Is Ahsoka setting up James Mangold’s Star Wars movie?

Warning: This article contains spoilers from Ahsoka season 1, episode 3, “Time to Fly.” 

Ahsoka contains plenty of connections to Star Wars Rebels, The Clone Wars, and many post-Return of the Jedi stories, but it may also connect to an upcoming Star Wars movie. Three new movies were announced at Star Wars Celebration 2023, including a movie helmed by Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny director James Mangold, which will take place 25,000 years before The Phantom Menace.

The story will explore the origins of the Jedi Order and the discovery of the Force itself. Mangold revealed his pitch to Lucasfilm was “A ‘Ten Commandments’ about the dawning of the Force. It is basically, for fans, a kind of religion. What is it to have found this power and not even understand what it is?”

Given how far removed this movie is from the rest of the canon timeline, the story will inevitably feature many unfamiliar elements and a cast of new characters. Yet, there is a chance that Ahsoka is setting up the movie in two major ways.

Professor Huyang

Ahsoka features the live-action debut of Professor Huyang, a droid who was first introduced in The Clone Wars season 5. Huyang has trained thousands of generations of Jedi younglings in the art of constructing their lightsabers after the Gathering, a rite of passage in which younglings attain their kyber crystals.

In Ahsoka, Huyang is a close ally of Ahsoka Tano’s. He uses his expertise to identify Baylan Skoll through the former Jedi’s lightsaber design. “Time to Fly” shows Huyang training Ahsoka’s apprentice Sabine Wren in lightsaber combat, revealing that his lightsaber expertise transcends the construction of the storied weapons.

Beyond lightsabers, Huyang’s experience and his database contain a wealth of knowledge about the Jedi Order’s history and their standard operating procedures. Ahsoka and Sabine are unconventional Jedi, with Huyang representing the more conventional viewpoints of the Jedi Order.

The reference book Star Wars: Timelines reveals that Huyang was constructed in 25,020 BBY. This specific date means he is built around the time of James Mangold’s movie during the dawn of the Jedi Order.

He is one of the few familiar elements, and possibly the only established character, who could be in Mangold’s movie. Even Yoda won’t be born for approximately another 24,000 years.

Ahsoka is familiarizing a wider audience with Huyang. He can be one of the few familiar elements used to market the movie and connect it to the other movies and television series that take place thousands of years into the future.

Mangold’s film can show Huyang’s construction, but also the canon origins of the lightsaber itself. Huyang could play a role in creating the first lightsabers. The movie can showcase the first generation he teaches to build lightsabers, along with training them in combat with the same approach he uses with Sabine in Ahsoka.

Furthermore, Huyang gives information at the end of “Time to Fly” that may also set up Mangold’s movie.

The purrgil

According to Huyang in Ahsoka episode 3, “The Jedi Archives speak of intergalactic hyperspace lanes between galaxies which used to follow the migration paths of star whales named purrgil.” This confirms that purrgil can travel between galaxies, that the Jedi knew of this, and that there were even intergalactic hyperspace lanes created that followed the purrgil’s migration paths.

This seems like more of a long shot than incorporating Huyang into the story, but there is a possibility that the purrgil and other galaxies could play a role in Mangold’s movie. The purrgil and other galaxies could factor into the creation of the Jedi Order and their discovery of the Force.

Ezra Bridger used the Force to connect with the purrgil. Perhaps the purrgil helped the Jedi begin to understand the Force thousands of years earlier, maybe even helping them understand it through experiencing the Force in other galaxies.

That being said, the High Republic books and comics show that there are still many uncertainties about hyperspace and that few truly understand it. If this is the case thousands of years after the dawn of the Jedi Order, it it less likely that they had already unlocked the secrets of intergalactic travel.

If not in Mangold’s movie, there is definitely a story to tell about the Jedi traveling in between galaxies, and why this knowledge was seemingly hidden and buried in the Jedi Archives as time went on.

Considering that the movie is still in the early stages of development, Lucasfilm’s robust release schedule over the next few years, and the current WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, it is definitely several years away from being released. Nevertheless, it’s never too early to begin speculating about the seeds already being planted for Mangold’s Star Wars movie.

This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the Star Wars content being covered here wouldn’t exist.