Starting a Star Wars show with a red lightsaber-wielding villain attacking a ship as its crew flee in terror is always going to invite comparisons to the iconic opening of A New Hope. That said, Ahsoka did the tradition proud, with these scenes elevated by the gravitas of the much-missed Ray Stevenson as fallen Jedi Baylan Skoll.
But fans have already spotted that this sequence of events doesn’t make much sense. Baylan and Shin Hati’s mission is to rescue Morgan Elsbeth, so they pull up on the New Republic ship and send over an old Jedi code to prove their identity. The captain is instantly suspicious and makes the fatal decision to “call their bluff” and invite the mysterious strangers on board to see who they are for himself.
Over on r/StarWars, they summarize the captain’s thinking as “Oh we have one of the highest profile prisoners aboard this ship? And this unidentified ship is trying to board? Sure, let’s hear what they have to say!” A few minutes later, said captain is a smoking pile of chunks on the docking bay floor, and, let’s face it, he absolutely had it coming.
Given the sheer amount of stupidity, hubris, and poor decision-making in our own universe, we’ll usually avoid arguing that bad decisions in fiction are unrealistic. On top of that, other Star Wars shows have depicted that one of the New Republic’s main weaknesses is hubris and being in denial that the galaxy is still a dangerous place post-Empire.
Let’s just say that this was a very bad captain who probably shouldn’t have been in command and leave it that.
Ahsoka airs Wednesdays on Disney Plus.