Ahsoka Photo Confirms The Identity Of A Big Star Wars Easter Egg
These days more than ever, "Star Wars" is filled with Easter eggs and cameos, and that's certainly true in the live-action "Ahsoka" series. One stray shot in the show's first season includes a photo of Kanan Jarrus, the Jedi Knight voiced by Freddie Prinze Jr. in "Star Wars Rebels" who trains Ezra Bridger, fathers a child with Hera Syndulla, and ultimately sacrifices himself to save his friends and family. Prior to the photo, Kanan had never been portrayed in live-action "Star Wars," but the shot itself is so quick and the photo is so small that it's hard to really see what he looks like.
Here's a prop from Ahsoka which is a picture of Kanan Jarrus to make it look like Freddie Prinze Jr. S/O to @WedgeDAntilles from @RefPointPodcast for sending me this and he found it on a Facebook group called Movie Props https://t.co/ORC2rrmEuv pic.twitter.com/4jkF43MnBr
— Daniel Sotir (@DanRS87) December 28, 2023
Thanks to a recent post from user @DanRS87 on X, formerly known as Twitter, it's now been confirmed that the Kanan photo does indeed carry Prinze's real-life likeness. The post includes a close-up picture of the real photo prop from the show. It's pretty clear that Prinze didn't show up on set to put on the costume, as the picture seems to be a digital edit of some kind, but it's distinctly the actor's face, and he looks great as the real-world version of his beloved animated character. "S/O to @WedgeDAntilles from @RefPointPodcast for sending me this and he found it on a Facebook group called Movie Props," @DanRS87 wrote in the caption.
Of course, seeing this doctored, blurry version of Prinze as Kanan is no substitute for a proper cameo. Still, it completes the set of "Star Wars Rebels" characters making the leap to live-action.
Every major Star Wars Rebels character has now appeared in live-action
At this point, pretty much every major character from "Star Wars Rebels" has entered the live-action "Star Wars" universe. Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi), Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), and Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen) all appear in "Ahsoka" Season 1, along with some more minor characters from the animated series. Mikkelsen also voiced Thrawn in "Rebels," making his transition particularly easy to swallow.
Zeb (Steve Blum) appears during "The Mandalorian" Season 3, and the Grand Inquisitor, voiced by Jason Isaacs in the animated realm, had his live-action debut in "Obi-Wan Kenobi," in which he's played by Rupert Friend. With Kanan's photo cameo, Alexsandr Kallus (David Oyelowo) is probably the biggest "Rebels character yet to make a live-action appearance.
Of course, none of this would be possible without the original voice actors doing such a phenomenal job at bringing the characters to life. "Rebels" actors like Ezra's Taylor Gray, Sabine's Tiya Sircar, and Hera's Vanessa Marshall will always remain the originators. Still, it's fun to see the animated and live-action "Star Wars" universes continue to blend. It will likely happen more and more with Dave Filoni now overseeing all projects in the franchise, as his background is in animation and he served as showrunner for both "The Clone Wars" and "Rebels."
Could Freddie Prinze Jr. ever return as Kanan Jarrus?
The natural question after seeing Freddie Prinze Jr.'s face on a live-action Kanan Jarrus photo is whether or not we ever get a proper reprisal from the actor. And, unfortunately, the answer is most likely no.
Though he's a self-professed superfan of the franchise, Prinze says he's uninterested in returning to "Star Wars" again. "[Kanan's] story — at least for me — is done," the actor told ComicBook.com in 2023. "I thought it ended beautifully. People cried, I was very happy for that. I don't mean that like a jerk: Our goal was to make you cry. I didn't even want to do the little voice over in the last 'Star Wars' movie. I thought it felt forced."
That last bit is referring to "The Rise of Skywalker," for which Prinze provided a brief voice-acting cameo. Kanan is one of the Jedi heard speaking to Rey (Daisy Ridley) and encouraging her during her battle against Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) at the end of the film. Certainly, it would be tricky to bring Kanan back in a way that makes sense and feels satisfying, since he doesn't learn how to become a Force ghost prior to his death (as far as we know). Still, this is "Star Wars," and characters come back from the dead or appear in the World Between Worlds all the time. If Eman Esfandi's Ezra Bridger becomes as important to future "Star Wars" projects as his onscreen charisma demands, it would be a great fan moment to see some kind of new interaction between the former master and apprentice.