Star Wars: Ahsoka Trailer Reveals First Look at Grand Admiral Thrawn

Star Wars: Ahsoka has revealed the first look at Grand Admiral Thrawn in live-action! We only get the barest tease of Thrawn in the first Ahsoka teaser trailer that was released as part of Star Wars Celebration 2023 – but then, that’s what the word “teaser” means. 

As you can see above, Thrawn is making a grand entrance into an ornate room, and we only get to see him from behind. Not only does that keep us in the dark about how Thrawn’s live-action design truly looks onscreen – it also keeps us in the dark about which actor is actually playing Grand Admiral Thrawn in Ahsoka. 

The Star Wars: Ahsoka series is in many ways serving as a sequel to the Star Wars Rebels animated series. Rebels ended with Grand Admiral Thrawn nearly taking down the Spectres rebel cell (and Ahsoka Tano as agent “Fulcrum”) early on in The Rebellion. It was only through the intervention of Jedi-in-training Ezra Bridger (played in live-action by Eman Esfandi) that Thrawn was imprisoned on his Star Destroyer by a pod of Purrgil space whales, who used their unique abilities for hyperspace travel to drag Thrawn (and Ezra) into the unknown regions of space. 

As the Ahsoka teaser trailer reveals, Thrawn isn’t just making a return in the post-Imperial era of the New Republic: he’s being positioned as one of the biggest threats looming in that era. The teaser outright says that Thrawn could be the heir to the Empire after Darth Sidious/Palpatine is thought dead, following The Return of The Jedi. That’s an exciting new arc that seems to lead directly to The New Republic Event Film that Dave Filoni is directing.  

Star Wars has been playing fast with its timeline – a timeline that is about to get much more complicated if the reveals of Star Wars celebration are any indication. The New Republic era must inevitably lead into the era of the First Order and Sith cult’s rise to power – and a major showdown between Imperial Remnants loyal to Thrawn, and The Mandalorians, Boba Fett’s syndicate, the surviving Star Wars rebels and forces of the New Republic sounds like the perfect “event” to make watching all these series worth the years of investment. 

Star Wars: Ahsoka stars Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka Tano; Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Sabine Wren; Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Rebel pilot and general Hera Syndulla; Eman Esfandi as Ezra Bridger, with dark side villains played by Ray Stevenson (Baylan) and Ivanna Sakhno. Additionally, Hayden Christensen’s Anakin Skywalker, Genevieve O’Reilly’s Mon Mothma, and David Tennant’s droid lightsaber maker Huyang are all making a return to the Star Wars franchise. 

Ahsoka streams on Disney+ in August.