Crew of The Mandalorian Explains Changes in Ahsoka's Chara Design
The character designer from LucasFilm explained to the fans why in The Mandalorian some elements of Ahsoka Tano's appearance were changed compared to the animated version.
The fifth episode of the second season of The Mandalorian , released a few days ago, delighted the fans. Female Jedi Ahsoka Tano, until now known only for her appearances in animated productions, aroused the most excitement. However, the appearance of her live-action rendition is in some aspects different from the original and one of the artists involved in the project explained what forced these changes.
The main difference was the so calledlekku, or head-tails. In the live-action version, they are much shorter than those possesed by Ahsoka at the end of Star Wars: Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels. This is important because they grow with age and the action of The Mandalorian takes place after these animated series. Asked by a fan, Brian Matyas (responsible for the character design at Lucasfilm) explained that the change was forced by practical reasons.
While working on Ahsoka's live-action version, the production crew considered many designs, but eventually decided to shorten the head-tails, as this gave the actress more freedom of movement and made it easier to shoot battle scenes that were a plenty in the said episode.
Reactions to Ahsoka's live-action appearance were mostly very positive, although there are also fans who loudly express their dissatisfaction with the change. Some of them argue that in this case the head-tails should have been done as CGI, not a practical effect. Ashley Eckstein, who provided the character's voice in the animated series, is delighted however.
As a reminder, the second season of The Mandalorian aired at the end of last month on Disney+ and will close in eight episodes. There is already a third season planned, which will probably air in 2021.
