We Need A Young Ahsoka And Anakin Live-Action Clone Wars Series

I know there’s already a lot of Star Wars content out there, and I know we have even more Star Wars stories on the way, and I know we’re in the midst of a Star Wars series unfolding weekly on Disney+. I can’t help it, y’all, but this week’s episode of Ahsoka kinda made me want to add one more brand new Star Wars endeavor to the franchise’s never-ending slate. After watching Ahsoka’s fifth episode, we… kinda need a live-action Clone Wars featuring Young Ahsoka (Ariana Greenblatt) and Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen).

I’m sorry! Again, I know it’s the trendy thing to write about how there’s too much Star Wars right now. I can’t help it. You can’t just insert some live-action flashbacks to the franchise’s most groundbreaking property of the 21st century and not expect me to at least entertain the notion of wanting more.

For those that have yet to watch Episode 5 — uh, what are you waiting for? Please do it? Otherwise, you will be SPOILED. Because, y’know, I have to talk about the episode now. Okay? Your call! In Episode 5, titled “Shadow Warrior,” Ahsoka spends half of the time in a Force-fueled, mystical battle of the soul against her former master Anakin Skywalker in the World Between Worlds. It’s one of those hallucinatory, revelatory, big character-redefining story beats that we see pretty much every time a hero comes this close to dying. And since we’ve actually seen a significant chunk of Ahsoka’s life story be told already, albeit in animation, that half of the episode revisited an era that Star Wars fans know all too well: the Clone Wars.

But this depiction of the Clone Wars is unlike any we’ve seen before because it’s in live-action. True, we got a glimpse of Order 66 in The Mandalorian Season 3, but this was full-blown fog-of-war stuff (in every sense) with human beings in real clone trooper armor, explosions, laser blasts, some AT-TE’s stomping around, the live-action debut of Rex (!), and — most importantly — Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano as master and apprentice.

Okay — the environment, the way director (and Star Wars: Clone Wars mastermind) Dave Filoni gave us full intergalactic Saving Private Ryan realness while still going for a dreamy, minimalistic vibe was beyond. Everything felt confusing, intense, overwhelming — and we were really just watching a couple of actors and some CG smoke and explosions. But it all felt so kinetic, so visceral, so real because of Hayden Christensen and Ariana Greenblatt, who made her debut as Clone Wars-era Ahsoka. The reason we need more live-action Clone Wars? It’s because of them.

In just a few flashback scenes, Christensen and Greenblatt gave us something that’s been missing from all of Ahsoka so far: feelings. The point of this piece isn’t to critique the acting on Ahsoka, but I will say that we are watching a bunch of professional, seen-it-all adventurers who are keeping their cool and acting as if no one has told them the odds. These flashbacks, however, give us a kind of all-encompassing Ahsoka performance from Greenblatt. She’s technically playing Rosario Dawson Ahsoka in Clone Wars Ahsoka’s body, but the things she’s saying and way she’s behaving are 100% in line with actual Clone Wars Ahsoka. Greenblatt’s tapping into some core Ahsoka energy — the bravery, tempestuousness, compassion, frustration, all of it. Just the silent sequence of her putting her hand on a gravely injured clone trooper’s hand, that’s enough.

Spinoff greenlit. Six seasons and a movie.

And then there’s Hayden Christensen, who honestly feels like he has matured into the role of Anakin Skywalker in the intervening decades. Maybe it’s the slight shift of having to pull more from the animated Anakin’s performance and Matt Lanter’s voice performance, but Christensen gives the most measured, gritty, commanding, and imposing performance as Anakin yet. He feels weathered, almost John Wayne-esque. He feels like the kinda guy who you absolutely believe will become Darth Vader.

And his onscreen dynamic with Greenblatt? Fantastic. I could watch these two bounce off of each other for at least 45 minutes of a one-off special Disney+ presentation.

Truthfully, that’s all we need! I’m not going to act like there are more Clone Wars stories dying to be told. I mean, I’m sure there are, and I’m sure they will fill the pages of comics and novels for the rest of time. But we do already have seven seasons of animated Clone Wars battles, so asking for more — especially more with the two headliners of said animated series — does feel greedy. But there really was a magic to seeing Hayden Christensen and Ashley Greenblatt onscreen together. Give us a feature-length Disney+ original movie. Give us a special. Give us more flashbacks. Just give us something. These little scenes were among the best Star Wars we’ve seen in the Disney+ era. It would be a shame to leave all of this potential untapped.