Is Ahsoka Okay For My Kids — And Can This Be Their First Star Wars?
A guide for parents to the light and dark side of the new Disney+ series.
If you're a longtime Star Wars fan, it's a very exciting week. After years of whispers, teasers, and of course a live-action debut in The Mandalorian, the former Jedi known as Ahsoka Tano (played by Rosario Dawson) is back, headlining her first-ever live-action series courtesy of Clone Wars mastermind Dave Filoni. Fun, action-packed, and full of promise in its quest to flesh out the post-Return of the Jedi timeline, Ahsoka has the potential to be the next Star Wars thing we absolutely can't stop talking about.
But if you're a parent, you're probably still asking one key question: Can I watch it with my kids? Let's take a closer look at the latest excursion into a galaxy far, far away.
What age is Ahsoka OK for?
Baylan Skoll is not messing around.
Like its fellow live-action Disney+ shows set in the Star Wars galaxy, Ahsoka is rated TV-14, which means that it contains things parents might find "unsuitable" for any kid that age. But of course, that doesn't mean the entire show is at a TV-14 level, just that certain elements are the kinds of things parents might be skittish about if they have younger children. With that in mind, let's get into the specific content that we're talking about.
"Wars" is right there in the name when it comes to Star Wars stories, which means you can of course expect Ahsoka to contain violence, specifically violence with blasters and violence with lightsabers. In the first two episodes made available as part of the series premiere, we get both, along with a little bit of space battle action, but it's the lightsabers that are particularly brutal so far.
Thanks to Ahsoka's own fighting, as well as the blades brought by two Force-using mercenaries out to battle against the New Republic, the show features multiple slashes, Droids getting their limbs hacked off, and at least two instances of human beings impaled by lightsabers, including a grievous injury to a major character right at the end of the first episode. It's definitely violent, but if your kid has seen Star Wars before, they've seen similar injuries and even deaths, so just use your best judgment in terms of how your individual child reacts to that kind of violence.
Elsewhere in terms of content, it's all pretty straightforward. Ahsoka's working for the good guys, she's trying to get a key piece of information that the bad guys also want, and this of course leads to fighting. Foul language isn't really an issue in the first two episodes, and neither is sexual content. It's a show chock full of fictional space opera battles, and while that makes it at times rather dark, it's not as grim as, say, Andor.
Can Ahsoka be your kid's first Star Wars experience?
Sabine and a Loth-Cat.
Even if you're not a big-time, Watch-Everything-Star-Wars-fan, you probably know that Ahsoka Tano has quite a history at this point in the franchise. She's been around since the Clone Wars animated movie in 2008, served as a major character (often the major character) throughout the Clone Wars series that followed, and was also a key player in Star Wars: Rebels, the Clone Wars follow-up show that followed a mostly new cast of characters as they helped to establish a Rebellion that could stand against the Empire.
Ahsoka picks up a few years after the events of Rebels and drops viewers right into the relationships between Ahsoka, New Republic General Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), and Ahsoka's former apprentice Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), who've all gotten a little older and a little wiser in the intervening years. There's a lot of history to those characters, but you can absolutely still follow along if you've never seen Rebels, as the show does a good job of hitting the key points of the relationships without ever relying on plain old info dumping.
Still, the relationships here are complex, and if you've never seen anything about Star Wars before, you might end up a little lost, particularly when compared to the fresh start of something like A New Hope or The Phantom Menace. The weight of continuity is present in all of Star Wars, but it's particularly present in Ahsoka, so perhaps get your kid into The Clone Wars or Rebels before they dive headlong into a show like this. That said, it's still a fun adventure show with laser swords and space battles, so even if they're lost, they might have a good time.
Why kids will actually love Ahsoka
Get ready for Rebels-style adventure.
Star Wars has definitely skewed older in its live-action offerings in the years since Disney took over the company, but that doesn't mean kids younger than 14 can't find something to enjoy in Ahsoka. Under Filoni's leadership, the show embraces a new story direction, and introduces a high-stakes new conflict to the galaxy, while also delivering lots of fun action, cute creatures, and even a few laughs along the way. It might not quite have the eye-popping spectacle of the films, but it is a Star Wars adventure in the classic sense, complete with a search for a secret map, lots of lightsaber duels, and distinctive characters you can come to love. Basically, if your kid likes any live-action Star Wars at all, there's a good chance they'll like this.
