Dave Filoni brought Ahsoka season 2 to Star Wars Celebration in Japan this morning for a panel that was relatively light on news. (Rory McCann was, however, announced as the new Baylan Skoll following Ray Stevenson's passing).
With production not set to begin until next week, the filmmaker could only show off a concept trailer for the series. Fortunately, it's awesome, and we have it for you here today (via SFFGazette.com).
Presented in the style of that classic teaser for The Empire Strikes Back, it establishes that Ahsoka Tano and Sabine Wren are racing against time to stop Skoll from unleashing a powerful new threat (the Mortis Gods...or Abeloth, perhaps?).
Ezra Bridger, Hera Syndulla, and the returning Zeb Orrelios, meanwhile, also have their hands full with Grand Admiral Thrawn's sinister plans for their Galaxy, and we catch sight of a mysterious new villain who appears to be a Force-wielding Nightsister.
She's wielding what look like they could be green lightsabers or perhaps even lightwhips similar to what we saw in The Acolyte.
Oh, and yes, that is Chopper wielding a massive gun!
At the event, Collider caught up with Filoni and asked where things stand with his Star Wars movie (which was confirmed as still being in the works on Thursday)
"It's a long development. One of the reasons why is I like to work on very large arcs, and I try to factor in all the things that I'm creating simultaneously and look at them and say, 'Well, how do we do unique things? What are unique set pieces, and where is the story going? What's the play of the story?'"
"I ask myself these questions. I have general outlines for all these things, general timelines for all these things. I keep moving the pieces on the board for a big strategy. That's the way I've always worked since I started on Clone Wars, and I got to the end of that series finally."
The filmmaker later acknowledged that it's still early days for the project, which is expected to be a crossover bringing the characters from all these post-Return of the Jedi stories together, and admitted that it's in flux.
"You keep that in your mind in the future while you're working on the present. So, right now, I’ll be on Season 2 [of Ahsoka], and as those stories develop, it might change things that would affect what's happening in the future and what I would do. At times, it's a balancing act, but I'm constantly working at it, working out scenes. I know several scenes and where they would go, so you just kind of plug it in as you go."
You can watch this early teaser for Ahsoka season 2 below (and if it's taken down, you'll find another version here).