It’s four years since the Star Wars franchise hitched itself to the streaming era and began delivering live-action series, and with their rekindling of the saga’s space-western roots, they’ve been easy to love. We’ve sat through some meandering movies to finally get to the crisp, relevant battle scenes and well-worked episodes in The Mandalorian.
But there’s been something else going on. The Mandalorian’s lead character, Din Djarin, a terse bounty hunter with a debt to Clint Eastwood, was created for the show, but much of the series’ depth comes from its ability to dip into the sprawling Star Wars canon, including the animated series The Clone Wars and Rebels, which aired on Cartoon Network in the 2010s.
Until then, the animated stories and live-action Star Wars had been largely kept apart. But in the second season of The Mandalorian, one of the most-loved Clone Wars characters made the leap into three dimensions: Ahsoka Tano, the first female Jedi hero in a Star Wars story. Another cameo, in The Book of Boba Fett, followed.
Fans rejoiced, because they knew Ahsoka like a sister. They’d watched her grow up from the bratty, impulsive 14-year-old apprentice of Anakin Skywalker at the beginning of The Clone Wars to the wiser and more mature character at the conclusion of Rebels.
Among those fans was Rosario Dawson, who was cast as Ahsoka by The Mandalorian’s creators after more or less angling for the role for several years before the Disney+ show even existed.
“Speaking to Dawson about Ahsoka is a bit like talking to a human Wookieepedia article come to life,” Entertainment Weekly marvelled recently, noting her ability to discuss her character’s journey to the level of individual Clone Wars episodes.
Now, Ahsoka – and Dawson – have their own spin-off, written by Dave Filoni, who created Ahsoka for The Clone Wars. But if the character has all the pedigree anyone could want, getting her to screen was not trivial. Prosthetic technicians reportedly took a while to get the look, with the familiar head tails (called lekku), right.
Dawson, 44, has told media she had to be the fittest she had ever been to carry off the warrior role.
Joining her as the very green and lekku-ed Hera Syndulla is Mary Elizabeth Winstead, the wife of Ewan McGregor, who last year was in his own spin-off series, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Reprising their animated show roles are David Tennant as the voice of a Huyang, a droid lightsaber-maker, and Lars Mikkelsen as Grand Admiral Thrawn.
More casual viewers may find the official Ahsoka trailer a bit inscrutable – it leans heavily into character relationships we may or may not be supposed to know about – but a new bonus trailer, titled Masters and Apprentices, highlights what seems likely to be the underlying theme.
It features no fewer than a dozen Jedi from across the Star Wars canon, from Luke and Obi-Wan to two debutantes in Ahsoka, the Sith villain Baylan Skoll and his apprentice, Shin Hati.
Also included, perhaps significantly: Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka’s former master. Ahsoka fought Darth Vader, the monster Anakin became, in Rebels – and survived to fight another day, something not many can say. Might the payoff in the eight episodes of Ahsoka be a rematch between the former master and apprentice?
That’s the kind of thing the fans will pay a Disney+ sub to see.
Ahsoka will be streaming on Disney +, two-episode debut from Wednesday, August 23, then weekly episodes.
