This past weekend, fans gathered at the annual Star Wars Celebration, where Lucasfilm gave us updates on several upcoming Star Wars shows and movies, including the new Ahsoka TV show, which will premiere this August on Disney+.
That came complete with a trailer for the new show, which stars Rosario Dawson as Anakin Skywalker’s former padawan Ahsoka Tano.
The teaser gives us our first look at a live-action Grand Admiral Thrawn, the formidable imperial admiral and the main villain of Star Wars: Rebels. In many ways, the Ahsoka show will be a sort of sequel to Rebels. Four of the main characters from that show appear in the Ahsoka trailer: Thrawn, Hera Syndulla, Sabine Wren and a hologram of Ezra Bridger. Ahsoka will follow up on the ending of Rebels, where Thrawn and Ezra were jettisoned into hyperspace by the purrgil whales never to be seen again. During season 2 of The Mandalorian, Ahsoka was looking for Thrawn and presumably Ezra as well.
Lars Mikkelsen plays live-action Thrawn in Ahsoka
Throughout the trailer, Ahsoka is telling Sabine that Thrawn has returned and that he is the “heir to the Empire,” a nod to Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire novel series which introduced Thrawn back in the ’90s. In the official trailer released by Disney on YouTube, the only thing we see is the back of Thrawn’s head. However, an extended version of the trailer was shown at the Star Wars Celebration and leaked online. Disney has been doing its best to scrub it from the internet, and we’re not going to link to it for fear of getting sued, but it’s out there if you go digging. That extended trailer gives us a look at the villain’s face. Lars Mikkelson voiced the character in Rebels and he is returning to bring Thrawn to life in live-action for the first time in Star Wars history.
The extended trailer also gave us more action shots of Sabine, including her wielding a green lightsaber which is presumably Kanun Jarrus’s old blade. In Rebels, Kanun trained Ezra and Sabine in the ways of the Jedi and in lightsaber combat before he tragically died. Sabine uses the lightsaber to duel the mysterious female force wielder named Shin Hati. Hati is believed to be the apprentice of Ray Stevenson’s character Baylan Skoll.
There is also a shot of Ahsoka and Sabine flying next to a purrgil whale in the extended trailer, teasing Ezra’s return. In the season 3 premiere of The Mandalorian, Grogu observes a group of purgill whales while he and Din Djarin are traveling through hyperspace.
Although he doesn’t appear in either version of the trailer, Hayden Christensen has also been confirmed to be reprising his role as Anakin Skywalker in Ahsoka. The trailers heavily feature the World between Worlds from Rebels, which Ahsoka and Ezra used to play with time travel. Perhaps Ahsoka will use the World between Worlds to peak back to a time prior to Anakin getting burned on Mustafar.
In addition to Dawson, Mikkelson and Christensen, Ahsoka will star Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Hera), Natasha Liu Bordizzo (Sabine), Ray Stevenson (Baylan Skoll), Ivanna Sakhno (Shin Hati), and Eman Esfandi (Ezra).
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