According to The Clone Wars creator Dave Filoni, Ahsoka Tano’s debut in The Mandalorian could be set chronologically before her last scene in Star Wars: Rebels. Filoni has written the character since her debut in 2008’s Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Most recently, he wrote and directed “The Jedi,” last week’s Mandalorian episode that finally brought the fan-favorite former-Jedi to live-action, played by Rosario Dawson.
Up until her appearance in The Mandalorian, Ahsoka was last seen chronologically at the end of Star Wars: Rebels. In a closing montage, Sabine Wren narrates each primary character's post-show lives through the Battle of Endor and the end of the Galactic Civil War. That montage ends with Ahsoka finding Sabine on Lothal – where she’s remained through the original trilogy – and the two set off together to find lost Jedi Ezra Bridger. Although the scene takes place after Return of the Jedi, it doesn’t specify precisely how long after.
That vagueness is now opening up a few possibilities in The Mandalorian. In a new interview with Vanity Fair, Dave Filoni acknowledged that “The Jedi” might occur before Ahsoka’s last Rebels scene on Lothal. He says that while there aren’t any guarantees, the timeline's details could be somewhat fluid.
“That's not necessarily chronological,” Filoni said when asked about the scene’s relation to The Mandalorian. “I think the thing that people will most not understand is they want to go in a linear fashion, but as I learned as a kid, nothing in Star Wars really works in a linear fashion."
"You do [Episodes] Four, Five and Six and then One, Two, and Three. So in the vein of that history, when you look at the epilogue of Rebels you don't really know how much time has passed. So, it's possible that the story I'm telling in The Mandalorian actually takes place prior to that. Possible. I'm saying it's possible.”
Filoni is careful not to commit too hard to anything, but the idea opens up several possibilities. For starters, if “The Jedi” takes place before Rebels’ epilogue, Sabine Wren is still on Lothal during the events of The Mandalorian. That could lead Din Djarin and Grogu to the main Rebels planet at some point down the line in the event they reconnect with Bo-Katan’s faction.
Perhaps most notably, the idea that Ahsoka’s rendezvous with Sabine happens after her Mandalorian appearance means their search for Ezra could still be yet to come. Maybe Ahsoka’s looking for information on Thrawn because she’s about to go looking for Ezra, meaning that information could be what pushes her to reunite with Sabine. Could the future hold a whole show of Ahsoka and Sabine searching the galaxy for Ezra and Thrawn? We can only hope. In the meantime, The Mandalorian still has plenty of its own stories to tell.
Source: Vanity Fair