Warning! This post contains SPOILERS for The Mandalorian & Grogu
For years, Ahsoka Tano has occupied a unique place in the established Star Wars canon. Originally introduced in 2008’s Clone Wars movie and series as Anakin Skywalker’s Padawan, Ahsoka has evolved over the years into one of the franchise’s most beloved and important characters, especially following the first season of her own live-action series back in 2023. However, there’s now an argument to be made that Ahsoka is more primed than ever to become even more of a critical figure in the Star Wars franchise’s future.
Following The Mandalorian & Grogu and the ongoing expansion of the New Republic Era, there are certainly a lot of roads that could lead back to Ahsoka Tano herself. Keeping that in mind, Ahsoka could easily become a key central figure who ends up bridging various characters and heroes together in upcoming projects.
Between Ahsoka’s relationships and connections with the biggest heroes of the New Republic Era, Dave Filoni’s upcoming crossover movie, and Filoni’s growing influence over Lucasfilm itself, I feel very confident that Ahsoka Tano will become one of the most central Star Wars characters in the franchise’s modern era.
Ahsoka Is Secretly Connected To Several Major New Republic Heroes
Ahsoka Wielding Two Lightsabers with Knocked out Stormtroopers and Sabine Behind Her
Especially after the recent release of The Mandalorian & Grogu, it’s pretty remarkable how it quietly reinforces just how connected Ahsoka Tano is to the larger Star Wars universe, especially during the New Republic Era.
Firstly, let’s consider Din Djarin and Grogu. Ahsoka was the first person to truly understand Grogu’s past and helped set him on the path that eventually led him to Luke Skywalker in The Mandalorian season 2. While Din and Ahsoka only shared limited screen time in just a couple of episodes, they’ve already fought together as allies who’d more than likely join forces again.
Now that Djarin and Grogu are working for the New Republic, it’s easy to imagine them crossing paths with Ahsoka again once she presumably returns from the extragalactic world of Peridea, having been stranded there with her Padawan Sabine Wren at the end of Ahsoka’s first season.
Then there’s Rotta the Hutt, the son of Jabba who remarkably returns to the Star Wars canon as a physically imposing adult Hutt in The Mandalorian & Grogu, having grown up a LOT since he was last seen being rescued and returned to his father as an infant by Ahsoka Tano herself in 2008’s Clone Wars movie. With Rotta showing interest in joining the New Republic by The Mandalorian & Grogu’s ending, there’s now a perfect reason for uniting Rotta and Ahsoka in the future as well.
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
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Jedi Master — or moisture farmer on Tatooine?
There’s also the Adelphi Rangers’ Carson Teva, who was featured working with Tano and Hera Syndulla in Ahsoka’s first season, as well as Zeb Orellios, who now has strong ties to both Din Djarin and Ahsoka given their shared history in Star Wars Rebels.
To that point, Ahsoka’s network of various New Republic heroes gets even bigger when you look beyond The Mandalorian & Grogu, having relationships and connections with Hera Syndulla, Sabine Wren, Ezra Bridger, and Chopper (all past crew members of The Ghost still active in the New Republic Era). There’s also Luke Skywalker and Mandalore’s leader, Bo-Katan Kryze, even characters like Leia Organa and Mon Mothma, who are no doubt familiar with Ahsoka’s contributions to the Rebellion, especially in its earliest days when she operated under the codename Fulcrum.
All things considered, there may not be another living Star Wars character in the New Republic Era with more meaningful connections to so many heroes across the board than Ashoka Tano herself.
Dave Filoni’s New Republic Crossover Already Has The Perfect Central Character With Ahsoka
Grand Admiral Thrawn in the Ahsoka show to the left and Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka Tano in the Ahsoka show to the rightCustom Image by Yailin Chacon
Ever since Lucasfilm announced Dave Filoni’s upcoming New Republic crossover film, there’s been ongoing speculation as to how all the various New Republic storylines will eventually come together. It’s been widely assumed that Grand Admiral Thrawn and his recent return from exile will serve as the overarching antagonist, much like he did in Legends’ Heir to the Empire storyline.
To that end, Ahsoka seems like far and away the most obvious choice to unite the various heroes of the New Republic Era against Thrawn and his attempts at an Imperial Resurgence. No one else connects to so many different characters and active heroes during this period of the Star Wars timeline.
More than anyone else, Ahsoka Tano is one of the few characters who could realistically and most easily bring the likes of Din Djarin, Grogu, Hera, Ezra, Sabine, Zeb, Teva, and countless others together in Filoni’s upcoming crossover movie, which would no doubt make her more central to the entire Star Wars franchise than ever before (and Dave Filoni likely wouldn’t want it any other way).
With Dave Filoni Leading Star Wars, Ahsoka’s Importance Is Only Going To Grow
Ahsoka isn’t just another Star Wars character. She’s arguably the most successful original character created outside the core Skywalker Saga films themselves, having been created by both George Lucas and especially Dave Filoni.
Over the last 18 years, the Star Wars franchise has seen Ahsoka grow from an impulsive Padawan into one of the franchise’s most layered heroes. Her story has intersected with nearly every major era from the Clone Wars to the rise of the Empire, the Rebel Alliance, and now the New Republic Era. Now that Filoni has recently been made one of the new heads at Lucasfilm, it stands to reason that Ahsoka’s importance is only going to grow in the years to come.
If Filoni is now the biggest voice guiding the future of Star Wars, is there really any scenario where Ahsoka doesn’t remain one of its most important characters (if not becoming even bigger)? Keeping that in mind, next year’s Ahsoka season 2 is likely just the start of what Filoni has planned for Ahsoka Tano’s future, and all the evidence points to her having a massive central role on the big screen sooner rather than later.
Ahsoka season 2 is expected to release in early 2027 from Lucasfilm.
