The idea of a show that follows on from the epilogue of Rebels is basically my ideal Star Wars show. I love Ahsoka. I love Sabine. Seeing those characters move into a post-RotJ world and follow-up on the ending of Rebels is extremely exciting.
But yet ever since this show was announced there's always been something stopping me get properly excited for it.
I think the change in medium is still not sitting right with me. Since the launch of Disney+ and The Mandalorian there's always been the feeling that live action Star Wars is the "proper" Star Wars, with animation being an afterthought, the lesser form of Star Wars. The Mandalorian was released with massive fanfare compared to Clone Wars Season 71, and The Bad Batch feels practically buried on Disney+ even though it's consistently better written and an overall better looking show than, say, Obi-Wan Kenobi. With the announcement of this show and the reveal that it would have live-action Rebels characters there's now also the feeling that these are supposed to be the "proper" version of these characters, the versions they will happily show to the whole Star Wars audience, not just us animation freaks.
Kathleen Kennedy proudly announced that Lucasfilm were no longer going to recast already established characters right before they announced the new actress for Sabine. I guess it doesn't count as recasting when it's a change in medium, so there's no problem dropping the established actors (unless you're Katee Sackhoff or Lars Mikkelsen or Emmy® Award Winning David Tennant). It doesn't help that some of the characters from Rebels they have already brought over have been so much worse than the original (looking at you, Grand Inquisitor).
It means that they're making an Ahsoka focused show without the actor who played and developed the character for over 10 years. Ashley Eckstein is such a key part of what made Ahsoka work as a character, and managed to take the character through her full journey from a teenager to adult, and from a character that a lot of people hated to one of the most beloved characters in the franchise. And they didn't even have Rosario talk to her before she took over the role! Imagine if they had created the creepy CGI Luke Skywalker without involving Mark Hamill. Imagine how mad people would have been2. It is nice that Ashley and Rosario have now met and they are very cute together, but it seems like something that happened in spite of Lucasfilm rather than as a part of the process of bringing Ahsoka into live action.
Rosario Dawson is fine as live-action Ahsoka, good even. But I wish that she had stayed as a neat cameo for The Mandalorian and brought Ashley back for an animated Ahsoka show. There's an audience of people who just watch the live action stuff and totally ignore the animated shows, but this show is looking like it's going to be so depending on having watched all of Rebels that the live action audience is going to be totally lost. So if this is just Rebels season 5, why not make it animated like Clone Wars Season 7 was? That way you don't have to do any of that recasting that they no longer want to do any more!
But the animated shows aren't as popular as the live action ones, so that's never going to happen.
But, like... it's still cool to see the Star Wars stuff I like! E-Wings! Thrawn again! The cast do seem to be legitimately excited about what this show is doing. I am excited by all of this and to see where it's going, but I wish it wasn't tainted with all of the baggage and I wish I could just feel un-cautiously hype for this show but I just can't.
Also there's nothing that I've seen in the trailers so far that looks as cool as this piece of fan art:
https://www.deviantart.com/critter-of-habit/art/81-855953415
At least give Ashley a cameo or something, Dave.
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I acknowledge that the 7th season of an animated show isn't as easy to sell to a wider audience as The Mandalorian was, but that didn't stop it feeling like it was only being marketed at existing Clone Wars fans rather than all of Disney+.
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You could probably say the same thing about Alden Ehrenreich and Harrison Ford... but I don't think Harrison Ford gives nearly as much of a shit about Han Solo as Ashley Eckstein does about Ahsoka.