Great news from Star Wars Celebration Japan, especially for fans of Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano as, at Day Two of the event, the spotlight fell on Ahsoka season 2 and it was reaveled that, among other cool new bits of news, Hayden Christensen, who rivals Keanu Reeves for nicest celebrity on the planet, will be returning as the man who would be Vader.
The season season of the hit series goes into production next week, basically as soon as everyone gets back from Celebration, and along with Anakin Skywalker showing up again, we also had confirmation that Game of Thrones and Hot fuzz star Rory McCann would be stepping into the big shoes of the late Ray Stevenson as fallen Jedi Baylan Skoll.
On top of that, get ready for the showdown of the century as it was also revealed that Admiral Ackbar will be appearing in the series and “He’s going head-to-head with Thrawn,” promises creator and wroter Dave Filoni.
Oh, the second season will be eight episodes, all written by Filoni.
“It took all of my effort to resist writing the line — ‘It’s a trap!’ Because I’m like, I can’t do that, that would be so lame. Because this guy can’t always get into traps. You’d think he would see it this time,” Filoni said on the main Celebration stage.
One of the saddest parts of season two is carrying on without Irish actor Ray Stevenson who, I don’t think this is hyperbolic, played one of the best new Star Wars characters, Baylan Skoll, a fallen Jedi with a mission of his own. Stevenson very tragically and suddenly died in 2023. Skoll will now be played by McCann.
Filoni tells fans that the second season will put the ‘war’ in Star Wars and we’ll see the crew of the Ghost reuniting in live-action:
DAVE REVEALING THAT HALF OF THE PLOTLINE IN AHSOKA S2 WILL COMPRISE OF AN ALL-OUT BATTLE AND SEEING “A LOT MORE” OF THE REMAINING GHOST CREW pic.twitter.com/xBMVrDfbhz
— kat (@kyber_kat) April 19, 2025
An emotional Filoni said: “Season 2 was predictably a big challenge because of losing Ray.
“I knew Ray from working on voice acting with him. It was a challenge for me to consider continuing for a while. But I have a wonderful support group in Jon [Favreau] and Rosario [Dawson]”.
First look at Rory McCann as Baylan Skoll:
Filoni goes on, saying that eventually he knew how to move forward: “I found a way in — I had Ray in my head. I’m grateful for all my conversations with him about Baylan. So, I understood what to do, it just took a while to get there. I’m very confident now that Ray would be happy with the direction that we’ve chosen.”
Explaining why Skoll’s character is so important and must go on, he said: “The character is meant to be the parallel to Ahsoka in every way. If there’s a light, there’s a dark, and Baylan is representing a different journey for a Jedi as [Ahsoka] represents one who walked away from the [Jedi] Order, so did he. That’s a parallel that must continue.”
An emotional Dave Filoni talks about the loss of Ray Stevenson and casting Rory McCann:
The highlight of the Ahsoka panel at Star Wars Celebration was Dave Filoni’s touching tribute to Ray Stevenson. It was hard to not get choked up hearing Filoni struggle to fight back tears as he discussed his lost friend. Take a look below pic.twitter.com/1Hkets93ZZ
— Star Wars Holocron @ SWCJ (@sw_holocron) April 19, 2025
While season on of Ahsoka had its low points, it was probably the biggest story Disney Star Wars has embraced, sending Ahsoka and Sabine into another universe in search of Ezra, where they found Thrawn and learned that the Dathomir Witches actually came from that universe.
It’s a big adventure, it picked up from threads put down by Rebels and The Mandalorian, the original Thrawn novels and more, so it’s something that fans are very, very excited about seeing.
See you in Ahsoka Season 2, Skyguy. pic.twitter.com/Kn7XfywFGg
— Star Wars (@starwars) April 19, 2025
Marc
Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….
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