George Lucas Explained Ahsoka’s Biggest Twist Decades Ago

This shocking information is something that Lucas shared in 1981 with a group that included Star Wars writer Lawrence Kasdan and Return of the Jedi director Richard Marquand at a story conference. For basically the first time, Lucas had to explain the inner workings of The Force to other people, and much of what he said surprised them. His words from this conference still shock fans, but they go a long way toward explaining Sabine Wren’s unconventional Jedi journey. 

The Star Wars prequels established that Jedi have techniques for testing someone’s Force potential. These techniques range from counting their midi-chlorians to conducting face-to-face tests to measure precognitive sensitivity. All of this helped the Jedi Council figure out who had enough Force potential to train as a Padawan learner and eventually become a Jedi Knight.

In Ahsoka, what made Sabine Wren such an unconventional character is how comically little Force potential she actually had. Unlike Rey in The Force Awakens (who can almost instantly do amazing Force tricks without training), Sabine struggles until the very last episode of Ahsoka to do even the most basic tasks with the Force.

Even the droid Huyang, who has literally taught Jedi for a thousand generations, confirmed to Sabine that she had less aptitude for the Force than every single Padawan he has met for the last 25,000 years.

Her lack of Force aptitude didn’t keep Sabine Wren from trying to become a Jedi, albeit one who focused more on lightsaber skills than The Force. This angered and confused fans who thought that only those with a high level of Force potential could even access this mystical energy field, much less be trained as a Jedi. If nothing else, this seemed to fly in the face of what we learned about the Jedi screening and training process glimpsed in the prequels.

However, based on this old George Lucas interview, it seems fans might have to unlearn what they have learned. Back then, he claimed that it wasn’t just the Jedi who could use The Force but that, like yoga and karate, “If you want to take the time to do it, you can do it.” This ended up being something of a self-fulfilling prophecy in his galaxy far, far away because for the most part, “It’s just the Jedi who take the time to do it.”

Using the Maker’s own words, it’s clear that Sabine Wren’s unconventional journey to becoming a Jedi is perfectly in line with what George Lucas said over four decades ago. She may not have the same raw potential as Luke Skywalker or even that broom kid from The Last Jedi, but she is someone who really wants to learn and devotes the time to doing so.

Arguably, plenty more people in the prequel era could have undergone their own unconventional training if they had found a sympathetic Jedi who, like Ahsoka, were willing to train someone with relatively low potential.

Consider that it’s only a matter of time before we get Star Wars movies and shows focusing on training the next generation of Jedi, Sabine Wren’s journey towards mastering The Force could become vitally important to the franchise. She might be an early indication that Ahsoka Tano and Rey are willing to train the kinds of would-be Padawans that the Jedi Council of old would have rejected outright. 

Looking at what Sabine can do by the end of the show, it seems that Ahsoka might get the last laugh on the Jedi Masters she walked away from in The Clone Wars. After all, she is singlehandedly proving it was the stuffy elders on the Council who still had much to learn about who can and cannot (or should and should not) receive Jedi training. Not bad, Snips, not bad.