Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which is finally in cinemas around the world, pulls from across the franchise to bring the Skywalker saga to a close. And in doing so, it answers a few questions that fans have been wondering about. For one, it seemingly confirms a couple of characters’ fates that have been left unclear in canon before now.
The big triumphant moment of the movie comes when Rey is finally able to best Emperor Palpatine in a fight. She does so when she hears the spirits of many of the Jedi to come before her, speaking to her through the Force. There are 10 vocal cameos in this scene, all told, with cast members from the Prequel Trilogy and the animated series brought back to reprise their roles.
The way that Rey can hear them speaking through the Force afterlife appears to reveal that two characters we weren’t sure about died prior to the events of TROS. One is Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson). The Jedi master was thrown out of a window by Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith, but we’ve seen Force-users survive worse and Jackson has maintained that his character could be still around.
The second is Ahsoka Tano, the breakout heroine from The Clone Wars. The last time we saw the former Jedi padawan chronologically was in the Rebels finale, in a flash-forward set after Return of the Jedi. So, at some point in the last 30 years, Ahsoka must’ve passed away.
The nature of the voices Rey hears is left ambiguous, though, so if you’re clinging to the hope that Ahsoka and/or Windu is still alive, then we suppose you can say that they sent telepathic messages to her, rather than spoke to her as Force ghosts. No doubt Ahsoka will return in some form after The Clone Wars season 7, so either way, we should get a concrete answer eventually. But for now, this scene in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker does seem to imply that they’re dead.
