Dive into the new Star Wars master-apprentice legacy with the cast and filmmakers of Ahsoka. | dG1fYnRNUVVxN2tEdWs
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00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:01 - Always two there are.
00:05 No more, no less.
00:08 A master and an apprentice.
00:12 - Star Wars always has these great master-apprentice
00:15 relationships.
00:16 - Remember, a Jedi can feel the force flowing through him.
00:20 - You see that handing down of mastery, the teaching,
00:25 the developing, the growing.
00:28 - Do or do not.
00:32 There is no try.
00:35 - It's very much the idea of apprenticeship.
00:37 The need for those two groups to come together in order
00:40 to pass down the knowledge and to help save the world,
00:43 in the case of Star Wars.
00:44 - When I left you, I was but a learner.
00:46 Now I am the master.
00:48 - Only a master of evil does.
00:51 - Those life lessons are what make these characters some
00:55 of the most iconic characters worldwide.
00:57 - The war is just beginning, and I will not be the last Jedi.
01:02 - All of that wisdom gets passed down over those generations.
01:09 We have Qui-Gon Jinn, who's the master of Obi-Wan,
01:12 who's the master of Anakin Skywalker.
01:14 And by being trained by Anakin, Ahsoka
01:17 was part of that legacy as well.
01:18 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:22 - Ahsoka is a character that Dave Filoni created and worked
01:45 with George Lucas on in "The Clone Wars."
01:48 - Originally, we didn't really know exactly what "The Clone
01:52 Wars" was going to be, and we made up our own little band
01:55 of characters.
01:56 There was a character that was a Jedi,
01:59 and there was a Padawan, and thought,
02:00 we'll put them on adventures.
02:01 But George had other ideas.
02:05 He says, well, and this character,
02:07 and he points to the Padawan we had,
02:09 and he says, let's give Anakin Skywalker a Padawan.
02:12 And I was like, Anakin doesn't have Padawan.
02:15 And he just looked at me and said, Anakin has a Padawan.
02:19 And that was basically it.
02:20 That's how Ahsoka came about.
02:22 [MUSIC PLAYING]
02:25 We cast Ashley Eckstein to be the voice of the character,
02:28 and she's fantastic in "The Clone Wars" and "Rebels."
02:32 - Ahsoka is one of the most well-developed characters
02:36 in "Star Wars" period.
02:38 - She's the apprentice of Anakin Skywalker.
02:40 She is the only one that he has trained to be a Jedi.
02:45 This young teenage girl who was trained
02:47 to be a keeper of the peace had to become a warrior,
02:50 worthy of standing next to the greatest Jedi of all time.
02:53 [MUSIC PLAYING]
02:56 Ahsoka's story and her growth has mirrored my own.
03:07 As you see my style of storytelling mature,
03:10 the stories got more complex.
03:12 It had grown to the point where I
03:14 wanted to take what I was doing in animation
03:17 and really see if I could get it to this type of storytelling
03:22 that I'd grown up with in "Star Wars."
03:23 [MUSIC PLAYING]
03:26 "Mandalorian" season one was a perfect place for me
03:29 to experiment with my own creativity and style,
03:33 but have a great backstop and support
03:35 from collaborating with all these
03:37 other extraordinary people.
03:38 - You must reunite it with its own kind.
03:40 - This is the way.
03:42 So when season two came around, I was like, for my episode,
03:45 I was like, well, I'm going to do Ahsoka.
03:47 I'm like, I just need to try this.
03:49 Let's do it.
03:51 - Ahsoka Tano.
03:52 Volkatan sent me.
03:53 - I hope it's about him.
03:56 - For a character that has such depth and complexity,
03:59 to bring that character to live action
04:01 made a tremendous amount of sense.
04:03 - Tell me what I want to know.
04:06 Where is your master?
04:07 - George visited the set when we were
04:10 filming the lightsaber fight in the Japanese garden season two.
04:14 And I think it was really encouraging of Dave
04:16 stepping up to this role.
04:18 And so George would turn to Kathy and myself
04:20 and be proud of Dave.
04:22 He was Dave's teacher, and Dave was his apprentice.
04:25 - There are moments when I just stare at her.
04:32 And I'm just like, wow, she just looks
04:34 like this thing I've drawn.
04:37 You know, but Sarian's done all the research.
04:39 Like, she knows the character.
04:40 But now she has to become it in a way
04:43 that's never happened before.
04:44 - Yeah, it actually-- the thing that feels most awkward
04:49 right now is talking with you.
04:51 You know, the posing and sort of the stances we're doing,
04:56 that's not unusual.
04:57 But speaking as Rosario while in Ahsoka is a little startling.
05:02 I really love the transformation and really deep
05:04 diving into who she is.
05:06 - Rosario Dawson is just such an incredibly powerful actress.
05:10 And she loves this character.
05:12 I think everything about who Ahsoka is
05:15 is just brought to life in a way that almost nobody else could.
05:19 - She not only gets the character,
05:20 but she gets like the Star Wars of it all,
05:22 which is an important ingredient.
05:24 You have to be in it.
05:26 This is a hard thing.
05:27 You're going to be painted orange every day.
05:29 You're going to have to put a prosthetic
05:30 on your head every day.
05:31 You're going to be training like a Jedi
05:33 to learn how to lightsaber fight almost every day.
05:37 - I'm playing someone who is an absolute expert.
05:40 And so I really wanted to be able to physicalize
05:43 that as much as possible.
05:45 - You know, Jedi's primary weapon is a lightsaber.
05:46 There need to be a lot of lightsaber fights.
05:48 And they have to be good because our fans know the difference.
05:51 - When I started getting my stances
05:53 and some of the postures and, you know,
05:55 started really getting my left hand up to par with my right,
05:59 that I started to really feel like I was
06:00 sinking into who Ahsoka was.
06:02 Because her physicality is such a huge part of who she is.
06:06 No matter how tired I was, I was like,
06:08 sign me up for some more.
06:10 Sign me up for some more.
06:11 - When you step into Star Wars and work with George,
06:20 you are part of a legacy.
06:22 You're part of a history.
06:23 And we had to uphold that history
06:25 and yet do this completely new and different thing.
06:29 - Ahsoka is another story where you can step in at any point
06:33 and not feel that you necessarily
06:35 have to have seen everything.
06:36 - From the beginning of this series,
06:40 Ahsoka is out there on the fringe of the galaxy.
06:43 When she hears whispers of this warlord's return,
06:47 she decides to enlist her friends' help.
06:49 - This is about preventing another war.
06:53 - You know who could help?
06:54 - Sabine Wren.
06:55 - I'm not sure she'll want to help.
06:57 - I'm telling the story about this mentor-student relationship
07:01 that passes from Anakin to Ahsoka to Sabine.
07:03 - There is nothing easy about being a Jedi.
07:08 - It's quite extraordinary.
07:10 Bring this to life.
07:11 - When the stakes are this high,
07:16 we have to do what's right.
07:21 (dramatic music)
07:24 (dramatic music)
07:27 (whooshing)