'Star Wars' Series Ahsoka To Hit Disney+ Earlier Than Scheduled

It looks like "Star Wars" fans won't have to wait too much longer to watch Rosario Dawson reprise her role as Ahsoka Tano in the live-action Disney+ series "Ahsoka."

Created by Dave Filoni, the character first made an appearance in the animated "The Clone Wars" before appearing in "Star Wars Rebels." Rosario Dawson helped the Jedi Padawan make her live-action debut in "The Mandalorian" and later made an appearance in "The Book of Boba Fett."

On August 18, the "Star Wars" account took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to share the good news that fans could celebrate #Tano Tuesday" and watch "Ahsoka" a little bit earlier than expected!

"New date, get ready!" they tweeted. "#Ahsoka, a Star Wars Original series, now arrives August 22 at 6 PM PT on @DisneyPlus."

Although some fans celebrated the change, those in Europe and other parts of the world lamented that they would still have to wait until August 23 to watch the new series, which creator Dave Filoni had compared to season 5 of "Rebels."

Although "Rebels" only received four seasons, the stories of each character is continued in "Ahsoka," leading some fans to call the new series a live-action season 5 of the animated cartoon.

Most of the surviving members of the Ghost crew will be making an appearance in “Ahsoka,” including Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), and Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi). This will be the live-action debut for each of the characters. In addition, Lars Mikkelsen will reprise his role as Grand Admiral Thrawn, who will be making his first jump into live-action as well. “Doctor Who” star David Tennant will also reprise his voice role as the droid Huyang.

In May 2023, on Entertainment Weekly’s Dagobah Dispatch podcast, Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau addressed the transition from "Rebels" to the new live-action series. "Definitely, all signs are indicating that there’s a continuation," Filoni said at the time. “For me, when I’m telling those stories, I don’t limit things like, ‘Oh, well, I did it an animation, so I would do it distinctly different in live action.’ There’s just the story that it is, and I was telling it in one medium.”

However, Filoni did confess that “Rebels is a different style than Clone Wars,” adding, “Even visually, that changed the way I could execute certain things in Rebels. The story kind of evolved since I worked on Rebels. Working with [Jon Favreau] and setting things down in The Mandalorian created an opportunity to see: How does Ahsoka work as a character in live action?”

Ahsoka's signature appearance seemed tricky to pull off. “With the head tails and the makeup, what does that look like?” Filoni asked himself. “Can a performer bring that to life in a way that is meaningful?”

Fortunately, he felt more confident in his approach to the series after he saw Rosario Dawson in costume. “The whole thing kind of came together for me with Rosario when we talked with her and when she put on the costume and became Ahsoka. I was like, you know, this is going to work. It really kind of was as simple as that,” Filoni said, describing himself as “very fortunate.”

In a July 2022 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Rosario Dawson revealed that there is no “dialing it in” when it comes to performing in a galaxy far, far away.

“What I love is that these little things we’ve gotten to hint at in these other shows, we get to more deeply explore,” she explained. “I think whether you’ve seen the previous animations or have only seen these episodes, she’s still quite mysterious at this stage and point in her life. That’s what I think is the most exciting part of Ahsoka having her own series here, that you get to better understand her in this part of her journey.”