It looks as though The Mandalorian is adding another character from The Clone Wars to its roster. Slashfilm is reporting that Katee Sackhoff will reprise her role as Bo-Katan Kryze in its forthcoming season. If it’s true, it’ll be the latest character to make the jump from animation to live action.
Spoilers ahead for The Mandalorian season one.
The next season of The Mandalorian is set to hit Disney + in October (which Disney CEO Bob Chapek says will be released on time), and will reportedly be pulling in a number of other characters from around the Star Wars franchise. Rosario Dawson will reportedly play a live-action version of Ahsoka Tano, while word recently broke that Temuera Morrison will join the cast as Boba Fett (and potentially, Captain Rex).
Those rumors point to a neat tie-in with The Clone Wars and Rebels animated shows, as all three characters played a fairly pivotal role in both.
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Bo-Katan was first introduced in The Clone Wars‘ fourth season as a member of Death Watch, a Mandalorian terrorist outfit (the group appears in flashbacks in The Mandalorian). When the Mandalorians are later taken over by former Sith apprentice Darth Maul, she works with Ahsoka to free her people at the end of the Clone Wars, and became Mandalore’s regent.
She later appears in Rebels, and was forced from power during the Empire’s rule. She eventually helps some other Mandalorians looking to retake the planet, Ursa Wren and her daughter Sabine, and played a key role in retaking the planet. She was also the last person we saw in the series who had possession of the Darksaber, which Moff Gideon acquired and used in The Mandalorian‘s first season.
Sackhoff, known for playing Starbuck in SCI FI’s reboot of Battlestar Galactica, has voiced the character throughout her appearances in the animated shows, and would help bring the character into the real world. Rumors about Ahsoka and Boba Fett have hinted that they’ll only be making a brief appearance, and it isn’t entirely clear how their paths will cross with Din Djarin and The Child. But, with a third season of The Mandalorian apparently in the works, and the fact that Disney is looking into developing spinoff shows based on the characters from The Mandalorian, it seems likely that we could see them reappear at some point down the road.
If this is true, she’ll become one of the few actors to debut a character in animation and then reprise the same character in live action (actually on camera rather than just a voiceover role). Previous examples I’m aware of include Jeremy Ratchford as Banshee in the ’90s X-Men animated series and later in the Generation X TV pilot movie; Daran Norris as Timmy Turner’s Dad in The Fairly Oddparents and its live-action sequel movies; and Kevin Conroy as Bruce Wayne in dozens of animated productions and Crisis on Infinite Earths.
There’s also technically the cast of the short-lived 1992 Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventures live-action TV series (Evan Richards, Christopher Kennedy, and Rick Overton), who had voiced the same characters in the 1991 second season of the animated series, replacing the original movie cast in the first animated season. But in that case, they actually did the live-action series first (or simultaneously?) and its release was postponed.
If they are doing this there is ZERO excuse for not having Ashley Eckstein play live-action Ahsoka!
Oh man my husband and I were just talking about this – wondering what happened to Bo-Katan at this point in the timeline, and how the Darksaber changed hands.
The other thing I’d be really interested in knowing, especially if Ahsoka is reportedly around, is how does this play into the quest to find Ezra, since we know that’s what she basically set off to do post-Empire? Could Ezra/Sabine/Thrawn end up making an appearance at some point? I’m glad they’re not forgetting Rebels entirely; I was heartened to hear/see Kanan as a voice in RoS along with Ahsoka, and the little nod to baby!Kanan in the latest season.
But that’s really pretty neat about bringing back the animation actress :) I do regret that Eckstein wasn’t cast but I’m wondering if she didn’t have the physicality they wanted (even though I never saw Ahsoka as that large, but somebody on another thread pointed out she’s fairly tall). But if it’s just for a brief appearance it might have worked.
@2 Well, if Eckstein isn’t good at fight choreography, that MIGHT be a good reason…. (I’m not familiar enough with her work to know one way or another)….
So I’ve never watched Clone Wars. I tried a little and couldn’t get into it, and then heard that the early seasons are bad and to try later ones? Or it was cancelled and brought back with better stories? I’m confused as to where to start, so any advice would be welcome. Thanks!
Well it seems that Season 2 should probably start being referred to as THE MANDALORIANS at this point! (I also find it deeply amusing to picture Ashoka Tano being drawn to a phenomenal power in The Force on a scale she hasn’t sensed since Anakin Skywalker … then finding ‘Baby Green’ and briefly channeling that painfully young padawan into an almighty “Awwww BABY YODA!”).
@6/ED: Given that Ahsoka’s debut as a character was in a story about protecting a baby Hutt, it would be oddly appropriate for her live-action debut to involve a baby Yoda-oid. (I want to say “ironic,” in the sense people use that’s the opposite of what “ironic” actually means.)
@JoR my thoughts exactly!!
@5 – there’s a full length movie (that basically consists of what I think were going to be the first 3-4 episodes of season 1) which…honestly, is bad. I say this as somebody who loves/defends the prequels and even the sequels to a lesser extent.
Season 1 is also a bit hit or miss at times (as is Season 2) but I think from about Season 3 on it’s consistently good and I’ve really enjoyed the latter seasons. Season 6 was a ‘Netflix only’ (at the time) season. I don’t remember why exactly – if it had already been canceled by then but since the episodes were done they wanted to air them. Some of my favorite episodes are in that season. And then Season 7 was only made recently – they’d had storyboards and even some initial animatics, and some of the intended arcs made their way into comics/books.
I find that Clone Wars had some really high points, but it also had some arcs that were real duds for me. Occasionally they’d branch out and try something new or kind of out there (there was a ‘horror’ themed arc at one point, and also an arc involving some miscellaneous droids) and sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. But overall it is worth watching (even the movie, if for no other reason for the context).
In the early seasons, the episodes are not in chronological order which can also add to the confusion since it’s not always obvious why all of a sudden we’re back at Christophsis or what have you – there’s a list on a wiki that gives you the true order if you want to watch the episodes/movies that way. I think by about season 3/4 though it is.
lisamarie@3:
She’s tall in Rebels. She’s short in Clone Wars. But she’s still an adolescent in Clone Wars, so that makes sense. She wen’t from 5’3″ in the first season of Clone Wars to over 6′ tall in Rebels.
That’s a growth spurt.
That said, theoretically this could be accomplished with Ashley given the prosthetics she’d need for a headpiece, some perspective work, etc (or, she could just be a little shorter) but there could be other reasons aside from just height (general build, age, etc).
Here’s the chronological episode list for the first six seasons of TCW:
https://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-the-clone-wars-chronological-episodeorder
The first season is more in chronological order than I realized, though it’s not until about halfway through season 3 that they completely stop showing episodes out of order (except for episode 501, which was part one of a 4-parter but was aired early for some reason).
@11/Lisamarie: “That’s a growth spurt.”
Part of that is her montrals (head horns) getting longer as she matures.
“That said, theoretically this could be accomplished with Ashley given the prosthetics she’d need for a headpiece, some perspective work, etc (or, she could just be a little shorter) but there could be other reasons aside from just height (general build, age, etc).”
I’ve seen Eckstein’s Ahsoka cosplay and she looks kind of weird, because her eyes are so small compared to Ahsoka’s (even allowing for their exaggerated size in TCW’s character designs). But presumably the reason Rosario Dawson was a fan-favorite casting choice for Ahsoka well before it actually happened (assuming the reports that it has are accurate) is because she’s already a strikingly close match for the adult Ahsoka’s facial appearance, height, and build.
Yeah, I can see that. Plus, I don’t know that voice acting necessarily translates to physical acting. I definitely get why fans are disappointed, but I also don’t think I know better than a casting director either. At any rate, it wasn’t any kind of intentional snub.
@7.ChristoperLBennett: If this really does happen, I look forward to THE MANDALORIAN’s predictable “Is Yoda a species or did she actually know my kids birth parents?” bemusement … and even more so to Ashoka Tano being not entirely sure on that point herself! (Hence her showing up to find out what the heck has been going down).
Personally I’m firmly convinced that Master Yoda’s species ought to be listed as ‘Troll’ but that’s based more on his notorious sense of humour than anything.