Countdown to Ahsoka: Character Watch Guide

As we enter into the final weeks before the Ahsoka series comes out (the first two episodes are out on August 23), we at Star Wars News Net thought we’d do a bit of a countdown series of daily articles, in which we revisit the history of the character and her impact on the Star Wars fandom. You can check out our full countdown here, and tune in daily for new articles added to it.



After discussing in detail everything we know about the series, and also many of the open questions we still have, today we'll start going down memory lane and review the evolution of the character through the years in a single piece. Now, in the days and weeks to come, we'll be revisiting most of these animated and live-action appearances in more detail, but for some of our readers who may not be up to date with her animated history, this is a good place to start.


<h2>The Clone Wars Movie (2008)</h2>


The 2008 Clone Wars theatrical movie marked Ahsoka's first appearance in the Star Wars galaxy. The character grew out of George Lucas' desire that Anakin would have a padawan during the Clone Wars. After Revenge of the Sith, Lucas started developing the animation division and brought on Dave Filoni to help him with the movie and the subsequent animated series -- Ahsoka was basically Filoni's creation from the beginning, with Lucas overseeing in the early days.



In The Clone Wars, Ahsoka was a 14-year-old Togruta sent by Master Yoda to the battlefield to be Anakin's apprentice. The two didn't initially get along very well and were often frustrated with one another. As an annoying teenager, Ahsoka referred to Anakin as 'Skyguy' (in turn, she was 'Snips' to him), and it was her overall attitude that made Star Wars fans turn against her. It was yet another Jar Jar Binks situation, where devoted fans immediately rejected a new character; if only Twitter had been around back then...



We will be discussing The Clone Wars movie more in detail on its 15th anniversary, on August 15.






<h2>The Clone Wars Animated Show (2008-2020)</h2>


The Clone Wars animated series is perhaps the piece of Star Wars content that has influenced today's fandom the most since the prequels came out. The show's characters continue to be a relevant part of the story that is being told now, between Bo-Katan and Cad Bane, to the clones and their spin-off series The Bad Batch, to, of course, Ahsoka Tano. Voiced by Ashley Eckstein, she was a pivotal part of the series from the very beginning, and it was Filoni and Lucas' commitment to exploring the character in a deep way that led fans to appreciate her more and more until she eventually became a straight-up fan favorite.



People have different arguments about why and when that turn happened, but here is the bottom line -- Dave Filoni, George Lucas, and the rest of the team treated her like an actual character, one who grew up and learned, who had flaws, who experienced fear, but was mostly brave; someone who evolved. And it was in that evolution, both physical (her look changes a lot as the series goes on, as would a normal teenager over three years) and emotional, that fans saw a character to embrace. She became a symbol of what the Jedi Order should be, the polar opposite of Anakin, who represented what the Jedi Order would become. It is that contrast that made her season 5 exit so painful to watch, but also what added so much more weight to her future appearances. The character stood for something.







The behind-the-scenes history of the series is also very interesting. The first five seasons were made before the Disney acquisition. In early 2013, Disney announced that the sixth season would be shorter, with only 13 episodes, and they would be canceling plans for all future seasons (seasons 7 and 8 were in the early stages of development, something Filoni has discussed throughout the years). The sixth season would stream on Netflix and it would be the last one, because the team was now moving over to a brand-new series -- Star Wars: Rebels. However, that was not the end. After a long fan campaign, in July 2018, during the 10th-anniversary panel for The Clone Wars at San Diego Comic-Con, Dave Filoni and the team announced that they would be making a 12-episode seventh season, which would include the long-discussed 'Siege of Mandalore' arc. Season 7 would premiere on Disney Plus in the first half of 2020, with its final four episodes running concurrently with the events of Revenge of the Sith.



We will be discussing each season of The Clone Wars where Ahsoka shows up in more detail in future articles over the next few weeks. Stay tuned!






<h2>Star Wars: Rebels (2014-2018)</h2>


Perhaps one of the things that makes the character of Ahsoka so inseparable from Dave Filoni is that we can really track the evolution of either one by looking at where the other one was at any point in history. In 2008, they were both very young in their Star Wars adventures, but with The Clone Wars series, they grew up; the student became the master when at the end of season 5 the two of them separated from their teachers. Prior to their live-action debut with The Mandalorian, came adulthood in the form of Star Wars: Rebels.



The Disney XD series that started airing in 2014 was really the fulfillment of the promise of what Star Wars animation could be. It was a way to bring young fans into a galaxy far, far away; a way to explore meaningful stories with engaging characters that become more complex and thus appealing to older fans; and it was a way to tie into the rest of the galaxy to have a sense of belonging and rich history and context, but never feel like it owed anything to the larger story. The series is focused on a group of rebels against the Empire. But as their adventures start to raise the attention of both friends and foes alike, they run into different people that will either help them or go up against them.







One of them is Ahsoka Tano, who had become a Fulcrum agent at that point, i.e., a rebel informant. Ahsoka appears at the end of the first season and plays a pivotal part in the second season, assisting Kanan and Ezra with their Jedi business, and Hera and the rest of the crew with their Rebellion affairs. She didn't last long, though, as the second season culminated with a fight between her and Vader, after which we don't see her again until the very end of the series.



Despite that, this is a very important show going into Ahsoka, as many of its characters will transition into live-action and play an important role there. Ahsoka is looking for Grand Admiral Thrawn in the new series, a villain the Rebels know a thing or two about fighting, but one she still hasn't met -- or so we think. Not only is it a very important aspect of Ahsoka's adult life, but it is also the predecessor of what is coming next.



We'll be looking in detail at all four seasons of Star Wars: Rebels over the next few weeks.






<h2>The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett (2020, 2021)</h2>


As Dave Filoni moved into live-action with the first season of The Mandalorian, he started thinking about how he could tell more stories about the characters he created for animation. Perhaps not the first, but likely the most important one on his list was Ahsoka Tano, who finally showed up in the second season of the series to aid Din Djarin on his quest of finding a Jedi to train and raise Grogu. It was just another episode in Mando's journey, but a very special one for fans. He needed to achieve something and to do that, he had to meet a certain character who would ask something of him in return for that favor. Once he completed it, the two would go on with their separate journeys.



But this was no ordinary mission for the viewer, because it was also the first time Rosario Dawson was playing the character. The episode was very well received and as a result, Dave Filoni got his wish granted -- a spin-off series focused entirely on Ahsoka. However, Ahsoka's appearance in The Mandalorian had leaked months in advance, as well as Dawson's involvement. This was not the case, however, with The Book of Boba Fett. In Chapter 6 of the first spin-off from The Mandalorian, Ahsoka would cameo in a very significant capacity -- once again, she helped Mando on his journey and prevented him from meeting Grogu before it was the right time, but her appearance also opened up so many questions. And the first one is, when did Ahsoka first meet Luke Skywalker, and what was that conversation like?



We've long theorized that we'd be seeing them back together in the Ahsoka series, but since we've had so many other announcements since then, most of us had forgotten about this detail. With Hayden Christensen's rumored appearance as well, perhaps we could see a triple reunion with Ahsoka, Luke and Anakin all on screen. The possibilities are endless right now, but we know one thing -- Dave Filoni does like to prioritize story over fan service, even if he also enjoys the latter. As we've explained, both of Ahsoka's appearances were motivated by the story.



We will also be revisiting both of these episodes before Ahsoka comes out as part of our 'Countdown to Ahsoka' series.






<h2>Tales of the Jedi (2022)</h2>


Ahsoka was also the central focus of three out of six episodes from the animated series of shorts Tales of the Jedi. In them, we see her birth, previously unseen storytelling of her time as a padawan, and her post-Order 66 adventures as the Jedi she was always meant to be. They are three wonderful episodes of Star Wars animation that Dave Filoni wrote out of mere nostalgia for his days in that medium, and they definitely deserve some attention.



We will also be revisiting Tales of the Jedi as we head into Ahsoka.


<h2>Small Ahsoka appearances in other media</h2>


Besides all of the above, Ahsoka Tano has also appeared in six episodes of Forces of Destiny, a YouTube animated micro-series highlighting female characters across the entire Star Wars galaxy. She is heard at the end of The Rise of Skywalker whispering to Rey as Rey tries to find the strength of all the past Jedi and defeat Palpatine once and for all; this could hint that by that point, she's dead, as everyone else who voice-cameos in that scene is, but nobody has confirmed it yet. Additionally, she also had her own novel, focused on what happened to her right after Order 66, written by E.K. Johnston, though several aspects from the novel have already been retconned by Dave Filoni.







It's safe to say at this point that Ahsoka is one of the most developed characters in Star Wars history. Because of Dave Filoni's involvement in the New Republic era-set projects, we expect to see her around for a long time. (A second season of the series is supposedly in the plans and will depend on how the first one performs; plus, we definitely expect her to make her big-screen debut with Filoni's untitled movie.)



The first two episodes of the live-action series will start streaming on Disney Plus on August 23.



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