Ahsoka Season 2 Rumor Teases The Return Of A Huge Star Wars Prequel Trilogy Character

The latest casting rumor for "Ahsoka" season 2 could be good news or bad news, depending on what direction you want the "Star Wars" franchise to take. If you loved the return of legacy characters like Hayden Christensen's Anakin Skywalker, Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Temuera Morrison's Boba Fett, then you could be in for a treat. YouTuber and scooper Kristian Harloff said on his most recent podcast, "I got word that [showrunner Dave] Filoni is really trying hard to get this one character back. I don't think it's a signed deal yet, but it's close, and it looks like, in 'Ahsoka,' returning could be one Natalie Portman."

Like Christensen and McGregor, Portman was first introduced in the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy that released between 1999 and 2005. She played Padme Amidala, the young queen of Naboo and eventually the planet's representative in the Galactic Senate. Padme had an ill-fated romance with Anakin that ended with him Force-choking her while she was pregnant, and Padme dying while giving birth to their twins: Luke and Leia Skywalker. A medical droid states that Padme died because she simply "lost the will to live" — one of the many elements of the prequel trilogy that was widely unpopular with fans.

Coupled with the recent rumors that Christensen and McGregor will both be returning for "Ahsoka" season 2, Harloff speculates that the show is probably doing a "'World Between Worlds' type thing." The World Between Worlds is an otherworldly plane in "Star Wars" lore filled with pathways through time and space, and also serves as a handy venue for meetings between living and dead characters. In "Ahsoka" season 1, Ahsoka spent some time hanging out with her former Jedi Master, Anakin, in the World Between Worlds. It's certainly a convenient storytelling device for bringing back characters who have been killed off ... but is that what "Star Wars" fans are looking for?

While some "Star Wars" fans might celebrate this casting rumor, it's sure to cause groans in other areas of the fandom. The most highly-praised releases of the Disney era of "Star Wars" have mostly been those that centered on new characters, like "Rogue One" and its prequel series "Andor," the early seasons of "The Mandalorian," and, more recently, the Amblin-style adventure "Skeleton Crew." Meanwhile, by far the biggest big-screen failure was "Solo," a movie that told the origin story of young Han Solo (played by Alden Ehrenreich). Since the sequel trilogy concluded, progress on making more "Star Wars" movies has been sluggish, with a steady stream of projects being put into development and then canceled.

On the TV side, legacy characters like Obi-Wan, Anakin, and a Deepfake-faced Luke Skywalker delivered brief excitement, followed by rapidly diminishing returns. "Ahsoka" itself is centered around characters from Filoni's animated shows "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" and "Star Wars Rebels," and season 1 didn't do much to get unfamiliar viewers invested in those characters. If "Ahsoka" season 2 does indeed end up packing in Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Padme, there's a risk of sidelining the still-living characters even more.

Still, if Padme gets to give Anakin a posthumous kick in the nuts, maybe it'll be worth it.