Ahsoka Tano realizes that her Jedi weapon has been stolen in “Lightsaber Lost,” an all-new episode of STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS premiering at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT Friday, January 22 on Cartoon Network. TM & © 2010 Lucasfilm Ltd. All rights reserved.
The last several episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars have been jam-packed with high-quality battles. But it wouldn’t be the Star Wars Universe if you didn’t take a break every now and again for some pseudo-mystical spirituality, in which a galaxy far, far away starts to sound a bit like the home of California-style New Age gurus.
Enter this week’s episode, “Lightsaber Lost,” in which Ahsoka Tano’s lightsaber is stolen and she must turn to the much older Jedi, Tera Sinube, to navigate the criminal underworld of Coruscant and recover it. Along the way, Sinube tries to moderate Ahsoka’s headstrong manner, which she’s been perfecting under Anakin.
Clone Wars supervising director Dave Filoni plays up the spiritual/psychological development angle in this episode:
“To a certain extent, audiences are coming to expect the combat storylines from the series, but there’s a lot more to Star Wars than the war itself; I think this episode really resonates because it captures a particularly nostalgic aspect. We got to focus on aspects that don’t get as much screen time when we’re in the middle of a battle . . . It’s also interesting to look at the various influences on Ahsoka from a different perspective. She’s being trained by Anakin, who eventually becomes Darth Vader. It’s an interesting dynamic, because we don’t necessarily know what happens to her – except for the fact that she doesn’t appear in Episode III. Because we see her in these high-intensity situations, it’s easy to forget that she’s still a child and that she’s impressionable. She’s definitely still learning – from Anakin, but also from her own experiences, from her mistakes, from those around her. She’s making her own choices, deciding her own values. How that will affect her ultimate destiny remains to be seen. When we screened this episode for the crew, almost everyone ranked it among their favorites for the season; I think it’s because it stirs up some of those questions, and in a way that has a distinct Star Wars feel.”
Meanwhile, the director of “Lightsaber Lost,” Giancarlo Volpe, stresses that the episode’s funny, as well as spiritual:
“Comedy belongs in Star Wars as much as anything . . . Filmmaking actually plays a lot off of contrast – such as the contrast between a wicked villain and a benevolent hero, or between slow, emotional scenes and really fast-paced action. The more you emphasize one side, the more extreme the other becomes. They work hand in hand. I think if Clone Wars always took itself too seriously, it would no longer feel like the movies.
[Tera Sinube is] efinitely a caricature of his own philosophy. He keeps telling Ahsoka she’s too frantic and moving too fast. She needs to slow down and really listen to her intuition, and trust her feelings. We played that up in everything from the way he moves to the way he talks . . . To me, it’s very much like Obi-Wan telling Luke to trust his feelings, and to use the Force during the attack on the Death Star. Ahsoka is so anxious about getting her lightsaber back, her own anxiety interferes with her ability to track it down. When she stops and calms herself, the truth is revealed. That’s great stuff! It’s just one of those classic spiritual aspects of Star Wars that I can’t get enough of.”
Here’s the clip!
