The Late Ray Stevenson Is Returning To Star Wars One Last Time
Few actors are as skilled in making us hate their guts as Ray Stevenson. The late actor, who passed away at age 58, played some truly despicable bad guys in "Dexter," "G.I. Joe: Retaliation," and of course, "RRR," where he effortlessly captured everything wrong with the British Empire while also teaching audiences about the value of a bullet.
Stevenson found his way into the big two comic book franchises, playing both DC Comics' vigilante avenger Frank Castle in "Punisher War Zone," and Thor's faithful warrior friend Volstagg in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He also voiced Gar Saxon, one of the absolute worst Mandalorians ever, in both "Star Wars Rebels" and "The Clone Wars." Clan Saxon served House Vizsla, which caused endless pain and chaos to Mandalore during the war, and Stevenson's character was a commander in the Shadow Collective, a Sith order led by Darth Maul.
Gar Saxon was killed off in the third season of "Star Wars Rebels," but Stevenson's role in the "Star Wars" universe isn't over yet. He will make his posthumous live-action debut in the galaxy far, far away in "Ahsoka," where he has the honor of being a rare Force-sensitive villain named Baylon Skoll. In the trailer for "Ahsoka," we see Baylon is wearing armor similar to that worn by the Jedi in the animated "Clone Wars" stories, but not in the movies. Not only that, but Skoll is also the very first person in "Star Wars" to wield an orange lightsaber.
A shadow of the past
Details on Baylon Skoll are quite scarce, but Dave Filoni did talk about the lightsaber color to Screen Rant at Star Wars Celebration, confirming that it is mostly orange (with a bit of red), and that distinction is important:
"I didn't make them just a stark red. I remember as a kid that Vader's lightsaber kind of fluctuated from visual effects to being a little bit more orange. I didn't want to go straight up orange, but it's identifying a little bit of something to kids that they might not straight up be what you think they are in the beginning."
We don't know exactly who Baylon is, but the trailer for "Ahsoka" does show him dueling the titular former Jedi, and with the lightsaber color it is clear he is at the very least a Fallen Jedi. Given the rumors that Filoni is building up to a feature film adaptation of Timothy Zahn's novel "Heir to the Empire," it is very possible Skoll will be a new version of the book character Joruus C'Baoth.
Even if he isn't, we haven't really seen Fallen Jedi in the post-Clone Wars era. Both the video game "Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order" and the 2017-2018 run of "Star Wars: Darth Vader" comics explored the idea of the Empire breaking the spirits and faith of surviving Jedi and turning them to the dark side. While we haven't really seen this explored in live-action outside of the Inquisitors in "Obi-Wan Kenobi," it makes sense that we would see Fallen Jedi in "Ahsoka," given that Ahsoka Tano is not a Jedi, but has seen all the suffering the Jedi Order caused — and the pain the Jedi themselves suffered.