Ahsoka Season 2 Trailer Reveals Split Timeline — And Major Legends Reboot
We're getting 'Heir to the Empire' and 'The Clone Wars' live action all at once.
After three years, the story of Ahsoka will finally continue. And this time, in Season 2, the series is seemingly presenting a complex story on three different fronts. Not only are Ahsoka (Rosario Dawson) and Sabine (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) still exploring the other neighboring galaxy, which will lead to a showdown with Shin (Ivanna Sakhno) and Baylan (Rory McCann), but Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen) is also invading the regular faraway galaxy and is referring to the New Republic once again as “The Rebel Alliance.” And if that’s not enough, Ahsoka Season 2 will also feature flashbacks to the era of The Clone Wars, presenting even more moments from that animated series, now in live action.
Revealed at D23 2026, the full trailer for Ahsoka Season 2 has also been released to the public. And in it, it’s clear that we’re getting a split timeline, as well as a full reimagining of the Heir to the Empire conflict that defined the Star Wars Expanded Universe in the 1990s.
Ahsoka Season 2 Trailer reveals the return of Anakin Skywalker — times two
As with Season 1, Hayden Christensen will return as Anakin Skywalker in Season 2. And like Season 1, we’re kind of getting two versions of Anakin here. The trailer opens with a Clone Wars flashback and a much younger Ahsoka, again played by Ariana Greenblatt. This is pre-Revenge of the Sith Anakin, and Ahsoka before she leaves the Jedi Order in The Clone Wars Season 5.
But we also get a “present-tense” Anakin, as a Force Ghost, appearing to Ahsoka as she and Sabine continue to explore the planet Peridea. This Anakin says, “I’m always walking by your side.” Because Ahsoka takes place roughly 11 ABY, we’re in the post-Return of the Jedi era here, and one wonders if Anakin’s Force Ghost is also hanging around with Luke Skywalker. Could Luke appear this season? Because it seems like, with everything going on in the regular Star Wars galaxy, the New Republic probably needs him.
Ahsoka Season 2 is fully rebooting the Heir to the Empire and Dark Empire timeline
Space battles in Ahsoka Season 2: A new take on the EU timeline.
Back in the early 1990s, books like Heir to the Empire and comics series like Dark Empire presented the story of what happened with the remnants of the Empire after Return of the Jedi. Initially, the main figure in that story was the villain, Grand Admiral Thrawn. After getting re-canonized in Rebels, this time in Ahsoka Season 2, Thrawn is finally — finally — living up to his old Legends-era reputation.
In the trailer, we see full battles between Thrawn’s Imperial remnant and the New Republic, which includes more E-wing starfighters than ever! (These were introduced in the Dark Empire comic series and will make all 90s kids very happy.)
There are also a few shots of older-style Clone Wars-era Star Destroyers flanking Thrawn’s ship, which maybe could indicate that Ahsoka Season 2 will bring back the plot from Timothy Zahn’s “Thrawn Trilogy,” in which Thrawn uses a lost Old Republic fleet of dreadnoughts called the “Katana fleet” to bolster his forces.
Rebels reunion, but where are the Skywalkers?
Hera is back. But are some other Rebellion heroes coming too?
We’re getting a full Rebels reunion in Ahsoka Season 2, as the trailer shows Hera (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), Zeb (Steve Blum), Chopper, and Ezra (Eman Esfandi) all uniting to fight against Thrawn and the resurgent Empire. But because this is the exact era of Heir to the Empire, we know Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa Solo, Han Solo, and Lando Calrissian are very much around. Ahsoka Season 2 smartly featured Genevieve O'Reilly’s return as Mon Mothma, and C-3PO also stopped by, lampshading the absence of Leia in certain New Republic conferences.
That said, at a certain point, it’s going to be downright odd not to acknowledge the absence of the classic trilogy characters within this timeline, especially relative to the conflict with Thrawn. A Rebels reunion is nice, but at some point, the OG heroes of the Rebel Alliance need to be accounted for, too.
