I like Star Wars but I have never gotten into The Clone Wars or Rebels or the comics. I guess I’m just a fair-weather fan.
I might need to get into all those things if I want to be familiar with a new character in season two of The Mandalorian. Slashfilm says that Rosario Dawson has been cast as Ahsoka Tano in the Disney+ mega-hit. That will be music to the ears of many a-Star Wars fan. Ahsoka has become a favorite among devotees of the franchise ever since she first appeared in animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
Ahsoka was the apprentice to ray of sunshine Anakin Skywalker on The Clone Wars and became a breakout hit in Star Wars fandom. Dave Filoni, who directed multiple episodes of The Mandalorian and is spear-heading season two, created Ahsoka so the character is near-and-dear to his heart. He must really love her because converting Ahsoka from animated to live-action is a big, big deal. Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think this sort of transition has happened with Star Wars yet. In fact, it doesn’t happen much at all. Usually if a character is created for a cartoon series, it stays in a cartoon series. Characters, aside from maybe Harley Quinn, don’t jump from animated to live-action. It usually happens the other way around. But this goes to show how vital the Clone Wars series has become to the Star Wars universe.
People have long wanted Ahsoka to become live-action and have long wanted Dawson to play her. It’s almost as if Filoni was reading fans’ social media feeds. This will make many people very, very happy. It remains to be seen how big a part Ahsoka will play in the second season of The Mandalorian, she might just be in one or two episodes but I tend to think she will be much bigger than that. And I also think that she won’t be the last Clone Wars or comic book character who transitions from drawing to flesh-and-blood.