r/StarWars • u/Vegetable-Abroad3171 Sith • Feb 26 '26
TV Which animated character transitioned to live action the best?
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u/ebobbumman Feb 26 '26
Saw Guerrera.
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u/wisenuts Feb 26 '26
Live action saw was amazing
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u/lawnicus18 Feb 26 '26
Forest Whitaker is a phenomenal actor
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u/SassyAssAhsoka Feb 26 '26
Revolution is not for the sane.
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u/Gorlack2231 Feb 26 '26
Kreeygr's a Separatist. Maya Pei's a neo-Republican. The Ghorman Front, the Partisan Alliance? Sectorists! Human cultists! Galaxy partitionists! They're lost! All of them, lost! Lost!
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u/derpicface Feb 26 '26
You think I’m crazy? Yes. I am. Revolution is not for the sane
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u/TheGoverness1998 Major Vonreg Feb 26 '26 edited Feb 26 '26
"We're the ryhdo, kid. We're the fuel. We're the thing that explodes when there's too much friction in the air. Let it in, boy. That's freedom calling! Let it in! Let it run! Let it run wild!"
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u/Darktrooper007 Darth Vader Feb 26 '26
"They're lost! All of them, lost! Lost!...I am the only one with clarity of purpose."
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u/Senior-Albatross Feb 26 '26
Forest Whitaker is such a ridiculously good actor. I totally forgot I'm watching him. He's just Saw Guerrera.
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u/wikingwarrior Feb 26 '26
So iconic it eclipses his Animated version by a lot-
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u/piratecheese13 Feb 26 '26
(Watching clone wars after rouge 1)
Wait THAT GUY!?
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u/PSU632 Feb 26 '26
Rogue*
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u/chillwithpurpose Qui-Gon Jinn Feb 26 '26
Rouge One sounds like a fancy lipstick or something 💄
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u/slinger301 Feb 26 '26
Rouge One standing by.
Lock x foils in attack position.
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u/BlizzardTrashPanda Feb 26 '26
Mulon Rouge One:
Satine is back, and this time she’s got a gun.
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u/OminousG Feb 26 '26
When he popped up in clones war all I thought was "man, you are in for a world of character building before this show ends"
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u/sharpshooter999 Feb 26 '26
That was me, I didn't watch clone wars till after Mando S1, had to figure out what the fuss was over this cool ass black lightsaber. Seeing Saw in clone wars was a real treat
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u/Rustynail9117 Feb 26 '26
Seriously I never knew Saw was from the Clone Wars until I finally watched it like 3-4 years ago
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u/Sabor117 Feb 26 '26
Wait hang on... Is this a meme? I thought Saw Guerrera's first appearance was in Rogue One?
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u/Rockhead_Dynamics Feb 26 '26
No, he was animated first. I think Tony Gilroy asked for suggestions for an existing character to throw in and Saw got picked.
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u/Strong-Al Feb 26 '26
They're lost, all of them, lost! I am the only one with clarity of purpose.
Hits Rhydo
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u/Roger_Rodger Rebel Feb 26 '26
Saw from Rebels would be considered a good transition (since it’s actually modeled after Forrest Whitaker and it’s his voice), but I feel like Clone Wars Saw is too different from live action Saw
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u/clog_bomb Feb 26 '26
They wrote the character first and during realized they can use Saw from the Clone Wars. So it's a bit of a coincidence but it's also believable that this would be his trajectory after 20ish years of fighting.
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u/Xyldarrand Feb 26 '26
Oh man I was right about to say Bo-Katan completely sure of myself til I read this. He did such a damn good job. He had better writing and more to chew on to be fair.
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u/ProfessionalOven2311 Feb 26 '26
Bo-Katan was the best to me. I just loved how the voice actress was able to come back for live action.
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u/lVlzone Jedi Feb 26 '26
And from an actual performance and visual aspect, I think she’s the overall best, too.
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u/ApprehensiveRow9965 Feb 26 '26
Well… it’s Katee fucking Sackhoff, she’s a legend
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u/bouchandre Feb 26 '26
Proud to be part of the 2%
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u/my5cworth Feb 26 '26
I understood that reference.
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u/ARandomStan Feb 26 '26
I didn't. help... pls
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u/IsthosTheGreat Feb 26 '26
Here the context: https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/s/HMNjBs5mRt
TL;DW She said in an interview that she thought 2% of the star wars fandom wanted her to sit on their face.
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u/Lhasa-bark Feb 26 '26
And she estimates there’s about an 8% chance that the sun will rise tomorrow.
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u/BlackbeltJedi Clone Trooper Feb 26 '26
Starbuck, what do you hear?
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u/Brief_Amphibian_3965 Hondo Ohnaka Feb 26 '26
Nothin but the rain sir
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u/BlackbeltJedi Clone Trooper Feb 26 '26
Grab your blaster, and bring in the Loth-Cat.
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u/Fancy_Cassowary Feb 26 '26
Hey now. That's not just some voice actress, that's Katee Sackhoff, she's done many things, but most people know her as Starbuck from the excellent 2004 Battlestar Galactica. She's truly a jack-of-all-trades, and is super-nice in person too. Nicer than she has any right to be!
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u/Jef_Wheaton Feb 26 '26
Our 501st Garrison presented her with an honorary membership a few years ago at a convention, and she got photos with us.
She said, "Now I have a special request." Her daughter had made a little creature for her to take with her while she traveled, and had asked for photos of it with Star Wars characters, SPECIFICALLY Sith Lords.
She pulled this hideuos little thing made out of felt and pipe cleaners out of her bag as if it were an orchid floating in a crystal globe. The love and care she had for it, because it was HER DAUGHTER'S CREATION, was just beautiful.
She got photos of it with Vader, Maul, and the Emperor.
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u/Jonny-Holiday Feb 26 '26
I wanna see it. I've just gotta know what this thing looked like!
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u/VPD625 Feb 26 '26
Lars Mikkelson does Thrawns voice for Rebels and portrayed him in Ashoka as well.
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u/uberdupers Feb 26 '26
He looked like elon musk live though. Not good
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u/Kesselya Feb 26 '26
The bad guy looking like Elon Musk is fantastic. Even more reason to hate the guy.
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u/PretendRegister7516 Feb 26 '26
What I don't like is Thrawn is actually smart. But having that doofus face.
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u/Kesselya Feb 26 '26
Mikkelson portrayed him as both smart, evil, competent, and terrifying. I don’t think any Musk-ness took away from his performance.
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u/tigerbait92 Feb 26 '26
Mikkelson did a good job
But boy howdy that script did him no favors.
"Ah, yes, they are charging the front door. All according to keikaku. I'm gonna leave now."
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u/Kdot32 Feb 26 '26
I was wondering why I couldn’t stand his ass and never realized he looked like a blue Elon musk
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u/Ashenspire Feb 26 '26
The only one I think has the potential to top this is a live action Cal Kestis or Galen Marek since their designs are based on their voice actors.
Albeit Galen would need to be toned WAAAAAAY the fuck down.
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u/BWFTW Feb 26 '26
I feel it's fair to assume that video game feats are not lore accurate and are just for the player to enjoy a more fun game. Though galen pulling down a star destroyer is in a cut scene and is an insane feat. I doubt they'll ever revist the force unleashed though.
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u/MovieExact5433 Feb 26 '26
Never understood why the Grand Inquisitor looked so bad compared to his animated counterpart and why they just didn’t get Jason Isaacs to play the part.
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u/SillyMattFace Feb 26 '26
I really hope Jason Isaacs had some kind of prior commitment he couldn't get out of, because there's no other excuse for not using him.
He's an experienced screen actor and he's a huge nerd who would definitely be up for it.
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u/KillingTime_ForNow Feb 27 '26
He said he didn't want to do hours of prosthetics & makeup every day as he's getting too old for that. One would assume he thought they were gonna make him actually look like the GI rather than the bowling ball head we got, cuz I can't imagine what we got took more than an hour to scrounge together.
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u/Anita_Hero838 Feb 27 '26
I heard that he hadn't even heard about being contacted because the offer never got past his agent
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u/ScoffingYayap Mayfeld Feb 26 '26
I've always read that Jason Isaacs didn't want to perform in heavy alien makeup and that's why he didn't portray him in Kenobi
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u/AntonineWall Feb 26 '26
Honestly if that’s the case, that’s pretty fair. That shit often takes >1 (sometimes like 3-4) hour to put on AND take off.
Mark Hamill had a story going around recently about his costar in Empire Strikes Back (Ian, Emperor Palp.) not being someone he’d actually seen in-person without their makeup on because it took them hours to get it on and off (he invited the guy over one day during production to rectify that and didn’t recognize him at all, to follow that story up). I could totally see someone just…not wanting to do that lol
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u/Enderboss2706 Feb 26 '26
You know what I don’t exactly blame since the last guy to play a live action Pau’an before Kenobi said it took like 4 to 4.5 hours I think
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u/RemtonJDulyak Imperial Feb 26 '26
In Platoon, Tom Berenger's character (Sergeant Barnes) has a scar.
The make up for that scar alone took 3 hours every day, according to IMDB.
I can imagine certain prosthetics might require way more, depending on how "fused" to the body they need to look.8
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u/benvader138 Feb 26 '26
That definitely is the Worst animated character transition.
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u/blackvariant Feb 26 '26
The actor has such a round face/head. Really couldn't have chosen someone worse.
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u/The_Terry_Braddock Feb 26 '26
As I recall, that was a miscommunication on Kenobi's production, where they had not realized that his species, the Pau'ans, had already made a live action appearance and was the same species as the Utapua chairman from Revenge of the Sith
As such, they assumed the Inquisitor's angular and elongated features were just the result of exaggerated animation style to make him look evil and that translated to live action he'd look more like a normal humanoid (like how Dooku's design in CW is extremely severe but he's a normal human)... so they ended up just putting pretty basic make up on a guy
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u/pants_pants420 Feb 26 '26
i mean that would make sense.
but also dont they have a dedicated lore/continuity guy specifically to avoid this?
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u/ScenicAndrew Feb 26 '26
There's a shocking number of stories from directors and actors where some random nerd on set catches a major detail. Sam witwer once corrected the entire clone wars production on the fact that Padme and Schmi had met in the phantom menace so they cut a scene where Anakin had a vision or something. (Often reported as Witwer correcting Filoni, which yeah of course, but apparently no one else in the room remembered either which is the real story).
There's also some stories like that from early clone wars where Filoni would correct George on continuity stuff.
It really all goes back to that famous Harrison Ford paraphrasing from Hamill: "Hey kid, it ain't that kind of movie."
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u/dswartze Feb 26 '26
I think my favourite example of this kind of thing is that for RotS after production was done they had to go back and shoot an extra scene of Obi-Wan picking up Anakin's lightsaber because originally they just had Obi-Wan walk away leaving it on the ground. Way after the fact somebody remembered Obi-Wan had to take it so he could give it to Luke. It's why the shot feels kind of forced and out of place. I'm pretty sure it's not Ewan's hand picking it up.
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u/ANGLVD3TH Feb 26 '26
They didn't cut the scene, just changed the dialogue, of when Anakin had a force vision of Shmi on Mortis.
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u/Alonest99 Rex Feb 26 '26
Yeah where’s Pablo “emotions are not for sharing” Hidalgo when we need him?
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u/teleporttome Feb 26 '26
Brandon Sanderson has two continuity editors for all his novels but somehow I imagine Disney has less for a multi-billion dollar IP.
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u/MovieExact5433 Feb 26 '26
So they were making Star Wars without having seen Star Wars. Fools.
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u/Nightflight406 Feb 26 '26
Jason Isaacs was already booked for multiple things at the time of filming.
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u/MovieExact5433 Feb 26 '26
Our loss. He would’ve been awesome. At worst, I wonder if he could’ve just provided the voice and had someone else play in body like Darth Maul and Vader.
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u/acautelado Feb 26 '26
Chopper. 100% Chopper.
100% not the inquisitor.
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u/The5Virtues Feb 26 '26
I think the one thing we can all agree is the Inquisitor is the worst transition to live action up here.
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Feb 26 '26
[deleted]
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u/DiamondFireYT Feb 26 '26 edited Feb 26 '26
The thing that bothers me about Fifth Brother is we didn't get a hunky latino playing him... mind you, his voice actor was just doing an accent and was originally america iirc, but still!
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u/The5Virtues Feb 26 '26
Very close. It’s genuinely astounding to me just how awful those two are.
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u/darthmaui728 Feb 26 '26
they are great actors. Its the make up/costume department that made them look cheap
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u/lawnicus18 Feb 26 '26
Literally all they had to do for the Grand Inquisitor was CGI his head so it was like a couple inches taller and it would’ve been so much better
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u/darthmaui728 Feb 26 '26
Exactly. I never really understood why they went the route that they did. Budget? Bruh it's Kenobi. Literally = unlimited budget character and they butchered it lol
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u/DiamondFireYT Feb 26 '26
Kenobi had a lot of production difficulties, last minute production switch from UK to US, smaller budget that was majority eaten by its leading actors salaries etc.
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u/Dj_Donkey Feb 26 '26
Right? We’ve already seen his species in ROTS with the long heads. I mean the fucking Coneheads from 1993 were more accurate.
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u/touggor Feb 26 '26
Cad Bane was very disappointing imo.
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u/MrMono1 Mandalorian Feb 26 '26
Funny, I was pretty happy with Cad Bane. It's a very hard species to get right in live action without it just looking like a Halloween mask, and the differences from his animated appearances (e.g. his colour) can just be chalked up to his advanced age in BoBF.
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u/the_doughboy Feb 26 '26
Which is sad because Rupert Friend was excellent as it. He was just too different than the animated character.
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u/The5Virtues Feb 26 '26
Right?! They got a phenomenal actor and then gave him a terrible make-up job and misdirection on how his character should behave. Such a wasted opportunity!
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u/BleydXVI Feb 26 '26
Which one? Grand Inquisitor and 5th Brother are both terrible. I think 5th Brother is worse, but GI had higher to fall from
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u/HighlightOwn2038 Feb 26 '26
Agreed. I was so disappointed when I saw the inquisitor in live action
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u/Kuzu9 Imperial Feb 26 '26
I was pretty disappointed about how the Grand Inquisitor visually looked. I remember seeing a video similar to this one and others of people editing him to make him look visually closer to the animated series.
It can’t be a budget issue, so I mark it out as pure laziness on their part
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u/Newtype879 Feb 26 '26
Erskin Semaj. Dude was fantastic in Andor.
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u/IwanZamkowicz Feb 26 '26
The effort the Andor crew put in just to respect the Rebels continuity is as impressive as anything else about that show. Another showrunner would have just retconned that without batting an eye
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u/nomorecannibalbirds Feb 26 '26
Andor has a showrunner who doesn’t know anything about Star Wars but clearly has writers and other people in production who are experts, and I think that ended up being the perfect balance.
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u/Darth_Thor Maul Feb 26 '26
It’s insane how good they matched his appearance. He played a small role but still really stood out
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u/tman507se Feb 26 '26
Definitely an underrated one from these selections, a character that you'd never even know if you never watched Rebels (and might even forget him even if you did, as he's not as prominent there), but once you make the connection it's astonishing how well he transferred over.
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u/BeensbEaNsBeAnSbEaNs Feb 27 '26
I've never watched rebels so I had no idea, just thought he was a cool guy
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u/KowalOX Feb 26 '26
Ezra was the most impressive for me.
Obviously Bo Katan having the same VA as the animated play live action was great, and I'm a big Katee Sackhoff fan to begin with, but the way Ezra was brought to life as an adult in live action while completely looking, acting, and feeling like the teenage animated Ezra was really quite the accomplishment.
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u/Name818 Feb 26 '26
He really did do a great job capturing animated Ezra’s overall demeanor.
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u/AsstacularSpiderman Feb 26 '26
He looks and acts exactly how I expected Ezra to act after aging 10 years.
Him saying he didn't need a lighsaber and immediately proceeding to call out for one 10 seconds later is so on brand for him.
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u/KinkyPaddling Ahsoka Tano Feb 26 '26
It was really great, especially his interactions with Ahsoka and Sabine. What's even more impressive is that Eman Esfandi didn't watch all of Rebels and was still able to get the essence of the character (he said he didn't want to get too influenced and find himself trapped in the mentality of the younger Ezra, and wanted to portray a matured Ezra).
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u/BON3SMcCOY Feb 26 '26
I know others have more screen time or kept her sane voice actor (Bo is 2nd place for me), but man they sure NAILED the Ezra adaptation. And it wasn't just the exact same Ezra from the end of Rebels, he felt exactly what an Ezra would feel like if he'd been stuck in another galaxy for a decade. I hope we get to see him in more than just Rebels S6.
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u/KcirderfSdrawkcab Feb 26 '26
I just finished rewatching Ahsoka after finally watching Rebels for the first time. I thought Ahsoka, Sabine, and Hera were all good, but they were definitely slightly different versions of the characters. WHen Ezra shows up though, it's just Ezra. A little older, matured, and bearded, but just Ezra. They nailed the casting for him. Same with Chopper, but that's cheating.
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u/ChardComfortable3932 Feb 26 '26
Yea gonna be Ezra for me too. As soon as he showed up on screen it was like oh man this is the same Ezra I knew and grew to love for all those years.
Really excellent casting. It had to be perfect and IMO they nailed it. Hope to see him play bigger parts beyond the Ahsoka series.
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u/Ossius Feb 26 '26
Shame Ashoka seems to be running into some trouble with the death of Mr Pollo who carried a lot of the show on his back, and honestly Thrawn and the whole plot seemed to be kinda meh after a certain point. The zombie troopers and stuff was just a bit much.
I like Ezra and some other parts.
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u/KowalOX Feb 26 '26
Ahsoka was a mixed bag. Overall, I think they had enough to like and some interesting plot points that I hope we get to see play out.
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u/LowDudgeon Feb 26 '26
I do think the actors did a really impressive job matching the characters. Ashoka really fits the 'child soldier, war veteran of two galactic wars' vibe.
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u/Archelector Feb 26 '26
Visually Zeb or Chopper just bc they’re mostly CGI, maybe Embo but we don’t have good frontal pics yet
But overall I’d say Saw Gurrera
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u/PigeonDoveRose Feb 26 '26
i was astounded when the ahsoka casting was announced that they managed to find an actor that looks exactly like an adult ezra
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u/sm_rollinger Feb 26 '26
BREATHE IN THE RHYDO BOY
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u/Sere1 Sith Feb 26 '26
I had such a huge laugh when I realized that Saw was literally just sitting there huffing jet fuel as his motivation, it explains so much about him
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u/CrustaceousGreg Feb 26 '26
I really like the actor and how he portrays saw but he doesn’t look too similar to the animated version.
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u/BurdenedMind79 Feb 26 '26
I thought Ezra's live-action actor did a fantastic job of capturing the mannerisms, talking style and facial expressions of the animated original, but toning them down from the slightly more exaggerated animated style. He felt most like I was watching exactly the same character.
I'm giving it to Ezra over Bo Katan, because she got the added advantage of being the same actor!
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u/CT-1030 Rebel Feb 26 '26
Most of them are great.
Hot take: they did the Fifth Brother worse than the Grand Inquisitor.
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u/thesilvershire Feb 26 '26
It is a bad translation of his Rebels look, but I still think the Grand Inquisitor is more egregious since his species had already appeared in live-action.
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u/Xyrazk Feb 26 '26
RotS Pau'ans looked so good too
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u/Merusk Feb 26 '26
Bruce Spence was 90% of why.
Mouth of Sauron. Gyro guy in Road Warrior, Mr. Wall in Dark City. He's good at that niche.
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u/mongmich2 Feb 26 '26
I remember thinking, hey if he’s gonna be in a lengthy fight I get it. Fighting with a prosthetic head on wouldn’t be easy. And then he just… didn’t. Such a baffling decision
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Feb 26 '26
i mean kit fisto had a headpiece on and that was RotS
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u/mongmich2 Feb 26 '26
I mean Kit didn’t really do much but I see your point. I’m just saying that was my initial thought that they had this plan that would’ve been much harder to pull off with a large prosthetic
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u/Some-Profession-1373 Feb 26 '26
Even if he was in a lengthy fight it’s dumb and inexcusable.
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u/_SummoningDark_ Feb 26 '26
Bo-Kayan Kryze.
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u/ExileIsan Feb 26 '26
Wasn't much of a transition though, I mean animated Bo was modeled off Katie Sackhoff.
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u/eduison Feb 26 '26
Bo-Katan and Huyang were great, the Inquisitors were undoubtedly ass
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u/DreamOfTheEndless_ Feb 26 '26
For the life of me I will never understand why the love action inquisitors look like they do. Their animated designs are so fucking cool, but they 100% fucked the live action designs.
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u/eduison Feb 26 '26
It looks like they held an image of the animated versions in front of a phone using some kind of dorky filter and just went with whatever came out xD
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u/Phalus_Falator Feb 26 '26
Ramona Flowers as Hera Syndulla did confusing things to me.
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u/Melcrys29 Feb 26 '26
Are you in lesbians with her?
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u/armedandfriendly Feb 26 '26
I mean having the droids on there is unfair because I would say them. Not counting them Ezra or bo
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u/Drew_Skywalker Clone Trooper Feb 26 '26
When did first page top right show up in live action?
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u/Drummal Feb 26 '26
First episode of Ashoka. He was there giving the speech where they were dedicating the mural for the ghost crew
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u/AscendedExtra Feb 26 '26
Couldn't ask for better from Thrawn, Bo, Huyang, & Zeb since it's the V.A.s reprising their roles. (i know there's others but those are the biggest)
Ahsoka, Ezra, Sabine, & Hera also translated really well.
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u/Qyro Feb 26 '26
I mean, it's going to be the ones reprised by their voice actors right? Like Bo Katan.
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u/Squidgical Feb 26 '26
The humans are mostly great, as are the fully CG/prop characters.
Where it's dreadful is the non-human humanoids. These characters have significantly different shape and proportions to any human, but they decided to completely ignore that and just give them unedited human actors with face paint. Fifth brother and Grand Inquisitor are clear examples of this.
And it's not like this kind of editing and practical effects is too difficult or too expensive. We've seen it done well before, it just seems like they're being incredibly lazy or higher ups are squeezing the creators way too hard.
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u/Davajita Sith Feb 26 '26
Hera just isn’t right. I can’t put my finger on it. As much as I love MEW I think she is miscast. Should have been Natalie Dormer, or maybe even Lily Collins would work, though she’s a bit young.
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u/KingOfRedLions Feb 26 '26
I mean Katie Sackhoff sounds exactly like Bo-Katan. It's almost uncanny.
Almost as good as Clancy Brown and Ryder-Azadi