Ahsoka Featured Another Star Wars Rebels Character You May Have Missed

Star Wars: Ahsoka debuted this week, and it features the live-action debut of many Star Wars Rebels characters. Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) and Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) were the two big names who joined Rosario Dawson’s Ahsoka in the show’s premiere, but they’re not the only Rebels characters spotted by fans. The fan-favorite droid Chopper made his live-action debut in addition to Governor Ryder Azadi, who was played by Clancy Brown in both animation and live-action. In Ryder Azadi’s first scene, you may have missed another Star Wars Rebels character: Jai-Kell, the character played by Vinny Thomas. Now, Jai-Kell is a Senator on Lothal, but that’s not how he was first introduced… 

In Star Wars Rebels, Jai-Kell was originally voiced by Avatar: The Last Airbender‘s Dante Basco and he was introduced in the Season One episode, “Breaking Ranks.” In the episode, Ezra Bridger goes on an undercover mission to the Imperial Academy where Jai-Kell is also training for the Empire. Eventually, Ezra helps Jai-Kell escape and he goes into hiding. In Season Four, Jai-Kell returns for three more episodes where it’s revealed he’s been working on Lothal to help the Rebels. There were also hints that Jai-Kell was Force-sensitive, but he never received any training. You can check out a side-by-side of Jai-Kell in Star Wars Rebels and Ahsoka below:

Dave Filoni On Bringing Star Wars: Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels Characters Into Live-Action:

Before Dave Filoni served as an executive producer on Star Wars: The Mandalorian and as the showrunner for Star Wars: Ahsoka, he helped create the animated Star Wars shows. Earlier this year, Filoni revealed to The Wrap that bringing animated characters into live-action isn’t his priority, but he did tease more to come in Ahsoka. 

“Very rarely,” Filoni revealed when asked how often he thinks about bringing his cartoon characters to live action. “I know people think it’s the other way around, which is fascinating to me, but I think there’s two ways to look at that, which is that, yes, they were animated characters, but to me, they’re just characters. And now I’m over here working in live-action. I’m comfortable with those characters, I know them, I like them and I like to see them around.

“At the end of the day, I’ve been very happy with the ones that have gone over,” Filoni said of the characters who have moved from animation to live-action. “There may or may not be more in Ahsoka, if that’s your thing. If you’re excited about that, I’m just saying that one might have a few more, which makes sense, by the way. As you know, I wrote it. You can’t fault me there.” 

What Is Ahsoka About?

Fan-favorite Star Wars hero Ahsoka Tano returns in the brand new series on Disney+. Rosario Dawson stars in Star Wars: Ahsoka, premiering August 23rd on the streamer. The series picks up after the events of The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, in which we saw the former Jedi searching for Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen) and helping Luke Skywalker train Grogu. Ahsoka will be joined on her new mission alongside longtime allies Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) and Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) as they attempt to track down Thrawn, who was last seen disappearing to the far reaches of space after a confrontation with Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi). Star Wars: Ahsoka is the latest live-action series from Lucasfilm’s creative duo of Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni.