‘Ahsoka’ Was Engineered To Appeal To The Obsessive ‘Star Wars’ Nerds Of The ‘90s — Like Me

Halfway through Star Wars: Ahsoka Episode 5 “Shadow Warrior” on Disney+, the eponymous burnt orange-skinned, white and blue-horned heroine revisits her teenage self. The serene Rosario Dawson is suddenly replaced onscreen by a much younger and much more agitated Ariana Greenblatt. “Padawan Ahsoka,” as Star Wars officially dubs her, is witnessing the horrors of the Clone Wars in real time. Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) is even there, offering guidance to his young apprentice “Snips.” The sequence is a beautiful tableau of violence and mayhem, memories that the adult Ahsoka would have probably preferred to keep in the past.

Similarly, Star Wars: Ahsoka has plunged me back into the mindset of being a tween and teen Star Wars fan. Ahsoka is a show designed to reward the Star Wars nerds who spent the ’90s devouring paperback novels about Han, Luke, and Leia, combing through Wookiepedia, or arguing on message forums about which Force user would win in a duel. It’s full of Easter eggs and deep cuts, references that casual fans aren’t meant to catch. That’s why despite Star Wars: Ahsoka’s many faults, I can’t help grinning through each week’s new installments like a goofball. Star Wars: Ahsoka makes me feel like a kid again. A dorky, lonely, sad kid who could only find joy in a galaxy far, far away. 

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The first time I watched the Star Wars films was with my family as a four-year-old, but it wasn’t until fifth grade that I fell in love with Star Wars. After years of wandering the school playground alone, I finally had real friends. A trio of sweet, nerdy girls in the grade below mine. (I was essentially pushed ahead a grade as a kid, which meant me and fourth graders were the same age.) My closest friend in the group came from a family even more obsessed with sci-fi and fantasy than my Star Trek-enjoying mother. Through her, I learned about the “Expanded Universe,” now rebranded as the noncanonical “Legends”:  a series of novels, comics, video games, and more that continued the saga of the Original Trilogy in every possible direction. 

I became intoxicated by the world-building. I bought a huge encyclopedia that named every random background creature in the Cantina scene, giving them nuanced backstories. I rewatched my family’s bootleg VHS versions of the Star Wars movies so much that the tapes nearly broke. My mother even hooked me up with a subscription to Star Wars Insider magazine for Christmas after she got tired of me begging every month to add it to our Shop Rite order. As we entered high school, our friend group had grown apart — meaning my most constant friend was now Star Wars.

When news came that George Lucas was actually going to make the long-rumored prequel trilogy, I began using my family’s slow, precious dial-up modem to comb the internet for any news. I read fake “leaked” scripts. I only eventually got into indie movies because I’d watch Danny Boyle films to bone up on this Ewan McGregor guy, the man who was playing young Obi-Wan. In high school, when other girls had boys plastered on their walls, I had a Phantom Menace poster. I eventually skipped Senior Prom to see Attack of the Clones (which was actually kind of awesome because myself and two friends got dressed up like we were going to a dance and folks at the theater cheered us). 

While I’ve never fallen totally out of love with Star Wars — though The Last Jedi tested me — I’ve also sought to distance myself from the height of my obsessive era. I find it embarrassing how much I prioritized Star Wars over actual social relationships with my peers. Especially since in the pre-Disney era, uh, it was, um, not even remotely cool to like Star Wars quite so much. These days it’s a mainstream fandom, but back then it was the mark of a weirdo — exponentially so if you were a girl. It also doesn’t help that at the height of my fandom, I was at my most insecure. Adolescence bites. 

Star Wars: Ahsoka has been forcing me to reframe those memories. Dave Filoni’s show doesn’t just bring his animated characters to live action, but resurrects characters and ideas that existed in ye olde “Expanded Universe.” Grand Admiral Thrawn was a name that sent chills down my Star Wars novel-reading spine. The Nightsisters of Dathomir were dangerous wild cards against Luke Skywalker and his fledgling New Jedi Order. To fully appreciate Ahsoka, you have to have a history of soaking up the nooks and crannies of old and new Star Wars lore. You have to be a nerd. Like me.

Star Wars: Ahsoka is far from a perfect show. In fact, the critic in me blanches at how much the fangirl in me enjoys it. Every critique Sean T. Collins has lobbed at the show in his incendiary recaps for Decider are on point. And yet I still have a soft spot for Snips and her friends from Rebels. I simply love the way this show has helped me reassess my own history with Star Wars.

I will always love Star Wars, but I have not always loved the kind of Star Wars fan I once was. I thought my obsession with the franchise was one reason why many of my peers rejected me. Enjoying Star Wars: Ahsoka has helped me make peace with my past in part because it’s shown me that I’m clearly not the only person in the universe who gets a thrill from seeing Sabine Wren with a lightsaber or a bunch of Nighttroopers chanting “Thrawn.” I am not the only incurable nerd in the universe. Star Wars: Ahsoka was made for the nerds. And by watching this show, I’m finally accepting it’s okay to love being one.