Credit: Lucasfilm It appears that longtime Star Wars creative Dave Filoni has all but confirmed what fans already know to be true: the upcoming Disney+ Ahsoka series will act as a pseudo-Season 5 of Star Wars Rebels.
Perhaps one of Star Wars’ buzziest projects to date, the Rosario Dawson-led Ahsoka show will pick up roughly around the same time as The Mandalorian. The story will see the titular ex-Jedi facing off against a familiar, perilous threat: Lars Mikkelsen’s Grand Admiral Thrawn. But it looks like she’ll have some help, thanks to the crew of the starship Ghost.
First airing on Disney+ in 2014, the animated Star Wars Rebels series introduced fans to a new cast of characters fighting against the oppressive Empire: Hera Syndulla, a brave star pilot, Kanan Jarrus, a former Jedi Padawan on the run, Sabine Wren, a Mandalorian with a penchant for street art, ex-Lasat Honor Guard Captain Garazeb “Zeb” Orrelios, and their trusty droid, Chopper.
The Filoni-helmed series picked up on many loose threads left by the, at the time, uncompleted Star Wars: The Clone Wars, even bringing back fan-favorite characters like Ahsoka and Captain Rex.
Rebels wrapped up its fourth and final season in 2018 after being canceled by the network. But according to Filoni, the Ghost crew’s story isn’t over just yet.
It’s long been known that Ahsoka will feature many of the same storylines introduced in Rebels, from Thrawn to the mystical World Between Worlds. In 2022, it was confirmed that several characters would officially make the jump to live-action in Ahsoka—with more casting being confirmed at last month’s Star Wars Celebration Europe.
Hera, portrayed by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Sabine, played by Natasha Liu Bordizzo, will play a significant part in the new series. With the inclusion of these characters and Thrawn, there’s no denying that Ahsoka is starting to feel like more of a Rebels Season 5. And recently, Filoni essentially flat-out admitted this.
Speaking with EW, Filoni teased a continuation of Rebels in the upcoming Ahsoka show when asked if ‘Ahsoka is really just a season 5 of Rebels, only in live action. Filoni seemed to agree to an extent, saying, “That’s one way of looking at it:”
That’s an interesting question. I suppose that’s one way of looking at it because of the epilogue that I did in ‘Rebels.’ Definitely, all signs are indicating that there’s a continuation.
However, the showrunner did establish that each shows are different in their own right, clarifying that bringing certain Rebels storylines into Ahsoka doesn’t mean he wished to change anything about the hit animated series:
For me, when I’m telling those stories, I don’t limit things like, ‘Oh, well, I did it an animation, so I would do it distinctly different in live action.’ There’s just the story that it is, and I was telling it in one medium.
Both Ahsoka and Rebels are passion projects of Filoni’s, meaning it’s no surprise why he would want to merge the two stories in some capacity. Plus, with the recently-confirmed news of his “Mando-Verse” crossover movie, it only makes sense that he would want to explore the interconnectedness between each character in his universe.
For all intents and purposes, Ahsoka is a Rebels sequel. Hopefully, fans can still look forward to seeing Ahsoka shine in her own show—something Star Wars has undoubtedly struggled with in its recent slate of Disney+ originals.
The pressure is certainly on for Ahsoka, which has the responsibility of tying up Rebels threads on top of moving the Mandalorian story forward. But if Filoni’s previous work is anything to go by, the series is in good hands.
Ahsoka is expected to land on Disney+ this fall.
What do you think of Ahsoka essentially being a sequel to Rebels? Chime off in the comments below.