Time travel has been a part of the Star Wars galaxy since 2018 and plays a significant role in the franchise, especially in the Ahsoka television series on Disney+. It’s a common trope in science fiction and science fantasy, but it must be handled with care. Each saga should establish its own rules to manage it consistently.
In the original Star Wars Expanded Universe, time travel was featured occasionally. However, these ideas were abandoned when Disney reclassified them as non-canon or Legends. Since then, time travel has been largely avoided, at least until season 4 of Star Wars Rebels, in which Ezra Bridger accesses a mysterious realm called the World Between Worlds. This plane of existence transcends time and space and appears to be a canonical use of time travel.
Ahsoka: “The World Between Worlds” Explained? Time Travel as a Logical Aspect of the Force?
The Force transcends time and space, as demonstrated by its numerous users who have experienced visions of the past or future. Ancient Force-sensitive beings seem to have been able to glimpse across millennia, producing cryptic prophecies such as that of the Chosen One.
The pursuit of such abilities was viewed with suspicion in the prequel trilogy, especially by Yoda, who feared that some would move from visions of the future to attempting to control time. However, Jedi like Sifo-Dyas possessed an innate connection to the flow of time, while characters like Quinlan Vos, Cal Kestis, and, in the sequel era, Rey possessed the rare power of psychometry, allowing them to experience the past by touching an object.
Certain Force convergences, locations, and planets rich in the Force trigger experiences that affect the flow of time. This can be seen in The Empire Strikes Back, where the cave on Dagobah clearly involved a sense of time dilation.
The book From a Certain Point of View presents an account from Obi-Wan Kenobi’s perspective, confirming that a Force Ghost—a Jedi who has merged with the Force and is essentially a permanent mystical experience—completely transcends time. All of this establishes a clear precedent for a living Jedi to achieve union with the Force and, somehow, use it to travel through time. And that’s where the World Between Worlds comes in.
Star Wars: What Is the World Between Worlds?
The World Between Worlds is essentially another plane of existence, one that transcends time and space and can only be accessed through the Force. As Star Wars Rebels creator Dave Filoni explained in an interview with Nerdist, he was inspired by C.S. Lewis’s novel, The Magician’s Nephew, in which a mad scientist discovers a way to access the Wood Between Worlds, a forest where every puddle is linked to a different point in spacetime. The Star Wars equivalent is more abstract, but the same portals are present as a clear homage to Lewis.
The Cosmic Force and the Living Force?
The precise nature of the World Between Worlds is unclear, but it appears to be a dimensional plane where two aspects of the Force—the Cosmic Force that binds the universe together and the Living Force that is associated with life—come together in communion. “You have to be careful when you move through these powerful dimensions and what you wish for,” Filoni cautioned, reflecting on the episodes in which Ezra explored the World Between Worlds.
“Everything [Ezra] wishes for out loud is a dangerous thing to do. If you watch and listen when Ezra speaks and makes certain statements, there will be a rumble, and that rumble represents something else listening. Multiple things are happening there, and it all becomes a choice between how you want to use power, control, and influence others.” Undoubtedly, this is where the distinction between the light side and the dark side comes into play; the dark side seeks to exploit the World Between Worlds, with Palpatine believing it to be the key to immense power, while the light side only seeks wisdom through it.
Why Time Travel Doesn’t Break Star Wars Canon?
Some viewers worry that time travel will leave continuity and canon in a state of flux, but Dave Filoni has always insisted that this won’t be an issue. “It’s not really something where you go through one door and come out through another in a different time,” he explained in a documentary on the Star Wars Rebels Season 4 Blu-ray. “You can gain knowledge of the future or futures that may occur, and you can see things that happened in the past. Sometimes you can choose to alter them, but it’s dangerous to do so, and when you alter something, you don’t know if that’s not the way it always happened.”
Filoni implies that any attempt to change the timeline has already been written into the flow of history, meaning that if someone decides to go back and alter past events, it was already destined to happen.
The World Between Worlds is an intriguing element in the Star Wars universe and will be explored further in future productions. As long as it is handled carefully and adheres to the established “rules” of the franchise canon, it can be an exciting tool for expanding the mythology and exploring new dimensions of the Force.