Ahsoka: Kevin Kiner’s score offers up a possible hint for Episode 5
This article contains major spoilers for Ahsoka Episode 4 “Fallen Jedi”
Ahsoka Episode 4, “Fallen Jedi,” had everything that makes a mid-season episode of a show fantastic. The stakes were raised to insane levels. All the major players are moving to where they need to be in the show’s back half. Most importantly, the titular character Ahsoka Tano reached her lowest point, possibly death. That last part is a little unclear.
What’s not unclear is Ahsoka’s awakening in the final moments of the World Between Worlds. She hears a familiar voice call her “Snips,” turns, and there is her former master Anakin Skywalker. It’s the emotional reunion between the two and their first time in live-action in the same place. The music swells as the old friends smile at each other.
And then something peculiar happens. The screen turns black as Darth Vader’s theme plays.
Kevin Kiner and his team, which consists of his son and daughter Sean and Deana, have always been incredibly purposeful with their music. Nothing is random, which means this final musical note at the end of the episode is supposed to be telling.
Pair this with Anakin’s garb. He’s not wearing his robes from Return of the Jedi when he is a Force ghost. The creators chose to de-age Hayden Christensen and put him in his Episode III: Revenge of the Sith garb.
I think Kiner’s musical score hints at what might happen next week. The World Between Worlds was used in two ways in Star Wars Rebels. The first was to establish that it was a realm that connected all time and space in Star Wars. The second use was to test Ezra Bridger. While Emperor Palpatine was manipulating Ezra from afar, the young Jedi was given a chance to save his master. Now here is Ahsoka facing her old master, who looks like he did the last time she saw him as Anakin and not Vader.
As George Lucas says, “Star Wars is like poetry. It rhymes.”
In that final moment, Kiner’s score tells us that next week will not be what it seems. We probably shouldn’t trust this Anakin right away. While it may be Ahsoka’s master giving her one last test from afar, that’s precisely what it is: a test. I wouldn’t be surprised if she has the chance to save Anakin and have to let him go. Perhaps she will put her padawan Sabine Wren’s well-being over everything else after the bombshell reveal of what happened to her Mandalorian family.
Regardless of how it all plays out, Kiner gave us a big clue with that final musical cue. On the surface, it seems like a sweet reunion. As we dive deeper, though, something far more sinister could be waiting for us in Episode 5.
Stay up to date with all things Ahsoka here at Dork Side of the Force.
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, Star Wars wouldn’t exist.