In the days leading up to the premiere of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, J.J. Abrams teased what fans believed was a long-awaited live-action cameo from Ahsoka Tano. Instead, only the voice of the popular Clone Wars character was heard during a pivotal scene featuring the voices of — gulp — seemingly dead Jedi. Things did not look good for Ahsoka. Although, she’d be pretty old by the time the events of Rise of Skywalker rolled around. She was already a teenager before Luke and Leia were even a glimmer in Anakin’s eye.
But while promoting Clone Wars season 7 on Disney+, series co-creator Dave Filoni lectured fans on jumping to conclusions when it comes to Ahsoka’s fate. “I have to wonder with Star Wars fans,” Filoni told io9. “They seem to watch the movies but they don’t take all the lessons. They deal a lot in absolutes, which is very much a Sith thing. I remember in The Empire Strikes Back Luke speaking out through the force to Leia. Vader also does this at the end of Empire Strikes Back. There’s no absoluteness that these people are dead. I mean, some of them we know are dead.”
However, Filoni was noticeably coy on whether or not he has future plans for Ahsoka that would continue her story past Star Wars: Rebels. He’s more focused on the present, and the opportunity to do right by the fan-favorite character in the final season of Clone Wars.
“It’s really the backbone [of the Star Wars saga],” Filoni told EW. “It’s that personal journey. [We saw that] with Luke Skywalker, and we’ve seen Rey going on this journey. But for me now with Ahsoka, she’s been the student Jedi the whole time, and she’s finally being challenged by what she will do with her knowledge and her training and her abilities when faced with the ultimate test — which is what you’ll see at the end of Clone Wars here.”
(Via io9, Entertainment Weekly)
