Star Wars Ahsoka: What Is the Battle of Lothal?

While reviews -- particularly those from hardcore Star Wars fans -- have been pretty favorable for Ahsoka, the new series from executive producer Dave Filoni, one of the critiques of the show is how "inside baseball" it can feel for those who haven't already watched a decade or so of animated series. While Disney made a show of removing books, comics, and cartoons from the official canon when they launched Star Wars: The Force Awakens, big chunks of Star Wars: Rebels and The Clone Wars have been implicitly -- or sometimes explicitly -- to continuity by the way shows like The Mandalorian and Obi-Wan Kenobi have played out.

In the premiere of Ahsoka, there are a number of references to events that took place in the animated series in which she starred, and while writers did their best to make the episode approachable and understandable for casual fans, there are a few references that can be a little vexing. One of them is a nod to the "Battle of Lothal."

If you look at the definitive Star Wars guide on the internet, Wookieepedia, there is just a wall of text numbering a dozen or so battles that took place on Lothal, so casual fans who hope to just scroll to the answer on their phone might have bad luck with it. The one Ahsoka is talking about is the final battle, also known as the liberation of Lothal. That's the battle that took place over the last few episodes of Rebels, and teamed many of the surviving rebels (but not Ahsoka) with Ryder Azadi (Clancy Brown).

In the battle, rebels leveled the playing field by kidnapping the acting Imperial governor, drawing his soldiers into a chase that ended in The Dome, a structure that the rebels then shot into space, where it would later explode. Thrawn showed up, and he and his Star Destroyer ended up captured by space whales (no word on whether one of them was accompanied by a bowl of petunias) after a showdown with Ezra Bridger, who had previously linked psychically with one of the whales. The whales then teleported Thrawn to an unknown, distant galaxy, which is where he starts off ("...in a galaxy far, far away...") at the start of Ahsoka. 

Thrawn is expected to show up in Ahsoka, and so will Ezra, so it seems we're getting a second act to the big Rebels finale in live action soon.

New episodes of Ahsoka drop Tuesday nights on Disney+.