Five Great 'Star Wars' Stories From 2023

Celebrating the past year of Star Wars storytelling...

One thing in 2023 that went largely unremarked upon was the fifteenth anniversary of Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

Sure, there was a terrific panel at Star War Celebration London (which I highly recommend watching on YouTube). And your favourite Star Wars Instagram account or TikTok-er probably made a post or two about it. But there was no big re-release of the 2008 movie or screenings of classic TV arcs. Nor were there any major merchandising releases. And there weren’t even any big “Oral History” articles in major entertainment publications.

I suppose it’s to be expected. A fifteenth anniversary isn’t usually celebrated like a tenth, twentieth, or twenty-fifth anniversary is. At least, not in a behind-the-scenes sort of way.

On-screen, however, the legacy of The Clone Wars is stronger than ever. All three of the biggest weekly-released Star Wars TV series this year were, in one form or another, sequels to The Clone Wars.

Ahsoka is the most obvious. Ahsoka Tano was first introduced as one of the main characters of The Clone Wars. For this reason alone, it’s safe to say that Ahsoka would not have existed without The Clone Wars. Not to mention that there was even an entire episode that hinged on flashbacks to moments that, while not exactly live-action recreations of the animated series, were direct homages to it.

The Bad Batch is also a near-direct sequel to The Clone Wars. Not only is the series a continuation of the animation style, but the main characters (almost) all first appeared in its seventh season. The Bad Batch also took great joy this year in bringing back characters (like Riyo Chuchi and Halle Burtoni) and left-hanging plot lines (the Zillo Beast) from its predecessor.

Even the third season The Mandalorian owes a significant debt to The Clone Wars. The season revolved largely around Bo-Katan and her efforts to reclaim Mandalore while reconnecting with her Mandalorian heritage. Much of this can be traced back to The Clone Wars, including Bo-Katan herself! The character debuted in the fourth season, and her path to restoring Mandalore to its former glory can be traced back there.

This Clone Wars renaissance is a testament to many things. The quality and variety of the storytelling, no doubt, but also to the creatives behind the scenes. Supervising director Dave Filoni is now Lucasfilm Chief Creative Officer Dave Filoni, with his fingers in many Star Wars pies (including direct involvement with all the shows listed above). And, of course, Star Wars creator George Lucas. The Clone Wars was George’s final Star Wars project. His final stamp on his legacy.

It’s also a testament to patience. It can be easy to forget given its current status that The Clone Wars was derided by critics and many fans when it debuted. A quick look at the movie’s Rotten Tomatoes page and you’re transported back to a time when mentioning of the series, or Ahsoka Tano, drew sneers and derision from many.

And it wasn’t as though it was all smooth sailing after the movie. There wasn’t a grand moment during the first season when the entire audience was won over and agreed they loved the show now. Far from it. The initial response to the movie loomed over the series and was compounded by a series of “controversies” surrounding the show’s treatment of previously “established” “canon”. (Ironically some of that “controversial” lore is now the basis for much of what we saw in The Mandalorian season three).

But George stuck with it. He let the series grow and evolve on its own, without letting outside pressures steer the ship too much.

It was a slow process, but the series eventually started to win over audiences. The revival of Darth Maul for season four got many people to give the series another chance. And they quickly learned the series they had abandoned in 2008 was not the same one on the air in 2012. The stories and characters had grown more mature. All that “kiddie stuff” from the early seasons served to make the later darkness all the more harrowing.

It was only after the series was cancelled in 2013 that the outpouring of love for The Clone Wars began in earnest. Yes, many of us were the from the beginning but for the first time it felt as though people were listening and agreeing when we said how good the show was. That outpouring continued through the truncated sixth season and into the off-years until the show’s return was announced during its tenth anniversary in 2018.

And when the seventh season premiered in 2020 it was met with near universal acclaim. Its final arc being one of the greatest stories Star Wars has ever told.

I say all this because, as we look back on the Star Wars releases in 2023, it’s important to remember that their stories are not finished yet. I mean this literally, of course. Both The Mandalorian and The Bad Batch have another season coming, and Ahsoka’s story will be continued in either another season or the upcoming movie Dave Filoni will be directing. But we also don’t yet know what their legacy will be. How audiences will remember them after they finish airing?

Obviously, that has a lot to do with how the stories wrap up. But as audiences grow up with these stories, their view of them will become clearer as their voices become louder. A lot of The Clone Wars’ growth can be traced to those kids who saw the movie in 2008 growing up with the characters and then shouting their love for them from rooftops when they weren’t on screen. I suspect the same thing is happening with the shows on now. These things tend to begin out of sight. But the day may come when we look back on our reactions to 2023 Star Wars the way we look back on some of the reactions to 2008 Star Wars.

Change, growth, and patience. All Jedi tenets. All things we could bear to keep in mind when judging the trajectory of Star Wars now. This is not to say we all have to like everything, or shouldn’t share a negative opinion. Just that sometimes these stories need space to achieve their greatness. The sort of space that George gave The Clone Wars. Who knows what we’ll be saying about them in fifteen years?

Now, let’s look back on some of the highlights of Star Wars in 2023.

A quick note about this list: it’s not a top-five list in the traditional sense. I’m not here to make grand declarative statements about this being better than that. The goal is to celebrate what we liked, not tear down what we didn’t (sorta like what a certain Resistance maintenance-worker-turned-fighter once said). Also, one story that won’t appear on this list is the video game Jedi: Survivor. This isn’t a comment on its quality, as I know many people enjoyed it, but rather a reflection of the fact that I have not played/watched someone else play it yet. Something to get to in 2024…

Honourable Mention: Young Jedi Adventures

I’d be lying if I said I’d seen every episode of this show. Not being preschool-aged myself or having kids that age, I don’t watch any TV aimed at that demographic. Or, at least, before this year, I didn’t.

Along came Young Jedi Adventures, the new animated series on Disney+ and Disney Junior. Being a Star Wars series I knew I would check it out, and my intrigue when we learned it was set during the High Republic era (200 years before The Phantom Menace and the same era as the ongoing publishing initiative and the upcoming live-action series The Acolyte) was doubly piqued.

So I gave Young Jedi Adventures its due. I watched the first couple of episodes and enjoyed them on their own merit. The characters are delightful, the adventures are exciting in an age-appropriate way, and the messages are good. Kai, Lys, Nash, and Nubs will surely have fans among the generation being introduced to Star Wars through this series. And their parents will likely enjoy a supporting cast that includes Master Yoda, and SNL alum Nasim Perad as Jedi Master Zia Zanna.

The show also does a nice job tying in with the ongoing High Republic narratives (while dancing around the darkness that’s to come), like Loden Greatstorm and Bell Zettifar’s appearance or the kids’ visit to Starlight Beacon. It’s fun to get quick glimpses of these characters and locations we’ve only seen on the page. And it whets the appetite for more High Republic on-screen stories.

5) The Mandalorian “Chapter 19: The Convert”

A subplot that’s been slowly building throughout The Mandalorian and its spin-offs is the relative effectiveness, or lack thereof, of the New Republic. Early in the first season, we began to hear what the people in the Outer Rim thought of the new government (not much), before beginning to see their attempts to enforce order (with very limited effectiveness) in late season one, season two, and in The Book of Boba Fett.

In season three, we finally head back to the heart of the galactic government and see the New Republic up close for ourselves. What we found is a lot of well-meaning people trying their best to answer an impossible question: what do you do with the enemy population after a war is won?

Sure, you can put heads of state and the worst war criminals on trial so their villainy is exposed to all. But what about the rank-and-file soldiers? Or the general population? The people who weren’t true believers per se, but still worked within the enemy government or war machine.

Enter Dr. Penn Pershing, a scientist who specializes in cloning. His research was valued by the Empire but it wasn’t imperial by definition. He didn’t believe in the Empire so much as need it to fund his research. Now that the Empire has fallen and he is no longer under the influence of Moff Gideon, he entered the New Republic amnesty program for ex-Imperials and is working to re-enter society as a productive citizen.

The amnesty program represents both the best impulses of the New Republic and its limitations. Rather than round up ex-Imperials and imprisoning them (or worse) they are offering them a chance at redemption. Second chances and redemption are central themes in Star Wars and it’s good to see the New Republic led (largely off-screen) by the heroes of the original trilogy attempting to live up to those.

However, it’s a one-size-fits-all solution to a problem with many shapes, sizes, and variations. And when that happens, someone is inevitably going to slip through the cracks.

Enter Elia Kane, one of the amnesty program’s great success stories. Or so it seems. Kane, on the surface, appears to be everything good about the program: the former right-hand woman to Moff Gideon, one of the Empire’s great monsters, who has seen the error of her ways and is now helping other ex-Imperials see the light.

Of course, she’s actually still working for Moff Gideon to advance his evil plans. But no one knows that.

By pairing up Pershing and Kane for some (admittedly convoluted) misadventures, “The Convert” explores the shortcomings of the New Republic. It wants to give reformed Imperials a chance, but it goes about it in a way that leaves them susceptible to influence by those who would draw them back into their old lives.

(The dehumanizing practice of calling them by their numbers rather than their name is straight out of the First Order’s playbook. An understated—but still present—theme of the sequel trilogy is ex-Stormtroopers reclaiming their humanity in the face of a fascistic regime by taking on names instead of numbers. FN-2187 becomes Finn, TZ-1719 becomes Jannah, etc. So it was shocking to see the New Republic engaging in this practice).

While it is never made overtly clear whether Kane is looking to re-recruit Pershing or simply take him off the board as she winds up doing, she succeeds in exposing the weaknesses in the New Republic. A combination of hubris and impersonal bureaucracy (weekly check-ins for amnesty program members are done with droids, for instance) has left their enemies an opening. And one they’re exploiting.

These shortcomings are further explored in Ahsoka, where the hubris of certain high-ranking officials is on full display. But while Star Wars usually shows us these big-picture failings, The Mandalorian offered us a one-episode foray into how these decisions impact those on the ground.

4) The High Republic: The Eye of Darkness

The High Republic publishing initiative follows the classic Star Wars trilogy release chronology. Originals, then prequels, then sequels.

The Eye of Darkness, the new novel by George Mann, kicks off Phase III. It’s a direct sequel to Phase I, while incorporating elements from Phase II which took place chronologically before the events of Phase I. Very Star Wars-y.

Which is a long way of saying, the pressure was on for this novel. Readers spent much of 2021 and early 2022 falling in love with the characters of Phase I, only for (most of) them to be absent from Phase II which was released from 2022-2023. As such, this novel was our first real return to the main story of The High Republic.

The Eye of Darkness works quickly to reestablish the galaxy following the devastation wrought by the end of Phase I. We’re reintroduced to the main players. Marchion Ro, the Eye of the Nihil, now controls great swaths of the galaxy. Supreme Chancellor Lina Soh, the JFK-esque leader meant to bring the Republic into a new age of prosperity. Newly knighted Jedi Bell Zettifar and Burryaga. And the legendary, but grieving Jedi Avar Kriss and Elzar Mann.

It’s Elzar who steals the show in The Eye of Darkness. Grappling with the loss of one friend and the disappearance of another, Elzar decides it is time to step up and fill the void left by his two compatriots. We watch as he deals with imposter syndrome and survivor’s guilt, more acute versions of the general feelings of inadequacy he’s had his entire life. Mann builds up Elzar as a sympathetic character, one we want to see succeed. So when the big twists come, we feel them most directly for how they impact him.

The novel also does an excellent job of balancing a fairly expansive cast across multiple locations. Where the Phase I novels would often be centered around one location (like The Republic Fair or Starlight Beacon), The Eye of Darkness spreads its cast out so we see the effects of the Stormwall (the Nihil’s galaxy diving space-wall) everywhere from the galactic core to the planets trapped beyond it in the Outer Rim.

This allows Mann to explore the novel’s main theme, coming back from loss, in multiple ways. We see how Lina Soh and Elza use the tools of the government to try to fight back, while Avar Kriss and Porter Engle go about helping the people subjugated by the Nihil get by—and fight back—where they can.

All in all, The Eye of Darkness stands as a thrilling beginning to the final act in The High Republic’s story. The wounds from Phase I are still fresh, but they are starting to heal. And with the help of what we learned from Phase II (the lessons of which start to be teased out here), hopefully, the characters we saw fall so hard will bounce back and soar to new heights.

3) Ahsoka “Chapter Five: Shadow Warrior”

For a long time, a post-Return of the Jedi reunion between Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano was something fans could only dream of.

In “Shadow Warrior” dreams become reality when, after her near defeat at the end of the previous episode, Ahsoka wakes up in the World Between Worlds, face to face with the one person who can help her survive: her old master.

Anakin challenges Ahsoka, suggesting that she has just been going through the motions of what she thinks she’s meant to do—she took on an apprentice, she searched the galaxy for a potential new threat—but never fully committed to any of it. She was always holding back, never following through on her plans or her ideals.

And so her old master gives her a choice: live or die. Commit and follow through on what she says she wants to do or give up and go home.

The Clone Wars flashbacks that follow reveal that Ahsoka’s commitment issues are fueled by fears about her legacy. If she is inheriting Anakin’s legacy, like he and everyone else says, then what if she is inheriting the wrong parts of it? What if she takes what she learned from Anakin and creates a new Vader?

It’s a reveal that recontextualizes many of her recent decisions. She gave up on training Sabine because she feared she might seek retribution for the purge of Mandalore. She refused to train Grogu because she was afraid of what someone could do with that kind of power.

However, when she confronts her greatest fears through a series of visions/flashbacks and a confrontation with dark Anakin, she ultimately chooses to live. To live for herself and those around her. To live for today and for the future. The Ahsoka who emerges from the World Between Worlds is changed, more at peace with herself and more confident in her choices and the choices of those around her.

“Shadow Warrior” also features one of the great, non-Ahsoka moments in the series.

While Hera searches for the missing Ahsoka and Sabine, her son Jacen Syndulla (whose father was Jedi knight Kanan Jarrus) taps into the Force and can hear Anakin and Ahsoka’s lightsabers. He asks his mom to listen too. Hera, who has been without a lead on her missing friends, follows her son’s advice and, to her surprise, she can hear them too. Inspired by the revelation, she instructs her colleagues (led by New Republic Captain Carson Teva) to redouble their search.

It’s a powerful moment and a reminder that the Force is not exclusive to the Jedi or the Sith. All beings exist within the Force, and all are capable of tapping into it if they set their mind to the task. Because of her connection to Kanan, Hera understands this better than most, which is why she’d be more open to it initially.

Now the rest of the galaxy just needs to awaken to this idea.

2) Star Wars Visions Vol 2: “Screechers Reach”

One of the great joys of Star Wars: Visions is seeing what happens when animation studios from around the world are given free rein to do what they like within the Star Wars galaxy. Free from the confines of “canon” or existing characters, the creators are left with the setting and the themes to play with.

“Screecher’s Reach”, Irish studio Cartoon Saloon’s entry in the second volume of Visions, ponders the question of what would happen if a Luke Skywalker-type character, who dreamed of escaping their humdrum life, encountered a lord of the Sith rather than a Jedi knight like Obi-Wan Kenobi.

This is the story of Daal, a girl who lived her whole life in a workhouse for an unseen overlord. One night she convinces her friends to sneak out with her to visit the Screechers Reach, a cave which is said to be haunted by a ghost.

Lo and behold, the legend is true and Daal confronts, and defeats, the old Sith witch who had been mistaken for a ghost over the years. She is rewarded by the arrival of a Sith lord who offers Daal, but not her friends, a place by her side. In a scene that calls back to Anakin’s departure from his mother in The Phantom Menace, Daal chooses to leave her past behind and go with the Sith Lord. The short ends on Daal as she looks back on her friends, unsure if she made the right call.

The story presents a new spin on the classic Joseph Campbell idea from The Hero’s Journey: The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek. This concept is on full display here in a very literal sense but with a twist. Daal confronts her fears—in a cave, no less—and then is presented with the reward she’s always wanted: a way out of her dreary life in the workhouse.

Only her reward is not really a reward but a prison sentence. A life of servitude to the dark side and the Sith may bear the trappings of a better life, but it isn’t. The ultimate destination of the dark path, as Yoda once told us, is suffering. Daal even sees this when she confronts the “ghost”, although she doesn’t fully comprehend it, and discovers the big scary monster was just a scared old woman in a cave.

There is also an immediate cost, Daal loses the best thing she has: her friends. The comradery on display during the journey to Screecher’s Reach is the sort of love that will save you in the Star Wars galaxy if you choose to embrace it. What makes Daal’s turn so painful is that she clearly doesn’t realize what she has and the power and beauty therein.

Does Daal come to regret this decision? Likely she does. Such is the nature of the dark side. We’ve seen the tortured souls that are Vader, Maul, and Kylo Ren. But, outside of Vader, we rarely get to see the moment they choose their fate. The moment that, after they have embraced and suffered under the dark side fully, they will look back on and hate themselves even more for.

The possibility of sequels to Visions instalments is often floated by fans, though we’ve yet to actually see one through the first two volumes. An interesting follow-up to “Screecher’s Reach” might be to pick up the story decades down the line, when Daal has taken her place as a Sith Lord only to encounter one of her friends from the old days. How would she respond? Would she feel a call to the light? Or has she so buried that light since emerging from the cave that even a beloved friend from her past couldn’t bring it out? I would very much like to know. Maybe one day we’ll find out.

1) The Bad Batch “The Summit” & “Plan 99”

The award for most exhilarating, and devastating, forty-four minutes of Star Wars television this year goes to The Bad Batch and its two-part second season finale.

“The Summit” & “Plan 99” see the Bad Batch travel to Grand Moff Tarkin’s homeworld of Eriadu in search of information about Dr Hemlock and the Empire’s secret Advance Science Division. When things go awry, the Batch attempts to escape with one of their classic hare-brained schemes, the type we’ve seen them pull off successfully—if by the skin of their teeth—countless times through the first two seasons.

Only this time it doesn’t work. Their luck finally runs out and the only way Hunter, Echo, Wrecker, and Omega make it out alive is because Tech sacrifices himself so his team can survive.

The team making The Bad Batch did such a stellar job throughout season two building up Tech as a relatable, understandable, and sympathetic character so that his death hurt so much more. Even those who wouldn’t have counted themselves among his biggest fans (myself included) after season one, were devasted when he cut his line loose and fell to his death.

Seeing Tech’s death through Omega’s eyes was like another knife through the heart. Where the other members of the Bad Batch are soldiers who have been through many battles and seen a lot of death, she has only recently left the safety of her home on Kamino. And much of the work that was done to build up Tech was accomplished by pairing him with her, resulting in a real bond being built. As such, some of the episodes’ most gut-wrenching moments come through Omega’s devastation and denial of reality.

And the musical score from the Kiners was top-notch.

Another layer in Tech’s death was that it was his choice to sacrifice himself. So much of the Clone story revolves around their agency as characters. They were bred for war, but through their time spent with the Jedi are allowed to discover and establish their own unique identities. The tragedy, of course, then comes when Order 66 is called and the inhibitor chip in their brain is activated, instantly shedding whatever personality they had. They are reduced to no more than droids, repeating the mantra “Good soldiers follow orders” over and over.

Tech’s final words are a rejection of this. “When have we ever followed orders?” he asks Wrecker before cutting himself loose. It’s a statement more than a question. Tech is asserting his humanity and individuality. He isn’t dying for an Empire or Republic that doesn’t care about him, but so that his friends can live on and one day find the peace and purpose they desire.

But the episode doesn’t just end with Tech’s death and the Bad Batch’s escape!

Before the surviving members of the Bad Batch can properly mourn Tech, Dr Hemlock shows up on their doorstep demanding they turn over Omega. After a couple of tense standoffs and a chase through the streets of Ord Mantell, Omega winds up his prisoner and is brought to Mount Tantis—the same prison/experiment facility as the former Bad Batch member Crosshair—where she learns a shocking truth: she isn’t the only female clone of Jango Fett.

The whirlwind pace of the final act, with its twists and turns, tragedy and secrets was edge-of-your-seat material. Once Tech died, all bets seemed to be off and Dr Hemlock’s arrival at Cyd’s bar and success in capturing Omega felt like game changers for The Bad Batch. It’s a testament to the production, that even after 46 years of Star Wars they could create a sequence with that much energy, uncertainty, and dynamism.

We don’t yet know when The Bad Batch’s third and final season will air, but it feels safe to say it will be a departure from what we came to expect over the first two seasons. Just like Crosshair’s betrayal upended the group dynamic in the season one premiere, Tech’s death and Omega’s capture have shaken the Bad Batch (both the characters and the show) in ways that ensure things will never be the same again.

***

Another Star Wars-adjacent release in 2023 was the terrific documentary A Disturbance in the Force, which covers the making of the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special in 1978. The documentary takes us back to 1977-1978 when there was a fear that Star Wars would slip from people’s minds and just become another movie that audiences liked for a summer before moving on.

Because of this, there was a concerted effort to keep it front and center in people’s brains with The Holiday Special being its final form. Other efforts included Star Wars episodes of TV staples of the time like The Donnie and Marie Show and The Richard Pryor Show. Back then Star Wars had to contort itself to fit it with what TV was. Eventually, the contortion became too much and nearly broke Star Wars.

Now the entertainment landscape has shifted so much and it seems that everything else is contorting itself to be Star Wars. As such, it can often seem like Star Wars is not only being judged against its modern contemporaries but also against its own legacy as the film that stewarded in this new age of media.

Because of this, it can be easy to forget just how lucky we are to live in this golden age of Star Wars releases. There were 60 episodes of Star Wars TV alone this year. If you sat down to watch one episode from 2023 a week, it would take you more than a year.

And 2024 doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. Both The Acolyte and Skeleton Crew are confirmed for next year, with The Bad Batch and Tales of the Jedi being presumed to be released as well. And there are still a handful of episodes in Young Jedi Adventures’ first season still coming. Not to mention all the books, comics, and games that are on the horizon.

Is it too much? I leave that to everyone to decide for themselves. But we are lucky to have the choice to engage with this much Star Wars if we want to. There is no obligation to watch or like everything. The great gift of this era is that if something isn’t your cup of tea you can easily set it aside and something else will along soon that will hopefully be more to your taste.

And just because something isn’t working for you now, doesn’t mean you have to feel that way forever. Let’s not forget one of the great lessons of The Clone Wars, sometimes it takes time for a series to find its audience. Maybe they still need to grow up or the series needs to evolve itself in meaningful ways.

So as we look ahead to the new year and all the new Star Wars it will bring let’s try and remember how lucky we are to have the choices we do and the opportunity to let things go for now if we want.