Summary

Ahsoka takes a backseat in this episode, but the focus on other major characters keeps the story compelling and furthers ongoing storylines.
The live-action debut of Grand Admiral Thrawn is a breathtaking moment, with Lars Mikkelsen delivering an intimidating performance.
The episode features stunning visual effects, surpassing many big-budget movies of the year, and includes well-structured action sequences with clear stakes.

Warning: This review contains spoilers for Ahsoka episode 6.

The sixth episode of Ahsoka promised Star Wars fans their first trip to another galaxy outside the galaxy far, far away where these stories happened a long time ago. Dave Filoni’s new Star Wars series might have gotten off to a bumpy start with slow pacing and a lot of exposition and table-setting to get through, but last week’s episode elevated Ahsoka to primo Star Wars. “Part Six” opens with Ahsoka asking Huyang to tell her a story. Before the cold open cuts to the title card, the droid begins, “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...” That familiar phrase feels like a warm blanket, and it tees up the episode’s tantalizing title – “Far, Far Away” – before plunging viewers into a brand-new galaxy full of space witches and crab people.

Ahsoka herself isn’t in the episode for very long. The show is named after her, but she’s seen commuting in the opening scenes and that’s it. Then, the episode pivots to Sabine and Baylan Skoll and a certain blue-skinned military tyrant. This pivot away from the title character isn’t as egregious as The Mandalorian’s Coruscant episode, because it still focuses on major characters from the series and furthers the ongoing storylines even if Ahsoka is absent for most of it. Characters like Sabine and Skoll and a familiar face from Rebels are so compelling throughout the episode that it’s easy to forget Ahsoka has been sidelined until she’s mentioned at the end. The episode ends with a passing mention of a Jedi’s arrival, so next week’s episode will surely put Ahsoka back in the spotlight in this now-fully-established new setting.

As the episode gets into full swing, the journey to another galaxy is quickly overshadowed by the live-action debut of Grand Admiral Thrawn. Thrawn’s entrance is breathtaking, and manages to live up to the hype. Legions of Stormtroopers in grimy old armor chant Thrawn’s name like a demented cult. The camera pans past rows and rows of armored legs standing perfectly still in loyal servitude (a haunting glimpse at the scope of the Imperial Remnants) as their leader, dressed in full Imperial regalia complete with puffy Patton pants, marches to the front. Kevin Kiner’s loud, booming musical score creates an unnerving feeling of dread to announce the big bad of the Mando-verse. Lars Mikkelsen makes the most of his ability to play Thrawn with more than just his voice, incorporating intimidating body language and a palpable pomposity into his performance. Eman Esfandi is also nailing his performance as live-action Ezra Bridger. He doesn’t get as much screen time in “Far, Far Away” as Mikkelsen’s Thrawn, but he perfectly captures Ezra’s mix of charisma and sincerity.

Thrawn in full military uniform in Ahsoka

Like every episode before it, “Far, Far Away” has some incredible visual effects. This series has delivered some of the best CGI of the year. Its intergalactic visuals look a lot better than most of 2023’s big-budget movies. This year has seen a lot of ugly CGI, from the blurry, orange-hued super slow-motion of The Flash to the bland subatomic scenery of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, but Ahsoka has the crispest, most fully realized CG landscapes since Avatar: The Way of Water. From the Purrgil hyperspace with dazzling waves of fluorescent color to the ominous overhead appearance of an Imperial Star Destroyer, the latest episode of Ahsoka has plenty of jaw-dropping CG imagery.

This is a mostly dialogue-driven episode, but there are a couple of riveting action scenes. It’s not just mindless violence chopped up into an incoherent flurry of cuts; every set-piece has its own little narrative structure. When Sabine is attacked by scavengers in a barren wasteland, she fends them off with her arsenal of Mandalorian gadgets, but they don’t relent. When she realizes she’s outnumbered, and she’s surrounded like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, she whips out her lightsaber to slice and dice them. This sequence has clear stakes and keeps escalating those stakes with plenty of high-octane thrills and dazzling spectacle. After showing off her gadget-based combat skills in this scene, Sabine needs a team-up with Din Djarin in the very immediate future.

One of the things that bothered George Lucas about the sequel trilogy was that those movies were content to confine themselves to familiar locales and plotlines. With each new Star Wars story, Lucas always strived to introduce fans to new corners of his vast, sprawling space opera universe. Filoni is upholding that tradition here, introducing the ancient Dathomiri homeworld of Peridea. There, “The Great Mothers,” essentially the Bene Gesserit of the Nightsisters, dominate the screen with their terrifying presence.

The Purrgil pod travels through hyperspace in Ahsoka

At every opportunity, Ahsoka strives to be really cinematic (despite being made for the small screen). Director Jennifer Getzinger deftly conveys the monolithic scale of Thrawn’s refurbished Imperial Star Destroyer. The opening shot of the original Star Wars movie used the plucky little Rebel ship Tantive IV to illustrate the gargantuan size of the Star Destroyer chasing it. But Ahsoka frames the Star Destroyer next to a group of people looking up at it, so it looks even bigger and scarier. It’s like seeing the shark in Jaws versus seeing the Meg.

Filoni is spearheading the Ahsoka series with a distinctive authorial voice. Every week, the upcoming Mandalorian movie seems to be in safer and safer hands. Filoni has proven with Ahsoka that he has the visionary cinematic sensibility of J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson, but also has the firm grasp of Star Wars’ storytelling rhythms that they lacked, so he might be just the filmmaker to get Disney’s big-screen Star Wars output back on track.

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