While the first three episodes of Ahsoka were rather disappointing, Episode 4 sure makes up for things and renews hope for Star Wars.
It’s an episode like this that we need more from out of Lucasfilm, with Episode 4 having been directed by Peter Ramsey and written by Dave Filoni.
Ramsey directed the first episode of The Mandalorian Season 3 and is known for directing Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Rise of the Guardians in addition to being known as a storyboard artist. Get this guy on more episodes.
This episode has all you expect from Star Wars: awesome Lightsaber battles done right, The Force, the Dark Side, great dialogue and great flow, and a cool surprise.
The last episode was really horrible with Ahsoka floating through space and Wren surviving that lightsaber battle. There’s none of that garbage here.
Lightsaber battles done right
Prior to the episode, I actually went over on Twitter in response to some article pathetically attempting to explain how Wren survives the last episode by stating how I really liked what George Lucas did in Episodes 4- 6 with the lightsaber battles as they didn’t come across as acrobatic and goofy like the prequels.
I tweeted how I believed George Lucas based the lightsaber fights in Episodes 4-6 on real Japanese Samurai sword fighting.
From my limited exposure and experience with Japanese Samurai sword fighting through jujitsu, there are no non-lethal stabs in Japanese Samurai sword fighting.
It’s basically one swipe and whoever is the better survives while the other dies. I’ve never liked what the prequels did by adding all those goofy flips and such, which I think comes from those Chinese Kung-Fu movies that are totally unbelievable (think the first John Wick vs The Matrix).
I also don’t think a Dark Side user would stab somebody in a non-lethal spot. If anything, they would stab and swipe side to side to get the kill.
Ahsoka vs Marok vs Baylan
So this episode features lightsaber battles done right, as while Marok has a goofy lightsaber of his own, Ahsoka one swipes him and it’s a lethal swipe, just like I tweeted about. Awesome.
From there, Ahsoka battles Baylan which is pretty epic.
Ahsoka did a few flips but she got her ass handed to her by Baylan. He’s bigger. He’s stronger and apparently, he is the better fighter. Whenever you put somebody who is stronger and better trained up against someone who is not, the stronger person will always win. That also goes the same for two people of equal size, the better-trained person will always be the victor and win the fight.
Suffice it to say I was pleasantly surprised when Baylan won! Man, it sucks Ray Stevenson recently passed away. RIP.
Wren rematch against Shin
Wren also has a rematch with Shin, which, honestly, comes off a bit cringe, IMO, but it at least has some good moments.
Wren is wearing her Mandalorian helmet and while watching the fight, I was waiting for her helmet to somehow come off, and sure enough it did just so they could show the actor’s face. Eyeroll.
Another cringe moment comes when Ahsoka defeats Marok, and Wren and Shin are locked in combat, but they both stop and stand there looking at Ahsoka. I was like, “Huh?! WTF?! lol! Kill her!
However, I did like how Shin pretended to do a Force push but then used her Mandalorian trickery. At least I assumed she pretended because last episode she couldn’t move a cup of coffee.
Hera finally gets into the mix
After three episodes, Hera also finally gets into the mix and with some other Rebels makes her way toward Ahsoka and Wren. Question: Why did she bring her kid along? Seems she is putting him in danger. Also seems as if the kid is Force-sensitive, which is pretty cool.
How about Wren seemingly joining the Dark Side? I wasn’t sure if it was going to happen as it was set up earlier in the episode, but I loved it when Baylan shut down his Lightsaber and started to talk to Wren. I think Baylan might have been using the Dark Side to influence her. It worked!
Need more episodes like this
If we get more episodes like this, Ahsoka should go down as one of the better Star Wars series on Disney+ — right up there with Seasons 1 and 2 of Mando, and Andor.
If you haven’t watched Ahsoka, you can probably skip the first three episodes and just start with Episode 4. They should really have done a better job editing those three episodes and probably combined them into two.
Big spoiler below.
What about that surprise ending?
Anakin is back!
That was really cool, though I felt the CGI could have been done better. The episode ending with a tease of the Darth Vader music is also a nice touch!
