Dave Filoni is now the Chief Creative Officer of Lucasfilm, and is going to be even more of a guiding force for the Star Wars universe going forward, working with Kathleen Kennedy.
The news was met with celebration from longtime Star Wars fans who have loved Filoni’s work since The Clone Wars and Rebels. Since then, he’s been a huge part of the “Mandoverse,” first started by him and Jon Favreau with The Mandalorian, which expanded into The Book of Boba Fett and then later, Filoni’s baby, Ahsoka, which just wrapped up season 1. With this announcement, it should not surprise you that he’s drafting season 2.
But while many celebrate Filoni’s newfound position guiding the Star Wars universe, others are skeptical. Filoni is very much into realizing his Clone Wars/Rebels storylines on the big screen, and leans somewhat heavily on fan service. Meanwhile, those questioning the move wonder if under a Filoni reign, we would have ever gotten something like more serious and detached like Andor.
For now, all announced formerly Star Wars projects are apparently still happening. That doesn’t mean just more seasons of Mando and Ahsoka, but Andor season 2, Skeleton Crew, The Acolyte and even the newly announced movie that will bring Daisy Ridley’s Rey back.
I do understand some level of skepticism of Filoni, who is considered practically a saint by the fans of his animated series. Bringing those characters and storylines and such to mainline Star Wars has been a mixed process, as new viewers do not have a decade of backstory for Ahsoka. They do not know the significance of the giant statue Baylan Skoll is standing on in the finale. The Mandalorian had less of this for a while, and then they introduced Bo Katan to co-lead the show and well, that’s another character with a good amount of Filoni’s animated history to know.
However, what I think Filoni does really, really well is produce great arcs within the Star Wars universe. I think it’s been a bit too soon to seen that unfold in live action. Yes, he’s involved in parts of Mando, but we’ve only had one season of Ahsoka. But why animated series fans are so gaga over him is that he genuinely has created some incredible storylines, some drawing on some EU concepts, others of his own creation.
He has a vision, which is what I think Star Wars has been lacking all this time. They couldn’t even make a single trilogy of movies that were connected to each other. The shows are better but a sprawling range of concepts and timelines and things are about to get even more jumbled. If anyone can make sense of it all, and someone we know has a deep love of the series more than perhaps anyone else on earth, it’s Filoni.
I think the fear is that everything ends up becoming the Mandoverse or adjacent to it, or constantly forever drawing on past characters from TCW and Rebels, that will get exhausting. But if Filoni can shape a vision that is not just pulled from his past work, I think it could work out really well. We’ll see over the next few years, I suppose.
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