There are a lot of Star Wars fans who still haven’t gotten over the markedly different yet equally polarizing The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, with Frank Oz of all people having to wade in after someone demanded that Rian Johnson apologize for Episode VIII every single day for the rest of his life.
The Force Awakens got a pass because Star Wars was back, and while it didn’t break any new ground, it was still an entertaining blockbuster that didn’t rock the boat. The Last Jedi, meanwhile, made sweeping changes to the mythology, upsetting and alienating a lot of people in the process, only for The Rise of Skywalker to try far too hard to get them back on board by doubling down on fan service and retcons at the expense of telling a serviceable story that could tie up the narrative in a fashion befitting a nine-movie saga that unfolded across four decades.
Now, a wild new fan theory speculates that The Mandalorian might end up erasing the Sequel Trilogy from canon, something that a certain section of the fanbase wouldn’t be against, and it all hinges on Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni continuing to embrace the animated shows as official continuity.
Rey hearing the voice of Ahsoka Tano during her vision in Episode IX would indicate that Snips is dead, with the theory putting forward the notion that Rebels arc Worlds Between Worlds had created two separate timelines. In one of them, Ahsoka didn’t make it, which is why she appears to Rey along with the other deceased members of the Order, while in the secondary timeline she survived and used her knowledge to point Din Djarin and Baby Yoda in the direction of Luke Skywalker.
As the theory explains:
I believe that the sequel trilogy was practically a different timeline than the ending of Rebels and Mandalorian timeline. In the Last Skywalker we hear Ahsoka Tano say “Rey” during Rey’s vision. The rest of the voices we hear are of dead Jedi. We hear Ahsoka’s voice, because she was dead in that timeline. In Rebels we see that Ezra Bridger went to the world between worlds and saved Ahsoka from being killed by Darth Vader. With Ahsoka being alive now she tells Din Djarin about the Seeing Stone. Without that knowledge Din Djarin and Grogu would probably never meet Luke Skywalker and Luke would never have trained Grogu. Training Grogu early will show Luke that using the dark side of the force is natural and can be controlled. Luke doesn’t fear Ben Solo’s power now and he never becomes Kylo Ren.
That means that not only did Episodes VII, VIII and IX technically not happen, but as the theory says, by training Grogu at his Academy two decades before The Force Awakens in The Mandalorian‘s established mythology, Luke would have a better handle on how to control the Dark Side and therefore he won’t fear Ben Solo’s power, meaning no Kylo Ren, either.
