The force is officially with Ahsoka Tano. The former Padawan learner of Anakin Skywalker—introduced in the animated “Star Wars: Clone Wars” series— turned fallen from the Jedi-path outsider, but still, Rebel-friendly warrior (“Star Wars: Rebels”) is getting her own “Star Wars” live-action series. None of this is new, of course, but Tano, played by Rosario Dawson, now has a director in Pete Ramsey, one of the filmmakers of the Oscar-winning “Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse” film.
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The Hollywood Reporter, who reveals the news, also shares that the series, simply titled “Ahsoka,” will start shooting next month in Los Angeles. Ramsey became the first Black filmmaker to win the animated feature Oscar as co-director of the heralded ‘Spider-Verse,’ film and his credits include directing “Rise of the Guardians” (2012), the TV short series “We The People” (2021), and coming up, four episodes of 2022’s animated “Lost Ollie” series for Netflix.
Currently, it’s known that Ramsay will direct at least one episode of the “Ahsoka” series, though the episode count and the rest of the filmmakers on board are currently unknown. Dave Filoni co-created the character with George Lucas while overseeing the animated shows, was the first person to direct Ahsoka in live-action, and is the main writer of the “Ahsoka” series, so it’s a very reasonable assumption he will be one of the filmmakers too. Jon Favreau, who usually co-creates most Lucasfilm series with Filoni, is executive-producing.
After years of being a mainstay animated “Star Wars” character, Ahsoka Tano was first introduced in live-action in the second season of “The Mandalorian.” She also appeared in one episode of “The Book Of Boba Fett” alongside a younger post-‘Return Of The Jedi’ Luke Skywalker and Baby Yoda/Grogu.
Plot details are under wraps, but we already know much of Ahsoka’s current personal mission as detailed in “The Mandalorian”: finding Grand Admiral Thrawn, a former commander in the Empire. This quest is, of course, tied to the end of the animated “Star Wars: Rebels” series, which Filoni created and ran for four seasons. At the end of the series, which overlaps with the events of “Star Wars: A New Hope,” the Empire is defeated. But a young Jedi named Ezra Bridger is shot off into parts unknown of space with Thrawn: his desperate hail mary move designed to remove Thrawn from the fight, allowing the Rebels to win their side of the battle against the Empire on the planet Lothal.
It’s very much expected that the current slate of Lucasfilm “Star Wars” series films is likely to culminate in a “Search For Ezra” storyline event series that Filoni has teased ever since the series ended. If Thrawn and Bridgers don’t show up in Ahsoka, they will undoubtedly be teased and likely appear in one of the eventual shows, if not the aforementioned big-event series that caps it all off (think of the solo Marvel films that climaxed in the first big “Avengers” movie).
The “Ahsoka” series also includes Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Sabine Wren (another member of the main “Star Wars Rebels” crew), Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ukrainian actress Ivanna Sakhno, Ray Stevenson in an undisclosed villain role, and Hayden Christensen reprising his role as Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker. After Obi-Wan Kenobi, there is no greater estranged rivalry other than Vader and his former pupil.