'Ahsoka' debuts more live-action characters, reintroduces key 'Star Wars' figure

WARNING: This post contains spoilers for the first three episodes of Ahsoka.

The third episode of Ahsoka marked the live-action debut of two more characters — with the promise of more to come — and reintroduced a key figure from past media. Here is a breakdown of who’s who, and what it all means.

This latest live-action Star Wars series premiered last week and is officially a hit with critics. It technically serves as a continuation of the animated series Star Wars Rebels — taking place after the events of Return of the Jedi — and has already featured the live-action debuts of a handful of previously animated characters.

The show follows Rosario Dawson’s Ahsoka Tano — who made her live-action debut on The Mandalorian — and her search for the evil Grand Admiral Thrawn, who is expected to make his way to live-action in Ahsoka. More on that in a minute.

Re-introducing...

But first, Tuesday’s episode re-introduced an older and wiser Mon Mothma, a key figure in the Rebel Alliance and Star Wars lore who first appeared in 1983’s Return of the Jedi, played then by Caroline Blakiston.

Genevieve O’Reilly has taken over the role since and appeared in Revenge of the Sith in 2005, Rogue One in 2016, last year’s hit series Andor and also voiced the character in the Rebels series. She returned in what is chronologically Mothma’s latest appearance, as someone who has gone through a whole heck of a lot since we last met her in Andor, which takes place before the first Star Wars film.

The latest to go live-action

The two most recent characters to get the live-action treatment on Ahsoka are Jacen Syndulla and Senator Hamato Xiono. Jacen, played by Evan Whitten, is the son of Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s Hera Syndulla in this series. He first appeared in the Rebels series finale as his father was the Jedi Knight Kanan Jarrus, who was voiced by Freddie Prinze Jr. in Rebels and who died before Jacen was born. He’s young, but given his genes and his desire to be like his father, Jacen could factor into things at some point in this series.

Senator Hamato Xiono, played by Nelson Lee and appearing in hologram form on Tuesday, previously appeared in a few episodes of the animated series Star Wars Resistance, also in hologram form, where he was voiced by Tzi Ma. He is a senator in the New Republic Senate and the father of Kazuda Xiono, a pilot and resistance spy who was a central figure in Resistance. He has so far been unsupportive in Hera and Ahsoka’s efforts to track down Thrawn.

Who's already made the jump?

Along with Winstead’s Hera (originally voiced by Vanessa Marshall), the other characters to already be converted from animation to flesh and bone — or droid — during the first two episodes were Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Sabine Wren (originally voiced by Tiya Sircar), Eman Esfandi as Ezra Bridger (originally voiced by Taylor Gray) and Vinny Thomas as Senator Jai Kell (originally voiced by Dante Basco).

Those reprising their voice roles from the animated shows so far have been Clancy Brown as Ryder Azadi, the governor of Lothal, and David Tennant as Huyang, a lightsaber-crafting droid.

More to come

With five more episodes still to come, it’s been revealed that Lars Mikkelsen will be reprising his voice role from Rebels when Grand Admiral Thrawn does finally become live-action this season. And Hayden Christensen will be back as Anakin Skywalker, after previously playing the part in the prequel trilogy and the series Obi-Wan Kenobi.

And given what fans have seen from the live-action series so far over these past few years, there should be a few surprises coming too.

New episodes of Ahsoka are released Tuesdays on Disney+.