Friday saw the long-awaited debut, in live-action form, of Ahsoka Tano on “The Mandalorian”.
The fan favorite Jedi character from animated series likes “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” and “Star Wars Rebels,” was brought to life by Rosario Dawson and director Dave Filoni who served as showrunner on both those cartoon series and created the Ahsoka character.
The pair sat down with Vanity Fair recently to discuss the event of Anakin Skywalker’s former Padawan appearing in live-action form and confirmed that it was frequent suggestions from fans that started the ball rolling on Dawson’s casting. The actress says:
“It first came from fans online. Someone tweeted me and fancast me. I retweeted back and I was like, ‘Absolutely, yes please’ and ‘#AhsokaLives.’ And apparently that got the attention of someone who has been doing the Star Wars press for years. She forwarded it to Dave Filoni. That kind of started a whole thing. I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, did I just get fancast in something?'”
Series producers Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni called Dawson right before the first season debuted and got her onboard. While it appears that this is the Ahsoka from after all the events of both previous animated series, Filoni says it is ‘possible’ that “Mandalorian” takes place before the final scenes of ‘Rebels’:
“That’s not necessarily chronological. I think the thing that people will most not understand is they want to go in a linear fashion, but as I learned as a kid, nothing in Star Wars really works in a linear fashion. You do [Episodes] Four, Five and Six and then One, Two, and Three. So in the vein of that history, when you look at the epilogue of Rebels you don’t really know how much time has passed. So, it’s possible that the story I’m telling in The Mandalorian actually takes place prior to that. Possible. I’m saying it’s possible.”
The ending of ‘Rebels’ saw Ahsoka Tano and Mandalorian warrior Sabine Wren setting off to find missing friend, Ezra Bridger, last seen blasting off into hyperspace with Grand Admiral Thrawn.
Meanwhile “Mandalorian” has officially become the first Disney+ series to make an appearance on Nielsen’s recently-launched streaming top ten list. The series came in third for the last week of October – behind only “The Queen’s Gambit” and “The Office” on Netflix.
