Star Wars: Ahsoka Recreates Iconic Scene From Rebels Finale

Star Wars: Ahsoka has premiered its first two episodes on Disney+, and there are many Star Wars fans who are already calling it Star Wars Rebels Season 5. It's hard not to watch the beginning of Ahsoka's story and not feel the connection to Rebels – so much of the re-introduction to Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) and her old teammates Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), and Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is all about settling the past and looking ahead to the potential (bad and good) of the future. 

SPOILERS FOLLOW! 

One moment of Ahsoka's premiere episode seems to really be hitting Rebels fans hard in the feels: an almost shot-for-shot recreation of the climatic moments of the Star Wars Rebels finale. 

Star Wars Rebels Finale Ending Explained

The end of Star Wars Rebels saw Hera, Sabine, Ezra Bridger, Ahsoka and Zeb and Chopper all go up against Grand Admiral Thrawn. Even though the Spectre/Phoenix rebel cell had achieved many victories against the worst of the Empire, Thrawn proved to be an enemy more formidable than maybe Palpatine himself. The Battle of Lothal ended when Ezra used the Force to call in a pod of purrgil space whales to decimate Thrawn's occupying fleet of ships over Lothal. The purrgil bound Thrawn (and subsequently Ezra) to the command ship Chimaera's bridge and jumped them out into the unknown regions of space – never to be seen again. 

Rebels ended with a timeskip, revealing an epilogue after the Battle of Endor and The Spectres' new lives in the New Republic Era. The series ended with the scene of Sabine leaving Lothal with Ahsoka Tano to search for Ezra, while stopping by to admire a mural she painted, along the way. 

Is The Star Wars Rebels Finale Scene The Same As Ahsoka's? 

Ahsoka show creator (and Episode 1 director) Dave Filoni was also the co-creator of Rebels and co-director of the finale episode, so the homage connection is pretty clear. What's less clear for Star Wars fans is whether the scene is just an homage – an echo of another moment that occurred before – or is it meant to be the actual moment from the end of Rebels? 

Filoni will probably be the one to settle the matter for good, but there is room for both viewpoints, really. Obviously, the scene in Ahsoka has small details that are slightly different (namely Ahsoka Tano's wardrobe) so it could easily be explained that Sabine was just stopping by to see the mural she painted again – inspired by the fact that she and Ahsoka actually had a lead on where Ezra is. 

Then again, in the context of a larger Star Wars Universe, it would be kind of cool to go back and rewatch the end of Rebels, now knowing it was forecasting the adventure that is about to unfold in Ahsoka. 

Star Wars: Ahsoka is streaming on Disney+.