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Disney’s new Ahsoka TV series is, essentially, a Star Wars: Rebels sequel, so you’d expect the new live-action show to be jam-packed with references and Easter eggs. While some of these are so obvious they’re not even worth mentioning (characters like Ahsoka Tano, Sabine Wren, and Hera Syndulla are not references, they’re icons), there are some that may surprise you—including a few Rebels actors who reprised their roles for the live-action series.
From Governor Azadi to Chopper the menace, and all of Sabine’s artwork in-between, here are all the Easter eggs we’ve spotted in the Ahsoka series to date. We’ll plan to keep this updated as new episodes air every Tuesday on Disney Plus, so watch this space.
Not long into the first episode of Ahsoka, we get a glimpse of what the once-Empire-ruled planet Lothal looks like after being liberated. There’s a bustling city, some type of police force, and Governor Ryder Azadi, in the flesh, played by Clancy Brown.
Brown voices Azadi in Star Wars: Rebels, where you learn that he was once a Moff (a ruler under the Empire) who believed in the rebellion so much that he was imprisoned for it. The parents of Jedi Ezra Bridger (one of the people Ahsoka and Sabine Wren are determined to find in this new series) died helping Azadi escape, and he’s a central figure in Lothal’s quest for freedom.
When the iconic Star Wars opening crawl appeared at the start of Ahsoka episode one, I let out an audible gasp. Sure, the font is a different color and seems a little off in terms of letter spacing, but this is some old-school, Star Wars shit. The crawl fills in some narrative gaps for those who haven’t seen the animated series, and helps Ahsoka feel like it’s on the same level as a big-budget film within this universe, not just a throwaway TV show like, say, The Book of Boba Fett. I said it.
Early on in the first Ahsoka episode, Ahsoka receives a transmission while aboard her ship that refers to her as “Fulcrum.” This was a codename utilized by Rebel informants in the time leading up to the famed Battle of Yavin from A New Hope, but we first hear of it in an episode of Rebels. The Fulcrum title was shared by several informants (an idea Ahsoka came up with to further confuse the Empire) and Ahsoka herself worked with Hera Syndulla and Sabine Wren, first in disguise, before revealing herself to them.
Everybody was excited to see how Chopper, Hera Syndulla’s astromech droid who is, undoubtedly, a little psycho, would translate to live-action. Luckily for us Chopheads, he’s great, and Filoni even reprises his role from Rebels as the “voice” of the droid.
Hera’s relationship with Chopper is a very funny one—the dude is a menace, and she treats him like one. It plays out well in the second episode of Ahsoka, with Hera yelling at Chopper to keep his lid on and the two arguing over her touching his stuff (she didn’t).
I always did find Sabine’s artwork to be a little, um, childish in Rebels, which is why I’m glad that the Ahsoka series does not include the crudely drawn owl she’d wear on her shoulder pauldron in the animated show. But Sabine’s mural of all of her found family (Ezra, Hera, Zeb, Jedi Kanan Jarrus, a Lothcat, two Lothwolves, hell even Chopper’s in there) did make it into the show, and it looks almost exactly how it did the last time we saw it.
In Rebels, Ezra Bridger lived at the very top of a large comms tower on Lothal, and Ahsoka shows us that, not only does the tower remain in his absence, but Sabine Wren has moved in there. She’s a bit of a standoffish hermit while staying in Ezra’s Tower, her sunset-colored hair unkempt, her nails chipped, her only interactions with an incredibly cute Lothcat. Sabine’s decision to stay in Ezra’s old home and occasionally rewatch the holo-message he left her before disappearing at the end of Rebels shows an unwillingness to let go of the past—which she’ll certainly reckon with throughout this series.
David Tennant (Doctor Who) voices Jedi architect/professor droid Huyang in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and he reprises his role for the Ahsoka series. It’s always lovely to have a recognizable voice for a droid, and Tenant’s dulcet tones are especially easy on the ears.
It’s revealed in Ahsoka episode two that sinister, Grand Admiral Thrawn-obsessed Morgan Elsbeth isn’t just a fan girl, she’s a Nightsister. If you haven’t watched The Clone Wars or Rebels, you may not have heard of these witches, and yes, they’re witches—hence why the second episode is called “Toil and Trouble,” after the Macbeth line.
Nightsisters are a coven of witches that lived on Dathomir, who historically attempted to stay out of the affairs of the Jedi and Sith. They did, however, provide Count Dooku with an apprentice, Asajj Ventress, when he came looking for one. When Ventress betrayed him, he sent his droids and General Grevious to Dathomir, where they nearly wiped out her entire sect.
It’s unclear how much more of a role the Nightsisters will play in Ahsoka, or why there’s one choosing a side in the eternal conflict between Republic and Empire, but I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of Elsbeth going forward.
Ahsoka marks the live-action debut of the iconic E-Wing starfighter. As Gizmodo’s James Whitbrook points out, this ship represented something entirely different for the New Republic. “While modern continuity presented us the idea that the way a victorious Rebel Alliance, now the New Republic, could improve on the legendary X-Wing starfighter was by simply building a newer X-Wing, the E-Wing’s entry into the Star Wars alphabet-fighter legacy imagined what they would do in creating something new,” Whitbrook wrote.
Now that ship is fully realized in live-action, and in a fantastic scene, at that.
In one of the last episodes of Star Wars: Rebels, Jedi Kanan Jarrus sets off to rescue the Rebel leader (and his lover) Hera Syndulla, who has been captured by Grand Admiral Thrawn. Concerned that this affection for her is clouding his judgment, he performs a ritualistic hair-cutting not unlike when padawans chop off their braids when becoming masters.
Many believe Kanan giving himself a Bushwick mullet is meant to signify his readiness to progress to the next part of his life, perhaps willing to sacrifice himself to save the woman he loves. Which, spoiler alert, he does, dying later that very episode while holding back a massive explosion from a ship carrying Hera, Ezra, and Sabine.
Sabine’s haircut ritual follows Kanan’s almost exactly—if you watch the video above, you can see that Kanan kneels down before a table, places the mask he wears on it (like Sabine does with her helm), grabs a knife, holds it out in front of him, and then chops his ponytail off. Sabine’s haircut signifies her willingness to rejoin Ahsoka as her padawan, and go back down the path of the Jedi.
During an early scene in the first Ahsoka episode, Governor Azadi is in the midst of a speech commemorating the heroes of Lothal when he realizes his guest of honor, Sabine Wren, hasn’t showed up. He hisses questions about her location to a Senator Kell behind him, who seems equally miffed, and even more so when Azadi demands Kell speak in Sabine’s stead. It’s played off as a funny little bit, but Rebels fans will recognize Jai Kell as a former student of the Imperial Academy, who becomes a Rebel alongside Azadi. Hi Jai!
