Credit: LucasfilmWarning! Spoilers ahead for Ahsoka “Part Six: Far, Far Away.”
Longtime Star Wars director Dave Filoni has always been known to have a trick or two up his sleeve, and now, a clip from a 2022 interview is making the rounds online following the latest episode of the Disney+ Ahsoka show.
Related: ‘Star Wars’ Could Introduce a Second Order 66 to Fix a Major Sequel Trilogy Mistake
It’s hard to believe that Season 1 of the latest Star Wars spinoff to hit Disney+, Ahsoka, is nearly over. Starring Rosario Dawson as the titular not-quite-a-Jedi, the story picks up roughly around the same time as The Mandalorian Season 3 and sees Ahsoka Tano going up against a familiar adversary long thought to be dead: former Imperial officer, Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen).
Before he can incite an all-out war, Ahsoka must call on old friends from Star Wars Rebels, including New Republic General Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), Mandalorian warrior Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), and the Ghost crew’s trusty astromech, Chopper, to help Thrawn’s plan from unraveling.
Related: 46 Years Later, Disney Completely Changes ‘Star Wars’
In the first few episodes, we catch up with the main crew, who have seemingly drifted apart since the conclusion of Rebels. Sabine, still torn up over the loss of her friend, Jedi Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi), is resentful of Ahsoka for “abandoning” her during her training. However, the master-apprentice duo slowly work through their complicated history thanks to a bit of encouragement from Hera and Professor Huyang (David Tennant).
But before Ahsoka and Co. can get their hands on Thrawn, they’ll have to go through his henchmen first. Diana Lee Inosanto, who made her franchise debut in The Mandalorian Season 2, plays Nightsister Morgan Elsbeth, a Thrawn loyalist whose true intentions remain foggy, at best. Accompanying her are Force users Baylan Skoll (Ray Stevenson) and Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno), mercenaries with a hidden scheme of their own.
The most recent Ahsoka episode, “Part Six: Far, Far Away,” picked up shortly after the bombshell World Between Worlds arc, which reunited “Snips” and “Skyguy” (Hayden Christensen) for a series of Star Wars: The Clone Wars flashback sequences. During their confrontation, something bigger was unfolding in the real world: Baylan, Shin, and Morgan Elsbeth’s jump to the mysterious second galaxy where Thrawn has been trapped since the Rebels finale, with their “prisoner” Sabine in tow.
The episode opens with a conversation between Ahsoka and Huyang, who are currently mid-transit as they travel through hyperspace in the mouth of a gigantic purrgil, a whale-like species first introduced in Rebels. As they journey to the Unknown Regions, Huyang recalls a story once told to younglings at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, beginning with a not-so-subtle nod to Star Wars through the iconic words, “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…”
This line, of course, references the “second galaxy” made canon in Ahsoka, which could fundamentally change the rules of Star Wars forever. We finally get a glimpse at this strange new location in the sixth episode, with Morgan Elsbeth’s juiced-up starship landing on the distant planet of Peridea, the ancient homeworld of the Dathomiri.
Thrawn makes his grand arrival on his modified Imperial I-class Star Destroyer, The Chimaera, alongside his army of Night Troopers, finally answering the question of what Thrawn’s been up to all these years since Ezra Bridger defeated him in the series finale of Rebels. As for Ezra, he hasn’t wandered far from his archnemesis and is at last reunited with Sabine, who betrayed Ahsoka’s orders to track him down.
So, while many were surprised to hear George Lucas’ iconic words acknowledged in Star Wars canon, Huyang’s line actually serves a much more important purpose for Ahsoka. As a matter of fact, it subtly revealed Thrawn and Ezra’s whereabouts, which has been a long-contested mystery within the Star Wars fanbase since Rebels came to an end in 2018.
Hilariously enough, it seems like Ahsoka showrunner Dave Filoni knew where Ezra was hiding all along and even revealed it to a crowd of unknowing fans during Star Wars Celebration 2022.
On Twitter, user @RaFe_Tano pointed out an overseen line from the event, in which Dave Filoni tells the audience during an interview that Ezra is “far, far away,” confirming that he always had an endgame in mind after Rebels’ cliffhanger ending:
Dave Filoni at the 2022 Star Wars Celebration: “We didn’t cover where Ezra is…” “He’s far, far away” HE TOLD US EXACTLY WHERE HE WAS #Ahsoka #DaveFiloni #Ezra #EzraBridger
Dave Filoni at the 2022 Star Wars Celebration:
"We didn't cover where Ezra is…"
"He's far, far away"
HE TOLD US EXACTLY WHERE HE WAS 🥹#Ahsoka #DaveFiloni #Ezra #EzraBridger pic.twitter.com/ernH8b9onU— RaFe 🍂 (@RaFe_Tano) September 21, 2023
In retrospect, it’s easy to see how Filoni’s cryptic answer went largely overseen by fans, as it’s vague enough to suggest Ezra could be pretty much anywhere—not a specific, far-off galaxy. It’s safe to say that many viewers were taken aback by the confirmation of a second Star Wars galaxy, and virtually no one saw it coming, which is likely how Filoni and the Ahsoka crew managed to keep Ezra and Thrawn’s location under wraps for so long.
Looking back, it’s funny to hear that Filoni told fans exactly where Ezra and Thrawn have been riding out their exile since the fall of the Galactic Empire over a year before Ahsoka premiered on Disney+. It begs the question of whether or not Filoni has secretly shared other spoilers in interviews leading up to the show or if this was a one-off incident.
Now, everything Filoni says about Ahsoka could be a clue as to what’s next. But only time will tell how Ahsoka, Sabine, Hera, and the others will deal with Thrawn and his army as the threat against the fragile New Republic inches closer and closer.
The next episode of Ahsoka arrives on Disney+ on Tuesday, September 26, at 6 p.m. PT.
What do you think of Dave Filoni hinting at this major Ahsoka plot twist back in 2022? Are you excited to see how the season ends? Let us know in the comments below.