Gosh, it’s been a long time since the season one finale of Ahsoka — one year and seven months. But two teases came out of the Ahsoka panel tonight at Star Wars Celebration in Tokyo: first Hayden Christensen is coming back as Anakin Skywalker; but also Rory McCann is stepping in to play evil Jedi Baylan Skoll after the death of Ray Stevenson.
Also, Admiral Ackbar is returning — and that’s not a trap. “He’s going head to head with Thrawn,” said Dave Filoni.
Season 2 is set to go into production next week, said the group tonight.
Stevenson died in May 2023 before season one of Ahsoka debuted. He played a key nefarious antagonist. Dawson worked with McCann 20 years ago, and concurred with Filoni that when it came to filling in Stevenson’s shoes, it boiled down to an actor, and their eyes. McCann has that intensity.
Filoni got emotional when remembering Stevenson. “Season 2 was predictably a big challenge because of losing Ray,” said Filoni who is the creator of the show.
“I knew Ray from working on voice acting with him,” he said, “It was a challenge for me to consider continuing for a while. But I have a wonderful support group in Jon (Favreau) and Rosario (Dawson)”.
Favreau, Dawson and Christensen were on stage today in Tokyo with Filoni.
The last we left off in October 2023, Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen) made the jump to hyperspace via a space loop while Ahsoka (Rosario Dawson), Sabine (Natasha Liu) and Ezra (Eman Esfandi) were marooned in the green tundra tumbleweeds of Peridea in a galaxy far, far away. Thrawn’s m.o. is to reassemble the Empire aka “The Thrawn campaign,” which was a series of military and political maneuvers by the blue man to restore the Empire and implode the New Republic.
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