‘Ahsoka’s hidden ‘Solo’ connection means it’s the closest we’ll probably ever come to a sequel

The Rise of Skywalker might be most of the fandom’s least favorite Star Wars movie, but the least successful is undoubtedly Solo: A Star Wars Story – which blew it at the box office so much that it killed off an entire filmmaking strategy and is probably why Lucasfilm remains too shy to release any further Star Wars spinoffs all these years after the Skywalker Saga ended. Naturally, then, despite its ardent fans clamoring for a Solo 2, the studio has not been forthcoming. And yet at least now we have Ahsoka.

Although mostly a live-action follow-up to both The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels, Ahsoka also finds time to feature an unexpected and easily missed connection to Solo in the second half of its two-part premiere. When attempting to uncover Morgan Elspeth’s covert Imperial operations, Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) and her old friend, General Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), travel to the planet Corellia, where they discover that a New Republic shipyard is secretly still loyal to the Empire.

Corellia is a planet that should be immediately familiar as a concept to Star Wars fans as it is, of course, the homeworld of Han Solo. It took until 2018’s Solo, however, for Corellia to actually be depicted on screen, with the film introducing Alden Ehrenreich’s young smuggler, not to mention Emilia Clarke’s Qi’ra as a low-level crook working for crime boss Lady Proxima who ruled the underworld in Corellia’s Coronet City. The planet’s return in Ahsoka, then, only doubled down on its depiction as the home of unsavory characters.

Even all these years later, Star Wars sorts are still begging Disney for a Solo sequel, but with one unlikely to be on the horizon — given Kathleen Kennedy’s recent subtle shade-throwing — maybe we should be happy with this brief crossover in Ahsoka.