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Earlier this year, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power actor Jordan Fisher debuted on The Flash as one of the most important characters in the Scarlet Speedster’s lore: Bart Allen, a.k.a. Impulse, a role he’s set to reprise in Season 8. Just a few months after he raced onto The CW series, Fisher has now jumped to the Star Wars franchise too, as he voices Dan, a young Jedi-in-training in the English dub of the Star Wars: Visions short “The Elder.” For Fisher, the opportunity to work on Visions was especially important to him because it meant he got to join Samuel L. Jackson’s Mace Windu as a Jedi of color.
For those who haven’t watched “The Elder” yet, this Star Wars: Visions short is set an undetermined amount of time before the events of the Prequel Trilogy, and sees Jordan Fisher’s Dan and his master Tajin, voiced by Stranger Things’ David Harbour, battling a powerful Dark Side user known only as The Elder, voiced by Big Trouble in Little China’s James Hong. I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Fisher about his time working on Visions, and when I asked how he reacted upon learning he’d been cast as Dan, the actor responded:
[I] freaked out. I had to know if I was the master or the Padawan, found out I was the Padawan. I looked at the concept art, realized the kind of timeline this was in, got really excited about everything in that time. I’m a Prequel fan, I loved the Prequels a lot, that was the Star Wars I grew up on. To be able to play a character not only that looked like me… that’s another thing as well. Aside from Samuel L. Jackson, who plays the amazing Mace Windu, there aren’t a ton of Jedi who look like me, you know what I mean? There aren’t any who look like me. So to be able to play a character with such a great moral compass, is a blue kyber crystal man, it crossed off all the little boxes for me. It was a lot of fun.
Although there were a handful of Jedi of color who appeared across The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, Mace Windu was the only one among them who had significant screen time in this portion of the Skywalker Saga. Samuel L. Jackson’s role in the Prequel Trilogy grew with each entry, to the point that Mace nearly succeeded in killing Palpatine, only to meet a shocking demise… pun fully intended. But now with Jordan Fisher’s Dan, another Jedi of color is given an opportunity to shine, though I won’t spoil what happens with him for those who haven’t watched “The Elder” yet.
Between the importance of representation, Dan’s moral compass and the character wielding a blue-bladed lightsaber, clearly the role meant a lot to Jordan Fisher. Whether we see Dan again, be it in another Visions short, a novel or maybe even in live-action, remains to be seen, and let’s also not discount the possibility that Fisher might be recruited to play a different Star Wars character down the line, be it vocally or in person. For now, “The Elder” is one of nine Star Wars: Visions shorts that are available to watch on Disney+, so if you’re not subscribed to the Mouse House’s streaming service, sign up now.
As for Jordan Fisher, you can look forward to him reprising Impulse in The Flash Season 8, which premieres on The CW on November 16. If you’re curious about what content set in a galaxy far, far away is heading to both big and small screens, scan through our upcoming Star Wars movies and TV shows guide.
