Ahead of Ahsoka’s two-episode premiere on Disney+ on August 23, Lucasfilm has dropped a more than 7-minute special look into the history of the character.
The snippet, called A New Star Wars Legacy, features interviews with Ahsoka star Rosario Dawson, Mandalorian creator Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, the guy who created Ahsoka Tano while working under George Lucas for the Emmy-winning animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
The piece also shows how integral the master/apprentice relationship is throughout Star Wars, up to and including young Jedi learner Ahsoka and Anakin Skywalker, and between Star Wars creator Lucas and Filoni. It was the former who envisioned the character Filoni sketched as Anakin’s Padawan, it is explained, and as a result, Ahsoka was first seen by fans as a plucky teen.
Over the course of the series, and in the subsequent Star Wars: Rebels, she matures into adulthood, voiced throughout by Ashley Eckstein.
Dawson first picked up the baton — or literally Ahsoka’s twin lightsabers — in season 2 of The Mandalorian, in an episode directed by Filoni.
Dawson explains, “Ahsoka is one of the most developed characters in Star Wars, period,” and discusses “sinking into” the character through extensive makeup and training to expertly wield lightsabers ambidextrously, as Ahsoka does. “No matter how tired I was, I was like, ‘Sign me up for some more. Sign me up for some more,"” she declares.
The show has Ahsoka reuniting with live-action versions of her Rebels allies — including Mary Elizabeth Winstead as ace pilot and green-skinned Twi’lek Hera Syndulla and Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Mandalorian Sabine Wren — to stop an emerging threat in Lars Mikkelsen‘s Grand Admiral Thrawn.
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