Star Wars: Ahsoka: Key data
– Launching in August 2023
– Spin-off collection from The Mandalorian
– Developed by Dave Filoni and The Mandalorian creator Jon Favreau
– Filoni performing as showrunner
– Rosario Dawson, Natasha Liu Bordizzo, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Eman Esfandi and Lars Mikkelsen head up the forged
– Filming wrapped in October 2022
– Official trailer was revealed at Star Wars Celebration 2023
Star Wars: Ahsoka is about to proceed the story of some of the pivotal characters in that well-known galaxy far, distant. Having debuted as Anakin Skywalker’s apprentice in animated collection The Clone Wars, Ahsoka Tano has since turned up as one of many founders of the Insurgent Alliance in Star Wars Rebels, and made the transfer to live-action in The Mandalorian and The Ebook of Boba Fett. Now she’s getting a TV collection of her very personal.
Among the many many bulletins on the newest Star Wars Celebration in April 2023, we discovered that Ahsoka TV present will debut on Disney Plus in August 2023. We have additionally been handled to a primary trailer, which confirms that Ahsoka – and former Rebels allies Sabine Wren, Hera Syndulla and Ezra Bridger – will conflict with an previous adversary, the notorious Grand Admiral Thrawn.
Together with The Mandalorian and The Ebook of Boba Fett, Ahsoka is constructing as much as a “climactic” film that’ll tie all of the disparate components of this era of Star Wars “historical past” collectively. It goes with out saying, then, that huge spoilers from each exhibits – in addition to The Clone Wars and Rebels – lie forward, together with details about the forged and potential storylines.
The Pressure is powerful with Ahsoka, so learn on to find the data you search earlier than the present leaps into motion on one of many world’s finest streaming companies.
Star Wars: Ashoka launch date: August 2023
It was confirmed on the Star Wars Celebration occasion that happened in London in April 2023 that Star Wars: Ahsoka will debut on Disney Plus a while in August 2023 – actual date TBC. Which means it’s going to be the following live-action Star Wars TV present to emerge from that galaxy far, distant after The Mandalorian season 3 – although within the meantime we’ll be capable to watch animated anthology collection Star Wars: Visions, which streams from Might 4 (aka Star Wars Day).
The Ahsoka TV present was one in every of many new Star Wars and Marvel TV exhibits introduced on the Disney Investor Day in December 2020. The official Star Wars Twitter account confirmed manufacturing started in Might 2022, with filming wrapping in October.
Who’s Ahsoka Tano?: the Jedi’s backstory defined
“When gone am I, the final of a Jedi will you be,” a dying Yoda instructed Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi – however the smart previous Jedi Grasp was solely appropriate from a sure viewpoint. Ahsoka Tano isn’t technically a Jedi – she left the Order earlier than passing the related trials – however, in each different regard, she has all the required {qualifications}.
So, who’s Ahsoka Tano? For one, she made her first look in 2008, within the animated Clone Wars film that arrange the long-running TV present. The Togruta teen subsequently served as Anakin Skywalker’s Padawan apprentice all through the eponymous battle.
A extremely revered commander within the Republic forces, she fought with a particular two-lightsaber fashion, and was nicknamed “Snips” by her grasp, owing to her supposedly snippy angle. In return, she referred to Anakin as “Sky Man”.
Ahsoka went on to play a key position in the formation of the Insurgent Alliance in Star Wars Rebels, set throughout the run-up to A New Hope. She then made her live-action debut in The Mandalorian season 2 episode 5, ‘The Jedi’, and has since proven up in The Ebook of Boba Fett‘s sixth episode, ‘From the Desert Comes a Stranger’. Her voice may also heard among the many choir of Jedi giving Rey a pep discuss in The Rise of Skywalker.
Star Wars: Ahsoka trailer
Warrior. Outcast. Insurgent. Jedi.
The Star Wars: Ahsoka trailer debuted at Star Wars Celebration 2023, and it is one thing of a Star Wars Rebels reunion. In addition to that includes loads of scenes with Ahsoka, the teaser supplies our first have a look at the live-action incarnations of a number of members of the Ghost crew: Mandalorian warrior Sabine Wren, ace pilot Hera Syndulla and (very briefly) trainee Jedi Ezra Bridger. We additionally get to see – albeit from the again – Star Wars Rebels Massive Unhealthy Grand Admiral Thrawn, who’s returned from the far reaches of area to make life troublesome for the nascent New Republic.
The Ahsoka trailer additionally introduces a pair of Darkish Aspect Pressure wielders within the type of Baylan Skoll and Shin Hati, and confirms returns for each New Republic chief Mon Mothma, and Huyang, the traditional droid who helped Padawan learners assemble their lightsabers in The Clone Wars.
Star Wars: Ahsoka forged
This is what the Ahsoka TV present forged at present seems to be like:
- Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka Tano
- Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Sabine Wren
- Eman Esfandi as Ezra Bridger
- Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Common Hera Syndulla
- Lars Mikkelsen as Grand Admiral Thrawn
- Ivanna Sakhno as Shin Hati
- Ray Stevenson as Baylan Skoll
- David Tennant as Huyang
- Genevieve O’Reilly as Mon Mothma
- Diana Lee Inosanto as Morgan Elsbeth
- Chopper as himself
Though Ashley Eckstein voiced Ahsoka all through The Clone Wars and Rebels, Rosario Dawson (Sin Metropolis, Daredevil) has performed the character in live-action Star Wars initiatives. Dawson returns because the Jedi within the new Disney Plus collection.
Dawson will probably be joined by Natasha Liu Bordizzo, changing Tiya Sircar who voiced graffiti-loving Mandalorian explosives professional Sabine Wren throughout 4 seasons of Star Wars Rebels. The present’s Star Wars Celebration 2022 panel in Anaheim additionally confirmed a return for surly astromech droid C1-10P, higher often called Chopper. Then, in September 2022, The Hollywood Reporter (opens in new tab) confirmed Eman Esfandi will play aspiring Jedi Ezra Bridger, a job originated by Taylor Grey in Rebels.
Further members of the forged have been introduced at Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London.
Birds of Prey’s Mary Elizabeth Winstead will play Hera Syndulla, who captained the Ghost all through Rebels (the place she was voiced by Vanessa Marshall), and has since been promoted to the rank of normal within the New Republic. (Following the affirmation of Hera’s return, the one member of the Ghost crew who is not undoubtedly returning to motion in Ahsoka is Lasat muscle Zeb Orrelios. However, seeing as he turned up in The Mandalorian season 3, we’ll be extraordinarily disenchanted if we do not get a full-on Star Wars Rebels reunion someplace down the road.)
There’ll even be new roles for Pacific Rim: Rebellion‘s Ivanna Sakhno and Punisher: Conflict Zone/Black Sails star Ray Stevenson as Darkish Siders Shin Hati and Baylan Skoll. (This will probably be Stevenson’s second half in Star Wars, as he beforehand voiced Mandalorian warrior Gar Saxon – now deceased – in each The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels.)
However arguably essentially the most thrilling piece of Ahsoka casting information – for Star Wars Rebels followers, not less than – is the id of the actor taking part in Grand Admiral Thrawn, the blue-skinned Imperial mastermind who first appeared in Timothy Zahn’s much-loved collection of (now non-canonical) Nineties novels, beginning with Inheritor to the Empire. Whereas fellow Rebels veterans Ahsoka, Sabine, Hera and Ezra have all been recast, actor Lars Mikkelsen is following the character from animation to live-action. That is nice information for the Ahsoka TV present – not solely was Mikkelsen suitably chilling in Rebels, he additionally has a observe report taking part in memorable villains after his look in Sherlock season 3 finale ‘His Final Vow’.
The Star Wars: Ahsoka trailer additionally confirms a return for Diana Lee Inosanto, who performed Thrawn acolyte Morgan Elsbeth in The Mandalorian season 2. And different actors reprising their roles from earlier Star Wars initiatives embody Genevieve O’Reilly as former Insurgent and New Republic Chancellor Mon Mothma, and David Tennant as lightsaber-expert droid Huyang.
Rumors additionally persist that Hayden Christensen is about to follow-up his spectacular return as Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker in Obi-Wan Kenobi – you’ll be able to watch Ahsoka showrunner Dave Filoni neither verify nor deny Christensen’s return in an interview he gave to CinemaBlend (opens in new tab) at Star Wars Celebration 2023.
And seeing as Ahsoka exists at an identical level within the Star Wars timeline to The Mandalorian and The Ebook of Boba Fett – try our information on how one can watch Star Wars to be able to perceive how every little thing matches collectively – do not be shocked if the likes of Katee Sackhoff’s Bo-Katan Kryze, Pedro Pascal’s Mando/Din Djarin, and even Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker make cameos appearances within the collection. There’s additionally a chance of The Ebook of Boba Fett star Temuera Morrison turning as much as play Ahsoka Tano’s Clone Trooper buddy Captain Rex – Boba and Rex have been born in the identical Petri dish, in spite of everything.
In reality, seeing as all of the exhibits on this a part of the Star Wars universe are constructing as much as a “climactic” occasion, it will be a giant shock if we do not see any big-name visitor stars from elsewhere in that galaxy far, distant in Ahsoka. Han Solo, Leia Organa and Lando Calrissian are all energetic at this level within the timeline, so something may occur…
Star Wars: Ahsoka showrunner and administrators
Lucasfilm Govt Inventive Director Dave Filoni co-created Ahsoka Tano alongside George Lucas for The Clone Wars and – having labored extensively on The Mandalorian and The Ebook of Boba Fett – returns to name the photographs on her TV present.
In addition to being showrunner on Star Wars: Ahsoka, it has been confirmed that Filoni will direct not less than one episode. Different administrators on the present embody Steph Inexperienced (The Ebook of Boba Fett), Peter Ramsey (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse), Jennifer Getzinger (Jessica Jones), Geeta Patel (Home of the Dragon) and Rick Famuyiwa (The Mandalorian).
Star Wars: Ahsoka story
For the good thing about anybody who hasn’t watched the animated Star Wars exhibits, right here’s a quick historical past of Ahsoka Tano’s life and occasions.
Having served the Republic with distinction all through the Clone Wars, she left the Jedi Order underneath a cloud throughout The Clone Wars season 5. Though she was finally exonerated for bombing the Jedi Temple – she’d been framed by her buddy and fellow Padawan Barriss Offee – she determined to not return, and went out into the galaxy solo.
Through the last days of the Clone Wars, she helped Bo-Katan Kryze take away Darth Maul from the Mandalorian throne, and was on her approach to return the previous Sith Lord to Jedi custody when the Emperor initiated Order 66. With some assist from her previous buddy (and Clone Trooper) Captain Rex – whose mind-controlling inhibitor chip she surgically eliminated – Ahsoka survived the Jedi purge and went into hiding. Apparently, one of many episodes from 2022 anthology collection Tales of the Jedi (obtainable on Disney Plus) exhibits how an opportunity encounter with one of many Empire’s Jedi-hunting Inquisitors persuaded her to rejoin the combat.
Ahsoka turned up once more in Star Wars Rebels, set round 15 years after the Emperor got here to energy. It was finally revealed that Ahsoka was the mysterious Fulcrum, an agent who helped pull disparate cells of freedom fighters collectively to type the Insurgent Alliance.
She additionally fought a fateful duel together with her former grasp. When she eliminated a portion of Darth Vader’s helmet together with her lightsaber – a lot as Obi-Wan did within the Obi-Wan Kenobi TV present – she grew to become one of many few folks within the galaxy to understand his true id. The Vader/Anakin Skywalker connection wouldn’t change into widespread data for a number of many years, with the key finally being leaked to break Leia Organa’s post-Return of the Jedi political aspirations in Claudia Grey’s 2016 novel Bloodline.
Ahsoka barely made it out of the duel with Vader alive, however she was saved by a future model of Jedi apprentice Ezra Bridger. He pulled her into the so-called World Between Worlds, a mystical realm the place the same old guidelines of time and area don’t apply. By the point of the Rebels epilogue – set a while after Return of the Jedi – Ahsoka had by some means returned to the conventional actuality of that galaxy far, distant.
Apart from the flashbacks of Tales of the Jedi, her most up-to-date canonical appearances got here in The Mandalorian and The Ebook of Boba Fett.
In The Mandalorian episode 13, in any other case often called ‘The Jedi’, she met Din Djarin (aka the Mandalorian) and Child Yoda. Whereas communing with the Little one, she discovered his actual identify was Grogu, and gave Mando some pointers to assist discover another Jedi – who simply occurred to be Luke Skywalker.
She confirmed up once more in The Ebook of Boba Fett’s sixth chapter, ‘From the Desert Comes a Stranger’. The episode offered affirmation that Ahsoka has been in touch with Luke Skywalker, as she paid him a go to at his new Jedi academy on Ossus. She additionally counselled him about Grogu’s coaching, and instructed him that he reminded her of his late dad. When Luke requested if he would see her once more, she replied with a cryptic “Maybe”.
So what will we find out about Star Wars: Ahsoka‘s plot? Properly, it’s going to have loads of present canon to work from, and there’s no person on the planet who is aware of how one can navigate the Star Wars timeline higher than Dave Filoni. Throughout his earlier life as supervising director on The Clone Wars, Filoni co-created Ahsoka Tano with George Lucas. He then went on to shepherd her by means of seven seasons of The Clone Wars and several other visitor appearances on Rebels. He additionally directed her episodes of The Mandalorian and The Ebook of Boba Fett, and clearly has a long-standing plan for the route of the character.
In reality, for this reason he insisted that Ahsoka should not be the Jedi to coach Grogu in The Mandalorian. “I used to be telling Jon [Favreau, Mandalorian showrunner] that as a lot as I wished to have Ahsoka within the present, she will’t take this child on,” he instructed Empire (opens in new tab) journal in March 2023. “That‘s simply not what I’ve deliberate.”
Going by StarWars.com (opens in new tab)’s unique announcement, it seems to be like the brand new collection will decide up quickly after Ahsoka’s assembly with Mando and Grogu: “After making her lengthy awaited live-action debut in The Mandalorian,” the positioning’s article reads, “Ahsoka Tano’s story will proceed in a restricted collection.”
It’s at present unknown whether or not that Rebels epilogue takes place earlier than or after Ahsoka confirmed up in The Mandalorian. Nevertheless, we do know (from footage screened at Star Wars Celebration 2022) that the animated present’s closing scenes have been recreated in live-action for Ahsoka.
As is historically the case with Lucasfilm, stable particulars of the Star Wars: Ahsoka plot are skinny on the bottom. The trailer does supply up a number of clues, nonetheless – particularly within the snippets of dialogue.
It begins with Ahsoka Tano asserting that, “One thing’s coming. One thing darkish. I sense it.” New character Baylan Skoll, a Darkish Aspect Pressure-wielder, then chips in to talk of a “new starting. For some, struggle. For others, energy.”
An important line, nonetheless, arguably considerations the comeback tour of an notorious Chiss officer, final seen disappearing (together with Ezra Bridger) into deep area within the Star Wars Rebels finale:
“I began listening to whispers about Thrawn’s return,” says Ahsoka. “As inheritor to the Empire.”
This is not only a sly callback to the aforementioned Timothy Zahn novels. We might lengthy suspected that Thrawn was going to be the primary antagonist in Ahsoka, not least as a result of Ahsoka requested Morgan Elsbeth about her “grasp”‘s whereabouts in The Mandalorian season 2. The brand new trailer supplies definitive affirmation, nonetheless, even offering a glimpse of the person himself, albeit from the rear. (The fortunate attendees at Star Wars Celebration 2023 additionally acquired to see Thrawn’s face.)
How Thrawn (and presumably Ezra) have made it again to this nook of the galaxy is unquestionably going to be one of many massive questions answered by the Ahsoka TV present. May it have one thing to do with the purrgil (area whales) who made an look in hyperspace in season 3 of The Mandalorian, maybe?
It seems to be like Thrawn’s affect will stretch means past Ahsoka, as his imminent return was mentioned by the Imperial Shadow Council in The Mandalorian season 3 episode ‘The Spies’. Certainly, it seems to be like he is being arrange because the Massive Unhealthy for this complete period of the Star Wars galaxy because the motion builds as much as the “climactic” film (directed by Filoni) that can tie up the interweaving plot threads from The Mandalorian, Ahsoka, The Ebook of Boba Fett and (we’re guessing) the upcoming Skeleton Crew.
With The Mandalorian tackling the re-emergence of the Empire from a Mandalorian perspective, and The Ebook of Boba Fett hanging out within the legal underworld, Ahsoka appears primed to discover what it means for the New Republic and what’s left of the Jedi order.
With Hera now a normal within the New Republic army and Mon Mothma on the head of its authorities, Ahsoka has associates in excessive locations. However we all know from each The Mandalorian and the Star Wars sequel films (the place Empire spin-off group the First Order have risen to energy in secret) that the New Republic are frustratingly sluggish to behave on the rising Imperial risk on the Outer Rim. Which means Ahsoka could also be left to tackle Thrawn’s forces alone – or, not less than, with the assistance of her previous associates from Star Wars Rebels.
It is also clear that she’ll be going through a brand new enemies from the Darkish Aspect within the type of Baylan Skoll and his Pressure-wielding apprentice (as confirmed by actor Ivanna Sakhno at Star Wars Celebration (opens in new tab)) Shin Hati. It is protected to imagine they are not Sith – following the deaths of Darths Vader and Sidious, the arch-enemies of the Jedi are unlikely to make one other look till The Rise of Skywalker – however they’re clearly highly effective sufficient to provide Ahsoka some critical complications.
Ahsoka might have a component to play in restoring the Jedi Order, too. “The Jedi fell a very long time in the past,” she acknowledges within the trailer. “There aren’t many left.”
“Maybe it’s time to start once more,” replies Huyang, an historic droid who’s been related to the Jedi for millennia.
Having turned her again on the Jedi many years earlier, we expect it is unlikely Ahsoka will be part of forces with Luke Skywalker at his (in the end doomed) Jedi Academy on Ossus, so her involvement could also be extra advisory than hands-on. Even so, the TV present that bears her identify clearly has a giant position to play in shaping the Star Wars galaxy because it approaches the period of The Pressure Awakens, The Final Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker.
For extra Star Wars-based content material, learn our interview with The Mandalorian season 3 director-executive producer Rick Famuyiwa. Moreover, discover out which Star Wars TV collection made it onto our greatest Disney Plus exhibits checklist.