A new “Star Wars” theory suggests there’s one Jedi out there who could rush to train Grogu — Baby Yoda — in the near future, but it’s not one we’ve seen in a “Star Wars” live-action performance before.
The Mandalorian and Gorgu recently received instructions from Ahsoka Tano to head to the planet Tython, where they’ll find a seeing stone that will alert Jedi about Grogu, who went into hiding after Order 66, the Great Jedi Purge.
Speculation has mounted about which Jedi could hear the call. Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa (it’s unclear if she’s started training yet), Cere Junda (from the Jedi: Fallen Order video game) and Cal Kestis (also from the Jedi: Fallen Order video game) are some of the well-known Jedi we know exist at this point in the timeline.
But there’s one other who could appear — Ezra Bridger from “Star Wars Rebels.”
The theory
Amanda Prahl of PopSugar recently put forth the idea that Bridger — the Jedi padawan seen in “Star Wars Rebels” — could be the Jedi who returns to train Grogu.
“After all, he’d make a pretty good choice, narrative-wise. He’s a known character from the Rebels series, but he’s not an iconic character from the mainline movies, and he’d be around a good age to be a teacher (the Rebels continuity reveals that he, like Luke and Leia, was born the year of Anakin Skywalker’s fall, placing him around age 30 during ‘The Mandalorian’). Most importantly, he’s something of a narrative blank slate for the future: he’s not referenced in the sequel trilogy movies, and he’s not even one of the Jedi voices who appear to Rey in ‘The Rise of Skywalker,’ meaning his future is completely unknown. Who better to join the cast and train Grogu than a popular character with a mysterious storyline?”
It doesn’t hurt that “The Haunting of Bly Manor” star Rahul Kohli recently joked that he might play Ezra in live-action. Of course, he later said he was joking about the role, as I wrote about for the Deseret News.
“I was trolling. I heard rumors that there was a casting call looking for a live-action Ezra that was looking for Asian actors in their late twenties, early thirties. I had watched a bit of ‘Rebels’ that morning, so it was fresh in my mind. I was going to the gym and I thought I’d fire off a cheeky tweet.”
Still, the rumors of his appearance as Ezra are still out there.
There’s one big snag with this theory
It’s unclear if Bridger is still around in the “Stat Wars” timeline during “The Mandalorian” events. We saw Ahsoka Tano and Sabine Wren team up at the end of “Rebels” to find Ezra after he disappeared. For years, “Star Wars” fans thought that the scene happened right after the Battle of Endor.
This was even hinted at during “The Mandalorian” debut of Tano, who questioned the Magistrate on Corvus about the location of Grand Admiral Thrawn, who had disappeared with Ezra.
But “Rebels” showrunner Dave Filoni recently revealed in an interview with Variety that the scene with Sabine and Ahsoka might actually take place after the events of “The Mandalorian,” which suggests Ezra would still be missing.
“That’s not necessarily chronological. I think the thing that people will most not understand is they want to go in a linear fashion, but as I learned as a kid, nothing in ‘Star Wars’ really works in a linear fashion. You do (episodes) 4, 5 and 6 and then 1, 2 and 3. So in the vein of that history, when you look at the epilogue of ‘Rebels’ you don’t really know how much time has passed. So, it’s possible that the story I’m telling in ‘The Mandalorian’ actually takes place prior to that. Possible. I’m saying it’s possible.”