Dave Filoni, one of the co-creators of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, recently revealed his original plans for Ahsoka Tano’s story in the show. Ahsoka has become one of the most influential characters in Star Wars, but she began by being the most influential in The Clone Wars. Ahsoka was one of the most prominent characters in The Clone Wars, and much of the show’s story hinged on her character. Recently, however, Filoni spoke about how different Ahsoka originally was, and his first plan for her could have redefined the entire Clone Wars timeline.

While speaking with WGA West, Filoni mentioned that the original plan for Ahsoka was much darker than the final version, and that George Lucas helped them refine her story.

Our original version was quite serious. As tends to happen with Star Wars, and I don’t know why, we loved it as children and it was fun and uplifting but now we have to make it serious. So our original edit was a young girl dragged into a war, she was trained as a peacekeeper, and boy is she out of her depth. This is death-defying and this is tension, but George had a different take. He said, this young girl has been trained as a Jedi Knight. The moments aren’t too big for her. She can handle it. You guys are taking this too seriously, you need to have more fun with this.

Filoni’s conversation with Lucas shows that Ahsoka could have been a very different character if the original plan for her had won out. Filoni’s ideas nearly made Ahsoka much darker, and that version might have won out if not for Lucas’ guidance. In the final version of The Clone Wars, Ahsoka was young, but she was a very capable Padawan, and her exploits in the Clone Wars seemed like fun adventures. Ahsoka has some horrible things happen to her, from being kidnapped to nearly dying dozens of times, but they seemed like misadventures. Filoni has recently revisited them, however, as well as his darker original plans.

The Ahsoka Show Restored Some Of Dave Filoni’s Original Idea

While Filoni’s original idea for Ahsoka didn’t win out in The Clone Wars, it wouldn’t be entirely discarded. Filoni later worked as the showrunner for Ahsoka, which dove deeper into the trauma Ahsoka experienced. Ahsoka was also geared towards a much more mature audience than The Clone Wars was, which likely allowed Filoni to revisit that darker story he originally came up with. Quite a bit of Ahsoka examined its main character’s experiences in the past, particularly in regard to the Clone Wars and her master, Anakin Skywalker, and looked at it all through a more adult lens.

There’s one scene in particular from Ahsoka that highlights what Filoni’s original plan for The Clone Wars might have looked like: Ahsoka’s vision of the Clone Wars that she experienced in the World Between Worlds. That scene showed Ahsoka as a young Padawan again, and it had much more of the “out of her element” aspect that Filoni once had in mind for her. In that vision, Ahsoka felt like what she was: a child fighting a war. There was no sense of fun or adventure, and it emphasized the horrors of the Clone Wars and examined the morality of the Jedi’s use of child soldiers.

Ahsoka’s vision also emphasized the trauma and guilt she felt for being part of the Clone Wars, as well as the baggage those events left her with. It’s a very dark reexamination of Ahsoka’s character, and it seems to be heavily inspired by Filoni’s original plan for her. Ahsoka also seems to be Filoni’s way of maturing with his audience: the main viewers of The Clone Wars were children when it came out and adults now, and Ahsoka adjusted its tone accordingly. While the darker story certainly worked for Ahsoka, it’s probably for the best that she remained an adventurous kid in The Clone Wars.

Source: WGA West