This review may contain spoilers
It should be insulting when a show has flashbacks showing previous events and shows that are better than the current show you are watching, but it’s even worse when the flashbacks are inaccurate or looks so bad that they look like “Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over.” “Ahsoka” does this and thinks they are the coolest thing in the world.
“Ahsoka” Part Five, titled “Shadow Warrior” will probably be the best episode of the show, and that’s not because of the writing, acting or anything associated with the show, but it’s because they show fan-favorite moments from “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” but in live-action. The first half of the episode revolves around these flashbacks with Anakin and Ahsoka, going through points of her life to teach her to become a better Jedi.
We begin with Ahsoka at the Battle of Ryloth, one of her first missions from “Star Wars: The Clone Wars.” They use a young actress to play Ahsoka, and she is a better Ahsoka than Rosario Dawson. Dawson plays the character in such a stoic way that she comes across as bored, uncaring and shallow. When they show Ahsoka in “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” the young actress clearly does a better job because they seem more like the Ahsoka we know.
Ahsoka in “Star Wars”: The Clone Wars” was a hot-head, much like Anakin, that allowed each character to play off each other. Anakin had to deal with someone who was just like him before, and that created conflict where Ahsoka wouldn’t listen to orders or take command on her own only to fail and get people killed because of her inexperience. Going back to the episode, the actress Ahsoka perfectly plays the younger version, even going back to the inexperience of getting people killed with your actions. That’s the good part of these flashbacks, after that, it all goes downhill.
Starting with the set design, it is so terrible it could almost be described as a parody. The entire thing is covered in an orange fog that hides how small of a set they made, once you notice it you can’t miss it. We then go to the Battle of Mandalore, which looks terrible, all of the actors are CGI’d in terribly, so badly that they look exactly like the animated show. It looks exactly like they took the models, and just stuck them into a live-action environment, and it doesn’t work. They also show a battle that Ahsoka was never a part of, which is astonishing considering this episode was not only directed by the person who made up the battle in the first place but also wrote the episode.
Throughout the entire flashback sequence, Anakin keeps saying how Ahsoka needs to learn a new lesson and teaching, which is described as “live or die,” with 30 minutes to use, there is no lesson that is learned, nor any teaching. Ahsoka quite literally learned nothing from the flashbacks, which not only shows that this entire sequence was pointless and useless, but wastes time for no reason.
The last half of the episode is like the rest, the characters pause in between lines for three seconds at a time to merely fill out the runtime. Five episodes in, I’m convinced there isn’t an actual editor for this show, and they have an A.I. doing it because there is no quality control, and the entire show feels so robotic. To get to wherever the bad guys went, Ahsoka goes into a space whale, which sounds as stupid as it looks. The episode ends with Ahsoka traveling to the new galaxy, which is the only thing of substance that actually happens in the episode.
“Star Wars”’ “Ahsoka” continues to go downhill, and now has resolved to use characters from better shows and movies to lift up the terrible writing on display. It is truly depressing to see how low everything has fallen, and now Star Wars as a whole is a tale of ruining one of the greatest franchises in history.
Rating: 1/5
