‘Star Wars’ Reveals The Heir To The Empire In First ‘Ahsoka’ Trailer

You can usually tell quite a lot from a trailer. When Andor released its first trailer I was completely blown away. It looked like something completely new and different in the Star Wars universe—and it was, raising the bar on Lucasfilm’s entire suite of shows and movies. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away was suddenly something that needed to be taken a lot more seriously than ever before.

Which brings us to the first trailer for Ahsoka, revealed today during the Star Wars Celebration in London. Quite frankly, this trailer gave me chills. Check it out:

The show’s tagline is perfectly simple: “Warrior. Outcast. Rebel. Jedi.”

The trailer shows a lot and then some. Fans of the Star Wars Extended Universe, of animated shows like Clone Wars and Rebels and newcomers alike should all find something here to be excited about. We see:

• Ahsoka, of course, with Rosario Dawson reprising her role from The Mandalorian. She’s on a quest to find Thrawn who she calls “The heir to the Empire.”
• This is a direct reference to the excellent Extended Universe book Heir To The Empire, which is the first entry in the Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn. Those books featured post-Return of the Jedi versions of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Princess Leia, who all would have been just a few years older than in that movie. I wish we’d gotten those movies years ago, but at least we’re getting to the Thrawn story with new heroes.
• Those heroes include some we’ve seen in the animated offerings like Clone Wars and Rebels and we get glimpses of Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) and Hera (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) as well as the adorable droid, Chopper (presumably voiced once again by showrunner Dave Filoni).
• We also get villains. Ray Stevenson (who you may recognize from HBO’s Rome where he played Titus Pullo) is the Fallen Jedi Baylon. His apprentice is Shin (Ivanna Sakhno) a dark Jedi assassin.
• Which brings us to our first glimpse of the big boss himself, Admiral Thrawn, played by his Star Wars: Rebels voice-actor Lars Mikkelsen, brother of Mads Mikkelsen. Thrawn is one of the best bad guys in all of Star Wars and I can’t wait to see him in live-action.
• We don’t see one key character who we know is going to be on the show: Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi) the central character from Rebels and apprentice to Kanan Jarrus.

All of this apparently takes place in a region called The New Beyond and was shot on Lucasfilm’s immersive LED soundstage, The Volume (which is where the most jaw-dropping scenes in the new Willow show were filmed).

I know many Star Wars fans are jaded and cynical at this point, after so many disappointments in the Disney era and going as far back as the prequel films. Andor gave me new enthusiasm for this franchise, but the latest season of The Mandalorian has been a massive letdown. Still, I think I have a pretty good eye for these things and this show looks extremely promising. For one thing, it looks like it has focus and a strong lead character, something that The Book Of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi sorely lacked. Even The Mandalorian seems to have lost focus on who exactly its protagonist is, which is a real shame. Hopefully Ahsoka can avoid these issues and give us a new Star Wars show to be excited about.

Ahsoka warps onto Disney+ this August.