What lore to know before watching ‘Ahsoka’
‘Star Wars’ series has cute creatures, action, Easter eggs
“Ahsoka” has everything audiences have come to expect from a “Star Wars” show: action, cute creatures and references to lore with which you may or may not be familiar.
Created by Dave Filoni, the Disney+ original follows former Jedi Knight Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) on her quest to find Ezra Bridger and Grand Admiral Thrawn before the Imperial Remnants do. The newly won peace in the galaxy far, far away is still quite fragile, and defeating Thrawn once and for all could be key to making it last.
The unexpected star of the first two episodes is an adorable Loth-cat. Native to the Outer Rim planet Lothal, Loth-cats were usually found in the grasslands where they could hunt Loth-rats and other small prey. They’ve previously appeared in “Star Wars Rebels” as well as in an episode of “The Mandalorian.” Although Loth-cats usually live in the wild, Ahsoka’s wayward apprentice Sabine Wren appears to have domesticated at least one of them.
Here is a cheat sheet for everything else you need to know so far about “Ahsoka.”
WHO IS AHSOKA TANO?
Introduced in “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” Ahsoka was a padawan learner assigned to train under Anakin Skywalker. Much like her master, Ahsoka was brash, stubborn, impulsive and didn’t always follow the rules. She is a Togruta from a small village on Shili who showed affinity for the Force from a very young age.
Certain events led her to walk away from the Jedi Order before she completed her training some time before the end of the Clone Wars. After surviving Order 66 — Emperor Palpatine’s plan to exterminate all Jedi — she went into hiding.
She eventually joined the fight against the Empire as a top secret agent known as Fulcrum and worked with other rebels, including members of the Ghost crew such as Hera Syndulla, Sabine Wren and Ezra Bridger.
WHO IS HERA SYNDULLA?
Hera first appeared in “Star Wars Rebels” as the ace pilot of the Ghost and one of the leaders of its close-knit crew called the Spectres. The Spectres were resistance fighters who refused to bow to the Galactic Empire and eventually joined a larger rebel cell. There, Hera worked her way up the ranks of what eventually became the Rebel Alliance. She is a Twi’lek from the planet Ryloth and has a son named Jacen Syndulla.
WHO IS SABINE WREN?
A Mandalorian warrior, artist and explosives expert, Sabine was also introduced in “Star Wars Rebels” as a member of the Ghost crew. A former cadet at the Imperial Academy, she helped create weapons that the Empire eventually used against Mandalore to subjugate her people. Devastated, she left the academy and Mandalore and was branded a traitor by the Empire and her fellow Mandalorians.
Sabine acquired the Darksaber — a legendary Mandalorian weapon and a sort of family heirloom — after an encounter with Maul. Despite some hesitation, she learned to wield it before facing her past and her family, with hopes to find a leader who would be able to unify the Mandalorians against the Empire. She eventually passes the Darksaber on to Bo-Katan Kryze.
CAN MANDALORIANS BE JEDI?
Yes! Mandalorians and Jedi have been sworn enemies; they’ve been at war with each other, and a lot of Mandalorian armor and weapons were developed to specifically counter the advantages Jedi have in combat because of the Force. But the Force is in everybody. The Darksaber was created by the first Mandalorian Jedi, Tarre Vizsla. Sabine’s clan Wren is actually part of House Vizsla.
WHO IS EZRA BRIDGER?
An orphan who grew up on the streets of Lothal, Ezra joined the Ghost crew at the start of “Star Wars Rebels.” The Force-sensitive teenager became an apprentice to Kanan Jarrus, the leader of the Spectres and a Jedi who survived Order 66 as a young padawan himself.
Ezra had the ability to connect and communicate with other Force-sensitive creatures. In order to defeat Grand Admiral Thrawn during the battle to liberate Lothal from Imperial occupation, Ezra had a herd of purrgil (tentacled space whales that have appeared in “Rebels” and “The Mandalorian”) take the ship he and Thrawn were on into hyperspace. Neither Ezra nor Thrawn have been seen since.
WHO IS GRAND ADMIRAL THRAWN?
A high-ranking Imperial officer, Thrawn was introduced in “Rebels” as the primary villain of its latter seasons. (Thrawn’s first appearance was in a series of “Star Wars” books that are considered outside of canon.) Cruel, calculating and conniving, Thrawn studied his adversaries carefully to ensure he could come out on top.
He tangled more than a few times with the Ghost crew, but was ultimately defeated when he was whisked into hyperspace with Ezra by the whale-like purgill. The Imperial Remnants await his return.
WHAT DOES “NIGHTSISTERS OF DATHOMIR” MEAN?
The Nightsisters were a coven of witches that lived on the remote Outer Rim planet of Dathomir. They wielded dark magic that was connected to their home planet and the Force. The Nightsisters’ first onscreen appearance was in “The Clone Wars,” and they’ve also been featured in video games including “Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.”
Dathomir was also home to the Nightbrothers, who were subservient to the more powerful Nightsisters.
Darth Maul was a Nightbrother plucked from his home by the Sith for his potential.
The Nightsisters (and Nightbrothers) were wiped out by the Separatists. But much like with the Jedi, there appear to have been some survivors.
WHAT ABOUT THOSE DROIDS?
The sassy astromech is Hera’s droid C1-10P, also known as Chopper.
Some time during the Clone Wars, a young Hera found Chopper in a crashed Y-wing, fixed him up and they’ve been together ever since. Chopper is opinionated, argumentative and surprisingly lethal.
The ancient droid accompanying Ahsoka is Huyang. Long affiliated with the Jedi Order, Huyang was a professor who taught Jedi younglings how to make lightsabers.
ARE THERE ANY OTHER EASTER EGGS?
There are plenty. Lothal’s Governor Ryder Azadi and Senator Jai Kell are characters from “Rebels.”
Corellia, where Ahsoka and Hera go to investigate the shipyards, is Han Solo’s home planet.
Even Sabine’s ritualistic cutting of her hair is a callback to a similar scene involving Kanan in “Rebels.”
When Miami Dolphins tackle Terron Armstead achieved his dream of being drafted into the NFL over a decade ago, he put his musical aspirations aside. Many other professional football players did the same thing. But now, three powerhouses —the NFL, Interscope Geffen A&M Records and Electronic Arts Sports — have partnered to empower players to pursue their music dreams.
The result was a recently released EP project called “Crowd Control.” The six songs were also inserted into Madden NFL 24, released in August. It’s the first time music made by NFL players appears in the video game franchise, now in its 35th year.
“I only knew the stigma of ‘Shut up and play’ and ‘Do your day job,’ ” said Armstead, a four-time Pro Bowler. “I got away from music during the early years of my career. It was a void for me because music was a way to express myself. For them to create this opportunity, it’s been great for us. This has really pushed and encouraged guys to be who they are.”
Armstead is among the active players on “Crowd Control,” which also features New York Giants tight end Darren Waller, San Francisco receiver Ray-Ray McCloud, free agent linebacker Melvin Ingram and Carolina Panthers receiver D.J. Chark Jr.
“People can’t put us in a box,” said Waller, whose great-grandfather was the legendary jazz artist Thomas “Fats” Waller. The Pro Bowler has already released four hip-hop albums — which showcased his talents as a rapper, producer and writer.
“Hopefully this opens up a lane for a lot of guys who want to pursue their passion,” he said. “This opportunity can be beneficial. It can spark a fire that hasn’t been lit yet.”
The players recorded the rap tracks alongside hip-hop artists such as Rob49, Jay Rock, That Mexican OT and Lebra Jolie at Interscope Records’ headquarters in Santa Monica, California. The project was executive produced by Derrick Milano, a Grammy winner who has worked with superstars like Justin Bieber, Megan Thee Stallion and Nicki Minaj.
“These dudes can rap,” said Bas, a Grammy-nominated rapper who shared his musical expertise during the players’ recording sessions. “It’s very unfair to pigeonhole anybody. People see like these big NFL players, and they say, ‘Do your one job, tackle somebody or run that route.’ But creativity is part of a healthy life. I know these guys have strict schedules, OTAs and camp. For them to put the time in, they’re not on vacation. They’re really trying to expand their craft. It’s humbling to watch.”
Many of the songs featured on “Crowd Control” were conceived in a songwriting session at Interscope this summer where NFL players worked with producers and artists.
“It’s a nurturing space,” said David Nieman, the senior vice president of sports and gaming at Interscope, which worked with EA Sports to curate the Madden NFL 22 soundtrack, which was the first album release for the franchise. “There isn’t a guard up when you hear about an athlete wanting to step into the music world. Our artists aren’t stepping out onto the field. We’re bringing them into our realm and showing them what we do great and trying to give them some of those tools.”
The project came into fruition after an NFL Career Tour stop was hosted at Interscope’s headquarters earlier this year. The daylong session featured executives from the music industry, interactive listening sessions and about 20 players who showed interest in the business of music — from marketing, producing and signing talent.
“It’s really important that these guys have a chance to gain exposure to different industries and explore their gifts and talents that could go beyond the field while they’re playing,” said Ashley Smith, manager of player development for the NFL. She spearheads programs and initiatives for the league that provide resources for current and former players while helping them prepare for life after football.
Smith, whose brother Trey Smith is a lineman for the Kansas City Chiefs, is familiar with players’ post-career plights.
“Oftentimes when speaking with former players, which we call NFL legends, they talk about the difficulty of the transition,” she said. “Regardless, if a guy comes out prepared for that, it’s still somewhat of a loss identity. Our part is to help them. Whether you’re retiring from the league or you’re young in your 30s, there’s still an opportunity to really develop and find out who you are as a football player, but also as a man and businessman.”
Smith said there’s hope to expand into different industries like technology and fashion.
“We want guys to feel like the league cares,” she said. “We want to do our best to make sure that they’re educated, they’re prepared and given the tools. We want them to develop the relationships that will help them take their careers as well as their lives to the next level.”
McCloud called the program a “big step” in the right direction. He said the recording sessions instilled more confidence in him.
“A lot of times, athletes get a certain type of stereotype,” said McCloud, who has owned his production company Legend Tribe since he was 17 years old. “It’s a certain narrative we have to follow. When football ends one day, we need to have that second passion. We just want to follow our dreams. I’m living my first dream of playing in the NFL. But doing other things you love and (that) fill your spirit creates a different type of feeling.”
At Ann Johnson’s wedding reception 20 years ago, her gift for speech was vividly evident. In an ebullient 15-minute toast, she joked that she had run down the aisle, wondered if the ceremony program should have said “flutist” or “flautist” and acknowledged that she was “hogging the mic.”
Just two years later, Johnson — then a 30-year-old teacher, volleyball coach and mother of an infant — had a cataclysmic stroke that paralyzed her and left her unable to talk.
Scientists recently reported a remarkable advance toward helping her, and other patients, speak again. In a milestone of neuroscience and artificial intelligence, implanted electrodes decoded Johnson’s brain signals as she silently tried to say sentences. Technology converted her brain signals into written and vocalized language and enabled an avatar on a computer screen to speak the words and display smiles, pursed lips and other expressions.
The research, published in the journal Nature, demonstrates the first time spoken words and facial expressions have been directly synthesized from brain signals, experts say. Johnson chose the avatar, a face resembling hers, and researchers used her wedding toast to develop the avatar’s voice.
“We’re just trying to restore who people are,” said the team’s leader, Dr. Edward Chang, the chair of neurological surgery at the University of California, San Francisco.
“It let me feel like I was a whole person again,” Johnson, now 48, wrote me.
The goal is to help people who cannot speak because of strokes or conditions such as cerebral palsy and Lou Gehrig’s disease (or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). To work, Johnson’s implant must be connected by cable from her head to a computer, but her team and others are developing wireless versions. Eventually, researchers hope, people who have lost speech may converse in real time through computerized pictures of themselves that convey tone, inflection and emotions such as joy and anger.
“What’s quite exciting is that just from the surface of the brain, the investigators were able to get out pretty good information about these different features of communication,” said Dr. Parag Patil, a neurosurgeon and biomedical engineer at the University of Michigan, who was asked by Nature to review the study before publication.
Johnson’s experience reflects the field’s fast-paced progress. Just two years ago, the same team published research in which a paralyzed man, who went by the nickname Pancho, used a simpler implant and algorithm to produce 50 basic words such as “hello” and “hungry” that were displayed as text on a computer after he tried to say them.
Johnson’s implant has nearly twice as many electrodes, increasing its ability to detect brain signals from speech-related sensory and motor processes linked to the mouth, lips, jaw, tongue and larynx. Researchers trained the sophisticated AI to recognize not individual words, but phonemes, or sound units such as “ow” and “ah” that can ultimately form any word.
Researchers programmed an algorithm to decode brain activity into audio waveforms, producing vocalized speech, said Kaylo Littlejohn, a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, and one of the study’s lead authors, along with Moses, Sean Metzger, Alex Silva and Margaret Seaton.
Working with a company that produces facial animation, researchers programmed the avatar with data on muscle movements. Johnson then tried to make facial expressions for happy, sad and surprised, each at high, medium and low intensity. She also tried to make various jaw, tongue and lip movements. Her decoded brain signals were conveyed on the avatar’s face.
Through the avatar, she said, “I think you are wonderful,” and, “What do you think of my artificial voice?”
“Hearing a voice similar to your own is emotional,” Johnson told the researchers.
She and her husband, William Johnson, a postal worker, even engaged in conversation.
The field is moving so quickly that experts believe federally approved wireless versions might be available within the next decade.
Johnson contacted Chang in 2021, the day after her husband showed her my article about Pancho, the paralyzed man the researchers had helped. Chang said he initially discouraged her because she lived in Saskatchewan, Canada, far from his lab in San Francisco, but “she was persistent.”
She started participating last September. Traveling to California takes them three days in a van packed with equipment, including a lift to transfer her between wheelchair and bed. They rent an apartment there, where researchers conduct their experiments to make it easier for her. The Johnsons, who raise money online and in their community to pay for travel and rent for the multiyear study, spend weeks in California, returning home between research phases.
Ann Johnson communicated with me in emails composed with the more rudimentary assistive system she uses at home. She wears eyeglasses affixed with a reflective dot that she aims at letters and words on a computer screen.
It’s slow, allowing her to generate only 14 words per minute. But it’s faster than the only other way she can communicate at home: using a plastic letter board, a method William Johnson described as “her just trying to show me which letter she’s trying to try to look at and then me trying to figure out what she’s trying to say.”
Ann Johnson was teaching high school math, health and physical education, and coaching volleyball and basketball when she had her brainstem stroke while warming up to play volleyball. After a year in a hospital and a rehabilitation facility, she came home to her 10-year-old stepson and her 23-month-old daughter, who has now grown up without any memory of hearing her mother speak, William Johnson said.
“Not being able to hug and kiss my children hurt so bad, but it was my reality,” Ann Johnson wrote. “The real nail in the coffin was being told I couldn’t have more children.”
For five years after the stroke, she was terrified. “I thought I would die at any moment,” she wrote, adding, “The part of my brain that wasn’t frozen knew I needed help, but how would I communicate?”
Gradually, her doggedness resurfaced. Initially, “my face muscles didn’t work at all,” she wrote, but after about five years, she could smile at will.
At first when she started making emotional expressions with the avatar, “I felt silly, but I like feeling like I have an expressive face again,” she wrote, adding that the exercises also enabled her to move the left side of her forehead for the first time.
She has gained something else, too. After the stroke, “it hurt so bad when I lost everything,” she wrote. “I told myself that I was never again going to put myself in line for that disappointment again.”
Now “I feel like I have a job again,” she wrote.
Besides, the technology makes her imagine being in “Star Wars”: “I have kind of gotten used to having my mind blown.”