“It’s Important How Ahsoka Sees Anakin”: Dave Filoni Explains The Real Reason For Hayden Christensen’s Anakin Return

Dave Filoni has spoken about Hayden Christensen’s return as Anakin Skywalker in Ahsoka, and in doing so, he’s also revealed the real reason why he had to appear. The most highly praised episode of the latest live-action Star Wars TV show is no doubt Ahsoka episode 5, which sees Anakin’s and Ahsoka’s first reunion since the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars series – and the first-ever time in live-action. In the World Between Worlds, Anakin takes Ahsoka through memories of various Clone Wars battles as he teaches her one last lesson she needs to move forward. Afterward, Ahsoka begins her transformation from Ahsoka the Gray to Ahsoka the White, but all else about Anakin’s re-appearance remains a purposeful mystery.

Now, Filoni has had the chance to speak more to Anakin’s role in Ahsoka’s story with the Dagobah Dispatch podcast, where he gives the real reason for the iconic Star Wars character’s return. He emphasizes the purpose of Anakin’s return centering on Ahsoka rather than himself, as his own story had already been told and completed in the Skywalker saga. Filoni also discusses fulfilling “a promise” made to viewers when Luke Skywalker was first told about his father, portraying a heroic image of Anakin that people like Ahsoka have always seen him as.

So he had done a lot of watching and he’s talked about that, and we just discussed this isn’t really a story about Anakin, but it’s important how Ahsoka sees Anakin – because this is her lived experience. Your story was already told in George’s saga, that’s done. But it is important for her because you’re her mentor. And you have to be both… I was always saying you have to be the great person that she admired, that we all admired, that when I was a kid and I heard Luke’s father was Anakin Skywalker, and I was like “He must’ve been the greatest Jedi ever,” let’s… let’s fulfill that promise, because we saw you be young, we saw you be adventurous, but really fall to the dark side.

Filoni’s and Christensen’s shared goal in bringing Anakin to life in Ahsoka was to portray him as the “heroic older brother” Ahsoka always saw him as, with the ability to make light of tough situations but also to be a role model and protector. He also shares the delight he had in seeing Christensen alongside Ariana Greenblatt, who portrays Padawan Ahsoka in the series.

But let’s show you as the heroic older brother, the person that kinda cracks wise and makes jokes and, you know, can be serious, but completely cavalier. He was all for it, he dove so far into it, it was almost… you know, just amazing. It gave me pause just to stand there and look at him in the costume, standing next to Ariana, because in my mind, it’s really no different, no matter what the medium was. The image is always Anakin with Ahsoka.

Filoni even likens the dynamic to one straight out of George Lucas’ American Graffitti, hinting Lucas very well may have taken inspiration from himself when developing Ahsoka’s and Anakin’s relationship with Filoni for The Clone Wars. He emphasizes how seeing Anakin and receiving closure from him brought Ahsoka from being the stoic “Ronin wanderer” to a version of herself more open and free, which made Christensen’s return as Anakin vital to her character development.

Those two characters, this older brother younger sister dynamic, it kinda almost feels like something out of American Graffiti, you know, when they’re in the car and I think Mackenzie Phillips is the one in the car, and she’s trying to hold course with Milner. Right? It’s just, it’s that dynamic that those two have, and they had it, and I thought they both did an incredible job in those scenes and humanized this character, who up until that point, really felt like a Ronin wanderer, very much to herself, doesn’t want to open up. And then that kinda broke that wide open going forward in the show.

Ahsoka Needed The Hero Anakin Always Was To Her

Ahsoka’s at her lowest point when Anakin visits her in the World Between Worlds, and what she needs to truly change and return is the hero Anakin always was to her. While the knowledge of who Anakin went on to become haunts Ahsoka through most of her time spent with him in these flashbacks, Anakin knows how influential his impact on her can still be, and he uses that to show her that both he and Ahsoka herself are more than what people think of them – or even what they think of themselves. So long as they make the right choice when faced with it by letting the Force guide them, then no one else can influence their destiny, or determine their worth based on their past.

This is the real reason why Christensen returns as Anakin in Ahsoka, as Ahsoka needs to see the hero she knew Anakin to be in order to receive the proper closure to move forward. It was important, then, for Christensen to adopt the version of Anakin as seen in The Clone Wars rather than who he portrayed in the prequel Star Wars trilogy, as he had to become the person Ahsoka always knew. It was her Master she needed to see and reckon with in Ahsoka, and because of his lesson, Ahsoka can now move forward into becoming the Jedi – or Force-wielder – she’s always been destined to be.