The animated corner of the Star Wars Universe created by Dave Filoni is being transferred into live action with the Lucasfilm Disney+ series Ahsoka.
That was the point hammered home at the Ahsoka panel held Saturday at Star Wars Celebration, which climaxed with the reveal that Lars Mikkelsen, the Danish actor who voiced the popular villain Grand Admiral Thrawn from Filoni’s 2014 series, Star Wars: Rebels, would be reprising the role for the new series.
Ahsoka is the Star Wars series debuting in August and stars Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka Tano, the protégé of Anakin Skywalker who has turned her back on the ways of the Jedi. One of the show’s through lines is her search for Thrawn.
Lars Mikkelsen will return as Thrawn in Ahsoka
The reveal happened both during the playing of a Celebration-only Ahsoka trailer, which showed the blue-skinned, red-eyed Imperial commander, and then the stage entrance of Mikkelsen. The trailer already had fans yelling at the top of their lungs; Mikkelsen’s walk on stage had the 4,500-strong crowd on their feet and blowing the roof off with their screams.
Thrawn was actually created by author Timothy Zahn for his Star Wars novels in the 1990s but like many non-movies works, the character and his stories were rendered non-canon after Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012. Filoni brought the character into the mainstream and back into canon by making him his big bad guy in Rebels, which ran four seasons on the Disney Channel and Disney XD.
At the panel, Filoni described the character as a villain in the mold of Sherlock Holmes’ adversary Moriarty: “He doesn’t have the Force but it doesn’t matter. He will outsmart you and trap you.” And he said that he and fellow Ahsoka exec producer Jon Favreau have been in touch with Zahn and plan on follow-up meetings “because it’s his thing. And I feel really feel privileged that Lars will bring him to life this way. We want to make sure we get it right.”
Getting it right is the twin blade here. The new show takes many elements that Filoni, the George Lucas protégé and Star Wars guru, has woven over the years into one big series. Filoni created Tano, and in Rebels co-created characters such as Sabine Wren, Hera Syndulla, and droid Chopper. Those characters are all now making their live-action debuts in the high-profile series, with Ahsoka enjoying almost the kind of mainstream recognition that rivals most other Star Wars characters. (Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Natasha Liu Bordizzo, who were also on stage for the panel, are playing the live-action versions of Wren and Syndulla, respectively.)
Taking those popular animated elements and thrusting them into live-action and into the larger Star Wars myth can be daunting due to fan pressure and can also offer big payoffs.
“The audience has a relationship with the characters,” noted Favreau, saying there is a balance of pleasing existing fans while also inviting a new audience.
Favreau acknowledged that it wasn’t as much of a long-term plan to bring the Filoni worlds to life as it was a “long-term hope.”
“I knew part of Dave’s plans, as he was dipping his toe into live-action,” Favreau said. “There was a larger goal to bring the characters to live action.”
But the perils of fandom could be real. In an aside, Dawson mentioned how after Ahsoka’s first live-action appearance in an episode of The Mandalorian, fans let it be known that the character’s unique look, including a headdress, did not line up to the animated look.
“We heard it,” Dawson said of the complaints. She detailed how the first look involved foam costuming that was heavier and challenging to work with. For the new series, technology had evolved where the show’s makers were able to use 3D printing to offer flexibility and lightness.
And Dawson said to her, the character’s previous appearance wasn’t a hindrance but a help. “It feels like I have actual visual memories to reflect back on,” Dawson said.
Filoni, who will direct a live-action feature tying up the threads from the TV shows he and Favreau have worked on together, reflected on how he would lose his train of thought when talking to Dawson in Ahsoka gear. And how seeing the characters in live-action form was strange for him.
Said Filoni: “It’s weird. I mean, it’s great. I mean…I don’t know what to think about it. I was seeing these people in my head, I’ve written them, drawn them, and now they were just there.”
