Disney’s expansive Star Wars plans potentially make Grand Admiral Thrawn very important to the franchise’s future. The future of Star Wars was finally unveiled at Disney’s investor day on December 10, 2020. It looks very different from anything Disney envisioned when they acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, with the sequel trilogy era essentially shut down and even the anthology projects brought to a close after Solo: A Star Wars Story bombed.
The Mandalorian was a phenomenal success for both Lucasfilm and Disney+, and consequently, the focus is on 10 new Star Wars shows that will land on the streaming service over the next couple of years. Two of those new series will serve as loose companions for The Mandalorian – Ahsoka, starring Rosario Dawson as the live-action Ahsoka Tano, and Rangers of the New Republic. These will all be set in the same time period, five years after the Emperor’s defeat in Return of the Jedi and they’re expected to dovetail perfectly.
Intriguingly – and somewhat surprisingly – that model is exactly what Netflix’s Marvel movies looked to achieve, and while they weren’t without their faults, the method of story-telling (a sort of mini MCU) was one of the most successful elements. In Star Wars terms, it’s a thrilling prospect, particularly because the main villain of these three shows should be a character very familiar to fans of the old Expanded Universe – Grand Admiral Thrawn who will suddenly become incredibly important to the future of Star Wars.
Who Is Grand Admiral Thrawn?
Star Wars has always been more than just a film franchise; in fact, the first tie-in novel, Alan Dean Foster’s Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, was published all the way back in 1977. But 1991 is generally seen as the beginning of the true Expanded Universe when Timothy Zahn’s best-selling Thrawn Trilogy hit the book-shelves. These books were set several years after the Emperor’s defeat on the Second Death Star, and they featured the arrival of an Imperial warlord who brought the New Republic to its knees. Grand Admiral Thrawn was the only alien to ever attain to a high rank in the Empire, a military and strategic genius who delighted in playing the long game. Although he was killed at the end of Zahn’s trilogy, the author had plenty of opportunity to explore him over the years by telling stories set at different points in the timeline.
The Expanded Universe was declared non-canon (or “Legends”) by Disney when they purchased Lucasfilm in 2012, but it didn’t take them long to bring Grand Admiral Thrawn back into continuity. They hired Timothy Zahn himself to begin a (still ongoing) series of novels exploring Thrawn’s backstory, while Dave Filoni made Thrawn one of the principal villains in Star Wars Rebels. Season 4 of Star Wars Rebels ended with one of the animated show’s main heroes, Ezra Bridger, launching himself and Thrawn into the depths of the Unknown Regions. It was a smart way of writing the characters out of the original trilogy era – and it raised the possibility they would eventually return.
The Mandalorian Is Telling The Story Of The Imperial Remnant
Set five years after the fall of the Empire, The Mandalorian has already revealed the war against the Empire never truly ended. There is a hardcore remnant of Imperial loyalists, participants in countless atrocities, who are still fighting for the Empire. They have retreated into the Outer Rim, with one group – under the command of Moff Gideon – commanding a fleet somewhere in the region of Tatooine. But a Moff is a political rank, and it’s unlikely Gideon is the actual military commander of the Imperial Remnant. Supporting this theory, Gideon’s flagship is not the traditional Imperial Star Destroyer, but rather an Imperial Light Cruiser; while this may simply indicate the weakening of the Empire, it more likely suggests he does not have the military authority to command a Star Destroyer.
The Mandalorian season 2, episode 5 introduced Ahsoka Tano into the post-Return of the Jedi era, with Anakin Skywalker’s former Padawan attacking an Imperial outpost on Calodan. Ahsoka believed the Magistrate running that facility reported directly in to Grand Admiral Thrawn, who she clearly thinks has returned from the Unknown Regions. Dave Filoni has hinted a final scene in Star Wars Rebels, which saw Ahsoka recruit her old friend Sabine Wren to hunt for Thrawn and find their missing friend Ezra Bridger, may actually be set shortly after The Mandalorian season 2. If so, it’s presumably set up for the Ahsoka series.
Theory: Thrawn Is The Villain Of All Three Star Wars TV Shows
This raises the possibility these three Star Wars shows are telling the story of Grand Admiral Thrawn’s return – and thus are essentially an adaptation of Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy in the Disney era. Zahn is a master storyteller, and his novels can broadly be divided into three separate narrative threads that ultimately tie together. One thread is the story of Luke Skywalker and the Jedi, the second is focused on the New Republic’s politics and military, and the third explored the response of the criminal underworld. Conveniently enough, that matches up perfectly with Lucasfilm’s three-strand approach to the post-Return of the Jedi shows. Ahsoka is about the ex-Jedi’s quest for Thrawn, Rangers of the New Republic can reveal how the Republic’s politicians and the military respond to Thrawn, and The Mandalorian is, of course, very much centered upon the galactic underworld.
If this is indeed the case, then Lucasfilm cannot be faulted for their ambition. The adaptation will be a loose one, of course; don’t expect Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Leia Organa to play a role, although they may be name-dropped; that’s for the best because viewers know exactly how their stories will turn out, so it makes more sense to focus on characters whose futures are far more unclear. But still, it will be delightful to see one of the most popular stories in the Expanded Universe – indeed, the one that essentially established the EU as a powerhouse franchise in its own right – brought to life again in the Disney Era. It will be fascinating to see how this is incorporated into the lore, and how Thrawn’s Empire fits with the threat of the nascent First Order, which is being formed in the Unknown Regions at precisely this point in time. It’s possible Thrawn is actually acting on Palpatine’s command, offering a distraction so the Republic don’t notice the First Order amassing forces; alternatively, it could also be that he is attempting to build his own Empire as a rival to Palpatine’s. Hopefully, it won’t be long before Star Wars reveals the truth.
