Ever since it was first announced that Rosario Dawson had been cast as Ahsoka Tano to bring the fan favorite animated character into live-action, most people widely accepted a solo spinoff as an inevitability. After all, former Disney CEO Bob Iger hinted that The Mandalorian would serve as the basis for the next generation of Star Wars adventures, and following the wildly different yet equally divisive reactions to The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, Lucasfilm are better off focusing their attentions away from the big screen for at least a little while.
So far, the second season of Jon Favreau’s sci-fi series has slowly introduced elements of the animated canon into the mythology, which also makes it part of the same continuity as the feature films, tying everything into one huge expansive live-action universe. Of course, there are already a number of candidates to headline their own Disney Plus show, from Katee Sackhoff’s Bo-Katan to Temuera Morrison’s Boba Fett, and these projects are even reported to be in active development, although it would be safe to say that fans aren’t crying out to see more of Cara Dune after Gina Carano’s recent social media activity kicked an online hornet’s nest.
Ahsoka’s big reveal during “The Jedi,” meanwhile, has already opened the door to setting up her own spinoff, after she mentioned iconic villain Grand Admiral Thrawn. While there’s every chance that this could eventually be tied into the overarching storyline of The Mandalorian, Snips has plenty of history with the blue-skinned baddie and Mando has enough on his plate to deal with as it is.
As ComicBook.com explains:
This name-drop of Grand Admiral Thrawn is a perfect platform form which to spinoff into an Ahsoka Tano series. Ahsoka now has a new destination in her hunt for Thrawn – as well as a lot of backstory to fill in between the end of Rebels and this new episode of The Mandalorian. That’s a perfect framework for an Ahsoka limited series that jumps between the early years of the Sequel Trilogy era, and those early years of the Original Trilogy era. Star Wars has basically used Ahsoka as the major gap-filler character in the franchise timeline – no need to change that now.
Not only could we see Ahsoka and Bo-Katan team up again in a potential spinoff, but such a project also presents the opportunity to introduce other animated stalwarts like Ezra Bridger, Sabine Wren and Captain Rex into the mix without stuffing The Mandalorian full of supporting players and devolving too far into pure fan service.