Remember the backlash that greeted the news that Rosario Dawson would be playing Ahsoka Tano for the character’s first live-action appearance at the expense of longtime voice actress Ashley Eckstein? Well, neither does the rest of the Star Wars fanbase, based on the overwhelmingly positive reception to Dawson’s debut in this week’s episode of The Mandalorian.
Expectation levels had been through the roof to see Anakin Skywalker’s former Padawan join the Disney Plus smash hit, and it would be fair to say “The Jedi” delivered. It was only fitting that Dave Filoni wrote and directed the latest outing for the show, and he wasted no time in having Ahsoka slash her way through an action scene at the very start of the episode.
Now, the newest addition to The Mandalorian has taken to social media in order to hype up her first appearance – not that she needed to, mind you – and you can see what she had to say down below.
May The Force Be With You https://t.co/Zct2pcbeWF
— Rosario Dawson (@rosariodawson) November 27, 2020
There was an awful lot of worldbuilding going on in “The Jedi,” so much so nobody seems to be celebrating the always welcome presence of The Terminator and Aliens‘ Michael Biehn, but that isn’t too surprising when all of the focus was clearly on Ahsoka Tano. Not only did she drop a big exposition dump about Baby Yoda’s backstory, but she also revealed The Child’s real name and tantalizingly hinted that Grand Admiral Thrawn is the next animated favorite heading to Disney Plus.
Of course, The Mandalorian still has plenty of moving pieces in play and only three episodes left to tie them together, but this won’t be the last we see of Dawson’s Ahsoka Tano, especially with her longtime ally Bo-Katan still out there and on the hunt to reclaim the Darksaber from the nefarious Moff Gideon.