Star Wars is not exactly new to controversy. In fact, it seems like with every new Star Wars project there is some sort of fan backlash. Plenty was said about Rey’s use of The Force when installments of the sequel trilogy premiered. The Acolyte had fans up in arms about fire in space. Despite it being a show that many fans wanted for years, Ahsoka is not immune to the criticism by fans, either. Much like the way fans complained about Rey being able to battle Kylo Ren at the end of The Force Awakens with ease, many are saying that the character of Sabine Wren grasped The Force too easily.
Sabine Wren was featured in Star Wars Rebels along with Ahsoka Tano, and so fans thought they knew the character. However, fans who has subscribed to the Disney+ show know it revealed an aspect of the character that the fans didn’t know about: that she is Force-sensitive. Sabine’s not the first Jedi to not complete her training, but she is the newest and that makes her a target for some fans.
In an interview with EW, actress Natasha Liu Bordizzo who plays Sabine, pushed back on what many fans were saying,
There was some feedback [online] that the Force was too easy for Sabine, and I was like, ‘What do you mean? The concept of the Force being this difficult to attain but attainable state of being that people could access with hard work and dedication, I think, is a really honorable concept that feels very Dave. And George Lucas had originally also said that.
She was referring to showrunner Dave Filoni, who has stated his own beliefs about The Force. It is no surprise that Sabine was able to wield The Force with an amount of ease because it is more in line with what the Original Trilogy and George Lucas proposed with The Force– that anyone could have that power as Bordizzo points out.
In Ahsoka, Sabine does have a journey throughout the show including her complex relationship with Ashoka as her Jedi Master. It is the dynamics between the two characters and the ups and downs that Sabine faces that makes her unique, according to Bordizzo. In the same interview she stated,
I think it’s awesome that it was a journey. You get to see her fail, and you get to see her try again and again. Mind you, she’s not always cool and finishing the fight in a cool way and having the last word. It’s messy. And then finally, when the stakes are so high, she’s able to harness it in the time she needed to most.
She’s right. It’s the messiness of the character that makes her interesting, and despite how easily she may have wielded The Force, she still had her own set of struggles to overcome. In a show like Ahsoka there is more time able to be given to show that journey rather than a two-hour movie. Ahsoka doesn’t have a Season 2 release date yet so more on Sabine’s journey will have to wait, but Season 1 and all other Star Wars content is on Disney+ in the meantime.
