Does It Matter If Ewan McGregor Returns For Ahsoka Season 2?

Conflicting reports came out today over whether or not Ewan McGregor would be reprising his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi in season two of the Disney+ series Ahsoka. The question I am left with is whether or not this actually matters in the long run, considering how strangely situated both Star Wars as a franchise and Disney+ as a platform are situated going into 2026.

So a quick refresher, Ahsoka season one came out about two years ago at this point and featured the return of Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka, the apprentice of Anakin Skywalker who debuted in Star Wars: The Clone Wars (the movie) before being a major lead in both The Clone Wars (the show) and Rebels. This show spun out of The Mandalorian and continued her quest to find Ezra and Thrawn from the finale of Rebels and her episode of The Mandalorian.

All of this is mostly in service of the fact that we are now also two years removed from the announcement of a movie directed by Dave Filoni (at the time the architect of The Clone Wars, Rebels, and all the post-Return of the Jedi Disney+ shows, now CCO of Lucasfilm) that was sold as a wrap-up of the stories set in this era of the Star Wars universe. For the sake of ease (due to plot commonalities and the likelihood that Thrawn would be the villain), this movie has been dubbed by me and other people as Heir to the Empire, named for the now non-canon Expanded Universe novel of the same name that featured Thrawn as the antagonist trying to destroy the New Republic.

In the time since Ahsoka debuted, all three of the movies announced when Heir to the Empire was revealed (New Jedi Order and Dawn of the Jedi were the other two) have been indefinitely delayed and the only two movies "officially" on the slate right now are The Mandalorian and Grogu (May 2026) and Star Wars: Starfighter (May 2027). Additional reporting indicates that The Mandalorian is no longer going to continue as a show on Disney+, but should the theatrical release next year be a success, the franchise will continue in theaters.

There is also reporting indicating that the next big Avengers-style connected universe from Star Wars will be set in the New Jedi Order era, featuring Rey and set after The Rise of Skywalker. Tony Gilroy also said in the aftermath of Andor that Disney considers big-budget streaming to be dead which led to him and his team needing to functionally beg Disney for the funding to finish the show.

So if season two of Ahsoka comes after The Mandalorian and Grogu (which is likely), what does Ahsoka really matter in the long run? This is exactly the level of cynical "I have homework"-style nonsense that leads to Kevin Feige blaming streaming for the skid of the MCU. Do I really need to watch six to eight episodes of a show to understand that Ahsoka and Sabine have gotten back to the galaxy to help face off against Thrawn? By extension, to fully understand what happens in Heir to the Empire, do I need to watch all three seasons of The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, both seasons of Ahsoka, and Skeleton Crew?

The point in all this is that whether or not Obi-Wan Kenobi is in Ahsoka for the second season, the discussion only serves to point out the glaring issue with the show. The show only exists at this point to try to keep people on Disney+ while they carry this experiment over the finish line. There's no confirmation whether or not he will appear in the show next year, but I wouldn't be surprised if he appeared. It's stunt casting designed to get the lapsed or peripheral Star Wars fan to watch the show and keep dedicated fans hooked, not unlike Daredevil's appearance in She-Hulk: Attorney At Law.