Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka Tano in The Mandalorian
The long-awaited Star Wars TV series “Ahsoka” has officially started production. Anakin Skywalker’s Padawan who was first introduced in The Clone Wars animated series has been a fan-favourite for a long time. Now she gets her own TV series following her adventures after the events of the original trilogy.
Producers’ Gamble
This is the first time a character originally designed for animated TV series will get its own live action series. Normally this would be quite a gamble: making a show about a character that is familiar only to a segment of the fan community and does not appear in the films.
However, Ahsoka is in a good starting position. Disney tested the waters with her live-action cameo in The Mandalorian (played by Rosario Dawson, who will also represent her in Ahsoka) to a very positive response. The experiment was verified by her appearance also in The Book of Boba Fett.
Ahsoka in The Clone Wars Season 7
Who Is Ahsoka?
Even people unfamiliar with Ahsoka otherwise have now been told the important bullet-point facts in The Mandalorian and TBoBF. Ahsoka is (sort of a) Jedi who remembers the Clone Wars, she knew both Yoda and Anakin, and she is currently looking for Grand Admiral Thrawn.
Which is possibly the only thing that would require some elaboration, but the show itself will take care of that easily. The fans of Star Wars Rebels already know that Ahsoka should be looking for the (formerly) young Rebel and Jedi Ezra Bridger who was last seen disappearing in the unknown space alongside Admiral Thrawn.
The Story He Always Wanted To Tell
And this is the other interesting element. Because Ahsoka is not the only major non-film character that should appear in the show. Admiral Thrawn is perhaps THE character old-school fans have been wishing to see live since 1990s, and it is typical for Dave Filoni to “smuggle him in” alongside Ahsoka. There have already been rumours that he should be played by Lars Mikkelsen, the actor who lent Thrawn his voice already in Rebels.
So far we have no inkling what is Thrawn’s agenda or where he is in the first place, and what happened to Ezra. Sufficient to say, with Filoni at the helm we can be pretty sure that Ahsoka will be treated faithfully. In fact, I even dare say that for Filoni, The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett were merely testing grounds for the story that he really wanted to tell. We know that Ahsoka is his “child” and this, if anything, should give him the chance to tell everything he ever wanted to tell.
Star Wars: Ahsoka will be produced by Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau and it is expected to air in 2023.
