Ahsokahas just entered its latter half withEpisode 5, “The Shadow Warrior”, and it’s starting to seem like the actual confrontation with the villain Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen) will take place mostly after the end of the series, inDave Filoni’s New Republic movie. This project has been described asthe culmination of the so-called “Mando-Verse”, which is enough to leave any fan scratching their head trying to figure out what exactly that means. According to Filoni, an idea for this came onceJon Favreaumentioned he wantedThe Mandaloriansetin the 30-year periodbetweenStar Wars: Episode VI — Return of the JediandStar Wars: The Force Awakens, so Filoni brought up theStar Wars Rebelsepilogue scene and a story started to unravel from there. All these stories have a lot in common, but not all of them are part of the Mando-Verse, so what’s this really about? What stories should we be on the lookout for when preparing for Filoni’s movie?
The Mando-Verse Comprises All Stories Directly Related to ‘The Mandalorian'
WhenThe Mandalorianhad its premiere at the end of 2019, few Star Wars fans could have imagined it would eventually lead up to a whole new corner of the galaxy.The Rise of Skywalkerhad also just been released and morale among fans was kind of low, but, thankfully, Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal/Brendan Wayne/Lateef Crowder) and Grogu showed us there were plenty of reasons to be happy about.
Season 1 may have been its own story and had very few ties to the larger Star Wars universe, but Season 2 brought back many familiar characters and showed that there was something more going on. WhenThe Book of Boba Fettwas announced in the post-credits scene, it became clear that a shared universe was definitely in construction, and thus the term “Mando-Verse” was born among the fans. With so many different Star Wars series and movies announced, it’s difficult to know which of them happens in what part of the timeline, but the Mando-Verse is pretty simple: it comprises every series and movie that is directly related to Din Djarin and Grogu and takes place around the same time asThe Mandalorian, five years afterReturn of the Jedi. So we’re talking aboutThe Book of Boba FettandAhsoka,as well as Dave Filoni’s upcoming movie. There was another series in the works that was supposed to be part of the Mando-Verse,Rangers of the New Republic,but that didn’t work out, unfortunately.
If it gets confusing, there’s an even easier way of knowing if a series is part of the Mando-Verse or not: ifCaptain Carson Teva (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee)appears, then it is. He’s the single thread that’s present in all three Mando-Verse series so far, the Star Wars equivalent to the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg). If he’s not in Dave Filoni’s movie, too, fans will probably riot.
The thing with the Mando-Verse designation is that there are a few characters that go beyond it. Characters like Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson/Ashley Eckstein) and Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff) were famous for appearing in other corners of the Star Wars universe, like the animated seriesStar Wars: The Clone WarsandStar Wars Rebels. Not just that, but some of those shows feature characters who are also inThe Mandalorianand even the Skywalker Saga, like Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison). Not to mention, of course, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). Luckily, Star Wars fans are thoughtful enough to have created a suitable designation for this, too.
In 2008, Star Wars went back to the movie theaters with the release of the franchise’s first-ever animated film,The Clone Wars. Not only were characters likeAnakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen/Matt Lanter)and Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor/James Arnold Taylor) back on the big screen, but a new fan-favorite was introduced in Ahsoka Tano. The movie comprised the first arc of the eponymous animated series produced byGeorge Lucashimself along with newcomer Dave Filoni, who would go on to createRebelsand produce many other series, likeThe Clone Warssequel seriesThe Bad Batch,Star Wars Resistance, and evenThe Mandalorianitself. All this comprises what the fans call “Filoni-Verse”, referring to every series that has Dave Filoni as a producer.
It’s important to point out that the Filoni-Verse comprises every series and movie that’s part of the Mando-Verse, too, as these are also produced by Filoni. Also, there are a lot of overlapping story arcs and character exchanges between them, too. For example, Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) is a character created forThe Mandalorian, but she also appears in Season 1 ofThe Bad Batch. Another example isSenator Hamato Xiono (Nelson Lee/Tzi Ma), who first appeared as the father ofResistanceprotagonist Kazuda “Kaz” Xiono (Christopher Sean) and recently made the jump to live-action inAhsoka.
What About Series Like ‘Andor’ and ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’?
Before the Lucasfilm acquisition by Disney, everything that wasn’t one of the original sixStar Warsmovies directed by George Lucas was considered part of the Extended Universe, now known as Legends, and definitely not canon anymore. The late EU was organized into “layers” of canon in which nothing could contradict the movies, but it pretty much resulted in works that considered whatever they wanted as canon -the famousHeir to the Empiretrilogy, for example, takes just the original movies and nothing more. Now, at least, we know that everything made by Lucasfilm is canon and that’s it.
Designations like the Mando-Verse or the Filoni-Verse don’t mean something is “more canon” than the rest like it was with the EU,it’s just about identifying where in the canon it belongs. Now that we’ve established what is part of each of those, there are still a few series and movies that remain loose. The defining trait of a shared universe is the exchange of characters, but what about Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker)? He appears inRogue One: A Star Wars Story,Andor,The Clone Wars, andRebels- the latter two are part of the Filoni-Verse, but what about the others?
They are part of their own little corner ofStar Wars. The Skywalker Saga is its own thing, of course, andRogue OneandAndorare two connected spin-offs, despite sharing arcs and characters withA New HopeandRebels, for example.Not everything needs to be connected, too, and that’s the case withSolo: A Star Wars Storyand theObi-Wan Kenobiseries. Sometimes, a story is worth to be told by itself, and that’s the case with them. We surely enjoy the Mando-Verse for all the connections it shares with the Filoni-Verse and the rest ofStar Wars, but every story in the galaxy far, far away matters just as much for us fans.
