The Star Wars Character Who Nearly Had Superpowers
Even before Ezra Bridger made his triumphant return in Ahsoka, he was a fan-favorite character thanks to the popularity of Star Wars Rebels. That show helped differentiate the character from other Jedi that we had seen before by giving him a special connection to nature and the living world around him. However, Dave Filoni later revealed that he was concerned about the writers “overplay[ing]” that ability and basically giving Ezra Bridger too much power.
Ezra’s Abilities
For this tale of Ezra Bridger’s powers to make sense, we need to first review exactly what his powers are and how they work. The young man has many Force abilities that are pretty common, including the ability to sense others, use telekinesis, and use a lightsaber.
He and his Jedi Master Kanan Jarrus learned how to combine some of these powers in combat, which notably let them Force-push Darth Vader into a collapsing walker (after the Sith Lord survived the subsequent explosion, though, our heroes very wisely ran away).
Connection
However, the specific Ezra Bridger ability that Filoni was commenting on was a power that allowed the young character to connect to other lifeforms, a power that was relatively rare for a Jedi.
This lets the young man pull off some pretty cool tricks, including taming and summoning fyrnock. He could also communicate with various creatures throughout the universe in a way that most Jedi (including some of the most powerful ones) never could.
Filoni Was Concerned About Overuse
While cool, this kind of Jedi ability isn’t unheard of in the franchise, so why was Dave Filoni so concerned that the writers would make Ezra Bridger’s special Force power essentially a “superpower?”
In the hands of a hack writer, this power could take the tension out of almost any encounter with some of the scarier creatures in a galaxy far, far away.
This is presumably why the Rebels writers (who were, fortunately, the opposite of hacks) wrote in limitations to this ability, including the memorable time Ezra couldn’t connect with the Krykna spiders of Atollon.
He Could Have Become Overpowered
Ezra Bridger’s power to summon powerful creatures could have also been overused…like, it’s hard to take threats ranging from Stormtroopers to the Grand Inquisitor seriously if the young Jedi can just summon up a powerful creature to fight on his behalf like a character in a JRPG.
Presumably, this is why the show implied Ezra could only really do this by channeling the Dark Side, and his refusal to continue walking down that path left him unable to access this easy path to victory.
The Restraint Paid Off
In fact, this relatively conservative exploration of Ezra Bridger’s special Force power led to a kind of arc: by the end of Rebels, he had stopped trying to summon giant creatures into direct battle and instead focused on his ability to simply communicate with animals great and small.
This allowed him to communicate with the purrgil (those hyperspace-traveling space whales), ultimately using them to transport himself and Grand Admiral Thrawn to the other side of the galaxy.
In retrospect, Dave Filoni’s restraint regarding Ezra Bridger’s powers paid off in a big way: if the Rebels writers had constantly abused this ability, the show would have lost much of its tension and the climax of the series finale would have been predictable.
Instead, watching Ezra commune with the purrgil to defeat someone as brilliant as Grand Admiral Thrawn felt like an earned moment the series had spent years building up to. Fortunately, by the time Ahsoka rolled around, Filoni allowed Ezra to flex one superpower he had never used before: growing the sweetest beard in the galaxy.
