We’ve passed the one month mark until the release on Disney Plus of Ahsoka, and so our attention is firmly set on all things Tano. Given the undoubted love for the character, it’s hard to remember a time when ‘Snips’ wasn’t adored, but the time after the release of the 2008 Clone Wars movie saw the character recieve a hefty amount of flak from a fandom that had no concept – and why would they – of where this character was about to take them. Speaking at the 2023 running of C2E2, Ashley Eckstein remembered those difficult times.
“It’s been quite the journey., it really has. From the very beginning where she was hated. And one thing to note, we were always a season ahead of what you all saw. We were well into season two by the time you all saw the first movie, so I knew how far she had come. When it came out, so many people hated Ahsoka. First, I sobbed into my cheesecake… But then I took a day to have a pity party.
Then, I was like, no – this character is amazing. And everyone else is going to see what I see if they just give her time. And so, I asked fans for their patience. I said look, no character is perfect in the beginning, and if they were, then they’d be really boring. So please go on this journey with her.
I think the most important thing for me personally is to see and hear all of the stories of how Ahsoka has been changing lives, and that’s when things really changed for me, because not only did she change my life, but when you all share your stories with me about how she’s changed or saved your life, that sticks with me, and it’s changed me. And I just want to say thank you for trusting me with your stories and sharing them with me, and I will forever strive to be a real-life Ahsoka Tano however I can.
You know what, yeah, there was definitely resistance to Ahsoka. She had her haters in the beginning. People that thought that she was too bratty. I even got a lot of hate in the beginning because I was most known for my work on the Disney Channel. I was an actress on That’s So Raven, and I got a lot of hate that this Disney Channel actress is going to come ruin Star Wars. I definitely read several of those headlines, and I was really, really down. I took a day to just kind of wallow in the negativity and be sad for a second. But then after that day I said, No, this character is still important.”
