One common complaint about Star Wars on Disney Plus is that we not only get short six-episode seasons, but that each individual chapter is too short. Annoyed fans have a point; strip out the recap, opening titles, and credits, and you can be left with just half an hour of new content each week. If a whole season of TV is going to clock in at around three hours, you’d be forgiven for wondering why this story couldn’t have been a movie.
Now we know how the first three episodes of Ahsoka will stack up, courtesy of this tweet from the very reliable @Cryptic4KQual:
There’s good news and bad news for fans. The good is that the season premiere will be 54 minutes (51 minus credits) and episode two will be 42 minutes (38 minus credits). Both of these will debut at the same time, meaning that on launch day fans will get an hour and a half of new Star Wars.
Somewhat more worrying is that episode three is a scant 34 minutes (31 minus credits). We’ve seen previous Disney Plus shows dazzle with great opening episodes before gradually tailing off in subsequent weeks, so fingers crossed this is just a one-off and the remaining three episodes are a little longer.
There’s a lot riding on Ahsoka. It’s guaranteed to lay the foundations for Dave Filoni’s eventual crossover movie, and we’re hoping its core villain Grand Admiral Thrawn sticks around to menace the galaxy for years to come.
Ahsoka episodes one and two premiere on Aug. 23.