‘Star Wars: Ahsoka’ Trailer Reveals Series Truly Is a ‘Star Wars: Rebels’ Continuation

“Star Wars” is headed to some very Timothy Zahn-inspired places. And some very Dave Filoni places as well. The new trailer for “Star Wars: Ahsoka” just dropped and it’s a feast of storytelling possibilities. It can’t arrive a moment too soon after that disappointing “Mandalorian” Season 3. Watch the trailer below.

What comes across is that this is absolutely a live-action continuation of “Star Wars: Rebels,” the four-season Disney XD series that was arguably the first and most artistically successful “Star Wars” storytelling to unfold after Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm. The series debuted in the fall of 2014 and wrapped up in early 2018. It told the story of the crew of the Ghost, who go on missions in support of the very early stages of the Rebellion against the Empire. The show started about five years before the events of “A New Hope” — and it introduced beloved characters like the Ghost’s captain Hera Syndulla, the Mandalorian artist and munitions expert Sabine Wren, and young Force user Ezra Bridger, who became the Padawan of Jedi-in-hiding Kanan Jarrus.

“Rebels” ended on a heartbreaking note: after Kanan’s death, Ezra saved his friends by using the Force to fling himself and their nemesis, Grand Admiral Thrawn, through hyperspace across to the other side of the galaxy — who knows if Ezra could ever make it back? The final scene of the series showed Hera and Sabine joining forces with Ahsoka (who had factored heavily into the second season of “Rebels”) to go on a galactic search to bring Ezra home.

That mission is referenced in the “Ahsoka” trailer where a mural of Ezra, depicted exactly in his animated form from “Rebels,” is shown. Finding him is clearly an overarching mission for the new series. As is defending the New Republic from Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen, now playing the character in the flesh after voicing him on “Rebels”), a tactical genius (to paraphrase his creator, author Timothy Zahn, he’s like Erwin Rommel meets Sherlock Holmes) who wants to bring about a return of the Empire. He was introduced in Zahn’s celebrated 1991 novel “Heir to the Empire,” which was such a success it arguably revived “Star Wars” in the public imagination after it had receded sharply in the eight years following the theatrical release of “Return of the Jedi.” The book showed what Han, Leia, and Luke were doing five years after the events of that film.

That iconic troika is likely not going to be squaring off with Thrawn (though we do know Lucasfilm has loved some CGI youthening/resurrections), as “Rebels” mastermind turned live-action series guru Filoni is likely going to make the inevitable war with Thrawn focused more on the characters established on “Rebels” and the Disney+ series. We already knew from “The Mandalorian” Season 2 that Rosario Dawson’s Ahsoka was hellbent to find Thrawn. And this trailer shows she’ll be joined by Hera (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Sabine (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), making their live action debuts.

Also Zahn-like, though, is the mysterious new Jedi nemesis who’s given far more screentime in the trailer than Thrawn himself: this is a dark Jedi named Baylan, who fled to the Unknown Regions after Order 66 and apparently turned his back on the light side — his opening lines about how the destruction of war leads to creation certainly suggests that. He’s played by the late Ray Stevenson, who died unexpectedly earlier this year. The character seems similar to a dark Jedi in “Heir to the Empire” called Joruus C’Baoth, a mad Jedi clone. Apparently, he’s aligned with Thrawn now, so Baylan has that in common with C’Baoth at least. And Ivanna Sakhno plays his apprentice, Shin Hati. Note their strange, orange-tinted lightsabers, suggesting they’re neither Jedi nor Sith.

Watch the trailer below. “Ahsoka” debuts on Disney+ August 23 and unfold over eight episodes.