Star Wars Is Officially Failing Ahsoka Tano


Recent news about Star Wars‘ upcoming Disney+ slate proves that the franchise is failing one of its greatest characters. With The Mandalorian and Grogu flying into theaters on May 22, the pressure is on Star Wars to bring the magic of the galaxy back to the big screen. Since the divisive release of 2019’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Star Wars has operated more as a streaming franchise than anything else, using the freedom of the Disney+ platform to expand the brand’s narrative scope.

Largely, the franchise’s live-action Disney+ content has opened up a whole new era of the Star Wars timeline, with The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka, and Star Wars: Skeleton Crew introducing viewers to that crucial period of time between Return of the Jedi and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. However, now that Din Djarin and Grogu are heading to cinemas, the last New Republic-era Star Wars show currently left standing is Ahsoka.

The first series premiered in August 2023, finally giving one of Star Wars‘ most popular animated characters the time in the spotlight she so deserved. Though Ahsoka essentially functions as a live-action sequel to Star Wars Rebels, the show forever altered the characters’ and the audience’s understanding of the Star Wars universe. Unfortunately, recent confirmation that Ahsoka season 2’s release has been pushed back to “early 2027” feels incredibly unfair for one of Star Wars’ most pivotal characters. That’s at least a three-and-a-half-year hiatus, if not more, between seasons — extreme, even for streaming. Ahsoka Tano deserves more.

Ahsoka Tano Is One Of Star Wars’ Most Important Characters

There’s no denying that Ahsoka Tano has become one of Star Wars’ most important characters. Despite her origin as an animated retcon, Ahsoka’s role in Anakin Skywalker’s life, her relationship with Padmé Amidala, her history with Mandalore, her status as an Order 66 survivor, and her involvement in the Rebellion’s earliest efforts have made her integral to the overarching Skywalker saga. She’s even met and advised the one and only Luke Skywalker, and is currently training a new Mandalorian Jedi.

















A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away · Eight Questions
How Well Do You Know Star Wars?
“The Force will be with you. Always.”

🗡️Jedi OrderLight-side guardians

The SithRule of two

⚙️The RebellionA new hope

🪓Bounty HuntersThis is the way

👑The EmpireOrder 66

01

The original Star Wars film — later retitled Episode IV: A New Hope — opened in just 32 American theatres and proceeded to become the highest-grossing film of its era, redefining what summer blockbusters could be. In which year did it premiere?




✓ Correct! 1977 — specifically May 25. 20th Century Fox had so little faith in the project they only opened it in 32 theatres at first; queues quickly stretched around the block, and the film expanded to over 1,000 screens within months. It earned $307 million in its initial domestic run, won six Academy Awards (with another four nominations) and inverted Hollywood’s economics for the next 50 years.

✗ Wrong. The answer is 1977. 1975 is when the script was being shopped around. 1979 is when Star Trek: The Motion Picture released as a Star Wars-shaped countermove. 1980 is The Empire Strikes Back. The original Star Wars is May 25, 1977.

02

A New Hope’s writer-director was a then-32-year-old American Graffiti veteran who’d struggled to get the project greenlit and famously took back-end profit and merchandising rights in lieu of a higher salary — the deal that would build a billion-dollar company. He returned to direct the prequels but stepped away from the original-trilogy sequels. Name him.




✓ Correct! George Lucas. The merchandising rights he kept (because Fox didn’t value them) became the financial bedrock of Lucasfilm and the basis of the modern toys-and-licensing megabusiness. After A New Hope, Lucas produced but didn’t direct Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner) or Return of the Jedi (Richard Marquand), then directed all three prequels (1999–2005). He sold Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012 and stepped away from creative control of the sequels.

✗ Wrong. The answer is George Lucas. Steven Spielberg was Lucas’s close friend (and the godfather of his post-A-New-Hope career) but never directed a Star Wars film. Coppola was Lucas’s mentor at USC and at American Zoetrope. Irvin Kershner directed Empire Strikes Back. The original is Lucas’s.

03

In 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader delivers cinema’s most-misquoted line at the climax of his Cloud City duel with Luke Skywalker. Vader severs Luke’s hand and reveals their relationship. The exact line is — for the record — “No, I am your father.” What relationship does it confirm?




✓ Correct! Vader is Anakin Skywalker, Luke’s father. The reveal was so jealously guarded that Mark Hamill was only told the real line on set the day they shot it (the script said “Obi-Wan killed your father”), and even James Earl Jones recorded the dub without knowing the full plot context. The line — commonly misquoted as “Luke, I am your father” — rewrote what trilogies could pull off and is broadly considered cinema’s most famous twist.

✗ Wrong. The answer is that Vader is Luke’s father, Anakin Skywalker. The whole foundation of the Skywalker saga collapses to this single twist: Anakin (the Jedi prodigy of the prequels) becomes Vader after his fall. Luke and Leia are revealed in Return of the Jedi to be his twin children, separated at birth.

04

Yoda — the green, ear-twitching Jedi Master — was puppeted and voiced from his Empire Strikes Back debut through the prequels and the sequels by a single Muppet-show-veteran performer who also voices Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear. Name him.




✓ Correct! Frank Oz — longtime Jim Henson collaborator and voice/puppet work on Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal, Sam Eagle and Grover. Oz puppeted Yoda directly through The Phantom Menace before CGI took over for Attack of the Clones onward, but he’s continued to voice the character through the sequels and animated series. Yoda’s syntax was developed jointly by Lucas and Oz to feel old, foreign and hard-won.

✗ Wrong. The answer is Frank Oz. Jim Henson was Oz’s mentor and collaborator (he created the Muppets) but didn’t voice Yoda. Steve Whitmire took over Kermit after Henson’s 1990 death. Brian Henson is Jim’s son and runs the Henson company today. Yoda is Frank Oz’s.

05

In a deal that reshaped Hollywood, Disney acquired Lucasfilm Ltd. for $4.05 billion in cash and stock — bringing Star Wars, Indiana Jones, ILM and Skywalker Sound under the Disney umbrella. The deal also kicked off the sequel trilogy production. In what year did Disney close the acquisition?




✓ Correct! 2012 — specifically October 30. The deal was announced with simultaneous reveal that a Star Wars Episode VII was being developed for a 2015 release. Lucas had been quietly preparing his exit from Lucasfilm for years; Kathleen Kennedy had been brought in as co-chair months earlier specifically to take over. The Force Awakens came out three years later, in December 2015, kicking off the modern era.

✗ Wrong. The answer is 2012. 2009 is when Disney acquired Marvel ($4 billion). 2010 is the year before Lucas began signalling exit plans. 2014 is when production proper began on The Force Awakens. Lucasfilm joined Disney on October 30, 2012.

06

The Mandalorian launched as Disney+’s flagship original on November 12, 2019 — the day the streaming service itself launched. Created by Jon Favreau and run by Dave Filoni, the show centres on a helmeted bounty hunter who reluctantly becomes a foster father to “The Child” (Grogu). What is the Mandalorian’s real name?




✓ Correct! Din Djarin — played by Pedro Pascal under the helmet (with body double Brendan Wayne handling much of the physical work). The Mandalorian is widely credited with reviving Star Wars on TV, popularising the StageCraft LED-volume virtual production technology now used across Hollywood, and turning baby Yoda — Grogu — into the meme-economy phenomenon of late 2019. Three seasons have aired with a feature film, The Mandalorian & Grogu, set for May 2026.

✗ Wrong. The answer is Din Djarin. Boba Fett is the famous bounty hunter from the original trilogy, with his own Disney+ spinoff (The Book of Boba Fett, 2021). Cobb Vanth is the Tatooine marshal played by Timothy Olyphant. Bo-Katan Kryze is the Mandalorian princess played by Katee Sackhoff. The Mandalorian himself is Din Djarin.

07

Order 66 — the secret directive that turns the Republic’s clone troopers against their Jedi commanders and effectively ends the Jedi Order — is dramatised in the climactic third act of which prequel film?




✓ Correct! Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005). Palpatine’s “Execute Order 66” comm to the clone armies leads to the methodical, planet-by-planet liquidation of the Jedi Order — one of the saga’s most operatic sequences, scored to John Williams’ “Anakin’s Betrayal” cue. The same film features Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side, the Mustafar duel with Obi-Wan, and his rebirth as Darth Vader in the suit. Widely re-evaluated as the best of the prequels.

✗ Wrong. The answer is Revenge of the Sith. Phantom Menace ends with Qui-Gon’s death and the unveiling of Darth Maul. Attack of the Clones ends with the Clone Wars beginning. Rogue One is set just before A New Hope, after Order 66 has long since happened. The Order 66 sequence is the climax of Episode III.

08

Andor (2022–25) is widely regarded as the most adult, politically literate Star Wars project ever made — a slow-burn prequel to Rogue One charting Cassian Andor’s radicalisation against the Empire. The series was created and showrun by a writer/director best known for the original Bourne trilogy and Michael Clayton. Name him.




✓ Correct! Tony Gilroy. He’d previously been brought in for extensive Rogue One reshoots in 2016, and Lucasfilm gave him near-total creative independence on Andor. Season 1 (12 episodes, 2022) is widely regarded as Star Wars’ finest dramatic writing ever; Season 2 (also 12 episodes, in four three-episode jumps across 2025) closes the gap to Rogue One’s opening scene. Gilroy’s prior credits: Bourne Identity / Supremacy / Ultimatum / Legacy, plus directing Michael Clayton (2007).

✗ Wrong. The answer is Tony Gilroy. Rian Johnson directed The Last Jedi (2017). Jon Favreau created The Mandalorian and is Lucasfilm’s Disney+-era animation/live-action lieutenant. Dave Filoni runs the Filoniverse (Clone Wars, Rebels, Ahsoka, the upcoming Heir to the Empire film). Andor is Tony Gilroy’s.

The Force Has Spoken · Final Tally
Your Galactic Standing

🗡️

/ 8

Jedi Master — or moisture farmer on Tatooine?

That’s not to say that Ahsoka’s live-action transition has been flawless, or that Ahsoka is the strongest Star Wars show Disney+ has produced (it’s unlikely that Andor will ever be topped). Still, given her connection to Din Djarina and Grogu and her influence in the New Republic era, it’s hard to fathom why they’re pushing Ahsoka season 2’s release so far beyond The Mandalorian and Grogu. Surely, Star Wars’ first theatrical outing in seven years should bring enough hype and provide a perfect introduction for Ahsoka season 2.

Unless Ahsoka season 2’s story opts to remain in Peridea for its entire run instead, completely ignoring Hera Syndulla, Ezra Bridger, and Mon Mothma’s connection to the New Republic, why make audiences wait so long for Ahsoka Tano’s return?

Star Wars Has Left Ahsoka Stranded In A Galaxy Far, Far Away

Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka Tano in Ahsoka
Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka Tano in Ahsoka

There could be a multitude of business reasons behind the decision to push Ahsoka‘s return to 2027, whether that’s because Dave Filoni’s new position as Chief Creative Officer and Co-President of Lucasfilm has caused post-production delays, or because Lucasfilm wants to pivot to a one movie, one mainline Disney+ show per year schedule. In that case, Ahsoka‘s previous 2026 slot has already been taken up by the animated dark-side hit Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord.

A lot is happening in 2027, though, including Star Wars‘ 50th anniversary and the release of Ryan Gosling and Shawn Levy’s standalone cinematic adventure, Star Wars: Starfighter. Maybe Ahsoka will be celebrated in this monumental upcoming year, but what if her return is overshadowed by all these other major accomplishments instead? Star Wars has left Ahsoka Tano stranded, both literally and figuratively. This push makes the former Jedi feel like a footnote in the larger Star Wars saga, an afterthought now that the franchise is returning to its roots; all too easily forgotten since she’s been banished to another galaxy entirely.

That’s not fair to a character who has brought so much joy and incredible storytelling opportunities to Star Wars, both in animation and live-action. It also feels like the death of any previously announced Mandoverse crossovers, another nail in the coffin of Star Wars Celebration 2023’s ambitious movie slate announcement. Yes, this is a crucial time for Star Wars as a brand, and it’s right to be cautious. Yet benching one of its most important characters won’t do it any favors, either. This isn’t the way.

Ahsoka season 2 arrives on Disney+ in 2027.


0543801_poster_w780.jpg


Release Date

August 22, 2023

Network

Disney+

Directors

Steph Green, Jennifer Getzinger, Peter Ramsey, Rick Famuyiwa




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