Rosario Dawson Is Overtaking Pedro Pascal In The Star Wars Universe?
Rosario Dawson may soon take over for Pedro Pascal as the face of Star Wars on Disney+.
Disney+ and Star Wars may be positioning Rosario Dawson’s Ahsoka Tano to be at the center of the connected TV universe first ushered in by Pedro Pascal’s The Mandalorian.
After Disney revealed its plans for a live-action, standalone series titled Ahsoka starring Rosario Dawson as the title character, a new rumor from Daniel Richtman suggests that the connected Star Wars universe the Mouse House hopes to build with its slew of Mandalorian spinoffs may put Dawson’s character at the center of things rather than Pedro Pascal’s previously established, and fan-beloved, Mandalorian character, Din Djarin. Richtman claims to have heard that within the shared universe they are creating for Star Wars, Ahsoka will have a bigger role than Mando.
While this would be big for the franchise and Rosario Dawson’s place in it, it wouldn’t be altogether surprising as a business move.
While die-hard Star Wars fans were aware of the Jedi Ahsoka since her debut in the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels, for many, their first introduction to the character was by way of Rosario Dawson’s appearance in the season two episode of The Mandalorian titled The Jedi. Not only did fans get to see the character brought to life for the first time, but she set up some deeper Star Wars lore by way of a mention of Grand Admiral Thrawn.
Now that she’ll be at the helm of her very own series, the character can unite the far reaches of Star Wars fandom by appealing both to seasoned fans of the animated extended universe as well as more casual fans who tuned into The Mandalorian at the launch of the Disney+ streaming service only to fall in love with Rosario Dawson’s portrayal.
While Pedro Pascal helped build a fantastic world in the live-action Star Wars universe, and we’ll be seeing him soon in Mandalorian season 3, his star power is somewhat torpedoed by the fact that his face never being shown is a major plot point on the show. Meanwhile, Rosario Dawson can usher in some personality and facetime as well as present the franchise’s much-needed Jedi lore on the screen in a way the Spaghetti Western-style of The Mandalorian did not (with the final moments of season two being a huge exception).
The Rosario Dawson-led Ahsoka series was announced on Disney’s Investor Day 2020, where Vulture notes it also discussed plans for a slew of other shows set parallel with The Mandalorian timeline such as Rangers of the New Republic, the Rogue One spinoff Andor and, of course, the live-action series focused on Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan Kenobi, which will bring on Hayden Christensen to reprise his role as Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader. That’s not even counting previously announced Star Wars films from Wonder Woman helmer Patty Jenkins and Thor: Love and Thunder boss Taika Waititi.
As a result, with so much deep Star Wars and Jedi lore headed to the Disney+ TV universe, it would make sense if the biggest piece of connective tissue between them wasn’t Pedro Pascal’s character who had never heard of them before. Enter Rosario Dawson as a full-fledged Jedi with pre-existing axes to grind, and you may just have Ahsoka Tano as the metaphorical Tony Stark to Star Wars’ expanding TV universe.
