We’re still feeling bitter about The Rise of Skywalker. And we’re not alone with that sentiment, whether you loved or hated The Last Jedi, the collective opinion on TRoS isn’t well-loved. It felt like it was needlessly ignoring what came before it while shoehorning in a lot of plot points that made little to no sense without explaining why. The most notorious of these was how did Palpatine return? We still don’t really have an answer to this in 2023 apart from “somehow”, but the first season of Ahsoka actually made The Rise of Skywalker even more frustrating. Let’s dive into why.

In Ahsoka, which was recently confirmed for a second season, a major part of the narrative was the search for Peridea, the planet where Thrawn has been waiting in exile ever since the end of Rebels. Hearing whispers in her dreams, Morgan Elsbeth hires two mercenaries to help her find the path to Peridea, a planet located in a completely different galaxy which also just so happens to be the birthplace of the Dathomiri Nightsisters.

The Nightsisters technically made their debut in the Legends novel The Courtship of Princess Leia, but most fans will know them as one of the main antagonists in The Clone Wars animated series or Jedi Fallen Order. These witches use Magick, which is an aspect of the Dark Side of the Force that grants the user supernatural abilities, usually to fulfill their own agenda. These range from enhanced strength to healing properties. But one of their biggest and most dangerous spells was being able to reanimate the dead.

As seen in The Clone Wars, Jedi: Fallen Order and now Ahsoka, the Nightsisters can call on a body’s spirit to reanimate its corpse, turning it effectively into a zombie hell-bent on defending the Nightsisters. It’s not like these reanimated bodies are cognitive or anything, they’re mindless killing machines, but they can bring a dead body back to life. More importantly, though, the witches escape with Thrawn off Peridea and back to the primary galaxy and a wildcard in future events.

So, to play Marvel’s “what if” game, imagine if Kylo Ren at the start of The Rise of Skywalker went to Dathomir instead of Mustafar and found the Nightsisters instead of the Sith Wayfinder, who tell him they’ll bring back the spirit of Palpatine in exchange for a position of power. Suddenly, that movie becomes tied to the Mandoverse of content from Filoni and Jon Favreau and bridges the two projects together (and it seems less random and “MacGuffin-y”). We as audiences could’ve pointed like Leo in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood at seeing the Witches in Ahsoka and would’ve said, “Oh I recognize them from The Rise of Skywalker!”. Alas, hindsight is 20/20 and shows a fundamental problem for Star Wars in telling the major stories out of order and without proper planning. Something will always come around that is ultimately, a better idea and makes old ideas, especially hastily put-together ideas, seem even worse once a better one comes around.

Thankfully, it does seem that going forward, there will be some semblance of a plan. Dave Filoni, showrunner of Ahsoka, has been promoted to Chief Creative Officer, essentially making him the Kevin Feige of a galaxy far, far away. He’ll make sure that the stories being told make sense to one another and to the larger canon. The first test for that will be making sure his own untitled movie will connect with the recently announced The Mandalorian and Grogu, a surprise film that will be directed by Favreau and is set to start filming this year. You can be that no matter what story is being told in that movie, it will make sense for Filoni’s film (likely Heir to the Empire). So here’s hoping that George Lucas’ own apprentice will be able to plan things out in advance that make sense both in the short and long term, preventing newer projects from making older ones make less sense.