Although The Mandalorian Season 1 was a relatively standalone offering within the franchise, Season 2 started establishing ties with the wider Star Wars mythology. This included bringing in Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka Tano, who’d previously been voiced by Ashley Eckstein in the animated TV shows Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels. Now we’re just a few months away from seeing Dawson lead the Ahsoka spinoff series, which, among other things, will feature a number of other Rebels characters in live-action; so much so that showrunner Dave Filoni has shared his thoughts on whether this entry in the 2023 TV schedule is simply Rebels Season 5.
Filoni created Ahsoka Tano for The Clone Wars more than 15 years ago, and following her brief appearances in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, he wrote all of the episodes for the character’s own show, which he executive produced alongside Jon Favreau. When EW asked Filoni if he sees Ahsoka as just Star Wars Rebels Season 5, he first admitted that this is “one way of looking at it” because of the epilogue at the end of the animated series, and that “[d]efinitely all signs are indicating that there's a continuation.” However, he then said this:
