Tag: Star Wars

While fans have been largely engaged in the big brand TV series produced by Lucasfilm and Marvel Studios for Disney Plus, they have long bemoaned the awkward release schedule that has seen them debut at 3:00 AM ET/12:00 AM PT. Now fans can cross another thing off of Bob Iger‘s to-do list after returning to Disney.

Disney’s next big streaming series, Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: Ahsoka, will become the streaming service’s first major offering to debut during the traditional TV time period known as “prime time.” Originally set to debut on Wednesday, August 23rd at 3:00 AM ET/12:00 AM PT, the Rosario Dawson-led series will now roll out its two-episode debut on Tuesday, August 22nd at 9:00 PM ET/6:00 PM ET.

To be clear, it’s not just the premiere that will inhabit the prime time time slot as Disney is committing–at least with Ahsoka–to the 9:00 PM ET release. Fans of HBO’s Game of Thrones franchise can attest to the power of the late evening release which allowed for far more viewers to watch the newest episodes and be part of the “water cooler” conversation the next day. The awkward middle-of-the-night releases have often left everyone other than the hardest of hardcore fans on the outside looking in and avoiding social media as not to be spoiled until they could get home from work and catch up. On the surface, this looks like a no-lose scenario for Disney as they look to get their streaming poop in a group.

Source: What’s On Disney Plus

With under 3 months to go before it’s set to stream on Disney Plus, Lucasfilm’s Star Wars streaming series, Ahsoka, has gotten a new release date. Originally set to release on August 31st, the Rosario Dawson-led series will not debut on August 23rd.

The series is set to reunite former Jedi Ahsoka Tano with the crew of the the Ghost as they embark on a quest to find Ezra Bridger. Mandalorian Sabine Wren, Hera Syndulla and Chopper (and maybe some surprises) will join Bridger in making their live-action debuts along with the villainous Grand Admiral Thrawn.

In 2018, the final episode of the final season of the animated canonical series Star Wars Rebels ended with Sabine Wren making a promise to find Ezra Bridger. Five years and a jump to live-action later, fans will finally see Sabine, brought to life by actress Natasha Liu Bordizzo, make good on that promise in the Disney Plus streaming series Ahsoka.

As teased in the epilogue to the final episode of Star Wars Rebels, former Jedi Ahsoka Tano will accompany Sabine on the journey to find out what happened to their friend after they freed Ezra’s home planet of Lothal from looming Imperial presence. While it’s not entirely clear how much time has passed in the galaxy far, far away since the epilogue, Bordizzo says that Sabine’s promise to find Ezra remains at the forefront of the character’s mind.

“She feels an obligation to him,” Bordizzo told Empire. “When they freed Lothal, she was given this hero status. But she doesn’t feel that she’s earned that because she lost her friend in that whole debacle. She’s just focused on the promise she made to him to find him.” And while finding Ezra will fulfill that promise, Sabine and the rest of the crew of the Ghost will have to deal with the fact that their friend won’t be the only familiar face they find. How will she and her friends deal with the return of Grand Admiral Thrawn, who went missing alongside Ezra? Tune into Ahsoka when it debuts on Disney Plus on August 31st to begin to find the answer to that question.

Now one of two primary creators of the New Republic era stories being told through multiple streaming series on Disney Plus ahead of a theatrical event, Dave Filoni was once the chief creative mind behind Lucasfilm’s canonical animated adventures such as Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels. Through Disney Plus streaming series such as The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, Filoni has had the opportunity to shepherd the adaptation of several fan-favorite animated characters into live-action.

Of those characters, none was dearer to Filoni than Ahsoka Tano, who, played by Rosario Dawson, made her live-action debut in the second season of The Mandalorian. Now, three years later, the former Padawan of Anakin Skywalker will take center stage in her own streaming series, Ahsoka, and Filoni opened up to Empire about putting his beloved creation at the center of a series to be shared with legions of Star Wars fans, some of whom have not seen the animated adventures that fleshed out her story.

While Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels are considered canon, Filoni is acutely aware that not everyone who will be tuning into Ahsoka will be a Star Wars completist, meaning that not insignificant chunk of the audience won’t be fully familiar with the lead character’s story. According to Filoni, that presented him with a bit of a problem. “The biggest challenge was, there’s a whole bunch of audience that know her, and a whole bunch that don’t,” said Filoni. “She has one foot in the Star Wars that a lot of people know because of her connection to Anakin, and yet she’s all new and can go in her own direction, in her own way.”

As is often the case with creatives, however, Filoni found a way to reframe that challenging aspect of the character. Rather than limit Ahsoka by holding her to what little fans who haven’t seen the animated series do know about her, Filoni has chosen to see the unfamiliarity as door that opens myriad possibilities. “I think that makes her an interesting bridge between what came before and what’s really possible,” said Filoni of Ahsoka’s potential. Given that the character is likely set to play a major role in Filoni’s New Republic era film and his enduring love for her, it sounds like there may be many more stories in Ahsoka’s future.

Ahsoka debuts on Disney Plus on August 31st.

Source: Empire