the end of Solo: A Star Wars Story where it’s revealed that the person who’s been working behind the scenes the whole film was Darth Maul. It was clearly meant to generate a giant audience reaction. However, there were no cheers or surprised gasps – at least in my screening anyway. There was just silence. Since then, a lot of people have talked about how Maul’s return didn’t get the response Lucasfilm was going for. In fact, it generated more confusion than anything.
Now, if you were one of those confused people, I’ll try to explain the situation briefly. Darth Maul was the secondary antagonist of the first film in the prequel trilogy, The Phantom Menace. Leading up to the film a lot of people were excited because he looked cool, and he had a double-bladed lightsaber. But when the film came out, fans were a little disappointed as Maul barely talks or does much of anything until the end. His fight scene with Obi Wan and Qui Gon is easily one of the best of the franchise, and the way it ends is iconic too (he ends up getting cut in half by Obi Wan).
The cameo at the end of Solo wasn’t just one meant to make you wonder if he’s still alive. It was meant to be a continuation of a plot point that was explored in the Clone Wars series, where it was already revealed that he was still alive. But most audience members probably didn’t know that because most of them probably didn’t watch the series. I was one of the many who knew about it and was able to enjoy the callback to the show. But you can’t really blame the audience for not knowing either. There are a lot of casual fans of Star Wars who only watch the live action stuff, who may not even be aware that shows like Clone Wars exist. Lucasfilm was wrong to just assume that every person watching the film is plugged into everything going on in that universe. This is something Marvel fans have been strugglign with recently too. These projects have to be able to stand on their own.
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The Mandalorian, on the other hand, was good at this. It was a series that could appeal to people who weren’t even Star Wars fans. And when characters like Ahsoka were brought in, it was done in a way that wouldn’t feel jarring to new fans.
The same can’t be said about The Book of Boba Fett. Towards the end of the series, viewers are introduced to the character Cad Bane. While he is introduced in a big way, if you had no idea who he is or where he’s from you were probably a little confused.
There’s not even that much provided about Bane and Fett’s relationship with each other to make their fight at the end feel impactful. In fact, it might’ve been worse than the Darth Maul situation because at least with Maul you can point people to those episodes that explain his survival. With The Book of Boba Fett, Lucasfilm was playing off of episodes of Clone Wars that were never even finished. Originally, there was an arc planned showing Bane as a sort of mentor to Fett when he was younger before they had a falling out. Those episodes were never released because the show got cancelled. So technically, this was something that might not have landed even with fans who did watch Clone Wars.
The reason I bring all this up is to say that as great as the animated series are, I think Lucasfilm needs to think about how much of the audience has actually seen them. Ahsoka was a great show. However, the question remains if it would have been just as great without relying so much on previous arcs?
Going back to what I said before, the first season of The Mandalorian was perfect. I think that if Lucasfilm went back to that model of storytelling, it would actually end up exciting newer fans rather than alienating them.
