Ahsoka Tano’s Mandalorian episode could take place before Star Wars Rebel finale

Ahsoka Tano may have finally appeared in The Mandalorian, but we still don’t know much about her journey after the events of the original trilogy. And now, “The Jedi” director Dave Filoni casts even more doubt on Ahsoka’s timeline, hinting that the final Star Wars Rebels scene may indeed take place after The Mandalorian. Filoni teased a possible non-linear approach to Ahsoka’s story in an interview with Vanity Fair (via ScreenRant). Without confirming one way or another, Filoni clarifies that fans shouldn’t assume The Mandalorian takes place after the Rebels finale.

“It’s not necessarily chronological,” Filoni told Vanity Fair. “I think what people won’t understand the most is that they want to go linear, but as I learned as a kid, nothing in Star Wars really works in a linear fashion. [Episodes] Four, five and six, then one, two and three. So, in the vein of this story, when you watch the Rebels epilogue, you don’t really know how much time has passed. So, it’s possible that the story I’m telling in The Mandalorian would take place before that. Possible. I say it’s possible. “

For those who haven’t seen the entirety of Rebels, the series ends on a fairly open note, with aspiring Jedi Ezra Bridger and his foe Grand Admiral Thrawn dragged across the galaxy aboard a Star Destroyer in leak. The fate of the two characters remains a mystery, although it is generally assumed that the two will eventually reappear, either on The Mandalorian itself or on another Star Wars series.

While the majority of this episode takes place before the events of Rogue One and A New Hope, there is a time jump towards the end. The final footage of the Rebels’ finale features narration from Ahsoka herself, as we see glimpses of the roles Hera Syndulla, Sabine Wren, and Captain Rex played in defeating the Empire, culminating in a scene where Ahsoka reunites with his friends on Lothal to search for missing Ezra and Thrawn.

Based on the context of this episode, it was always assumed that this reunion scene took place shortly after the events of Return of the Jedi. The Mandalorian, meanwhile, takes place around five years after that movie, and Ahsoka makes it clear in “The Jedi” that she’s looking for Thrawn. Fans naturally assumed this to mean Ahsoka is continuing her quest for the Rebel Finals, but Filoni’s comments cast the episode in a different light. This Rebel reunion scene may have happened later in the Star Wars timeline than we thought. Maybe Ahsoka won’t find Hera and Sabine until she finds the information she needs about Thrawn’s whereabouts.

As ScreenRant points out, this would also imply that Sabine had remained on Lothal for the five years since the fall of the Empire. We previously speculated that Sabine could be the next Rebel character to jump into live action, so it’s possible that Din Djarin and Grogu’s adventures could eventually lead them to this familiar planet.

If you need more help making sense of The Mandalorian’s place in the biggest Star Wars saga, check out our recap of Ahsoka’s story so far, our explainer on Grand Admiral Thrawn, and a full timeline for Mandalore and Baby Yoda.

Jesse is a mild-mannered writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by follow @jschedeen on Twitter.