The 3rd and final part of the Official Star Wars Blog’s interview with Dave Filoni where he looks back on season 5 of The Clone Wars has just went up, and in this installment he talks about several interesting topics that include working on the last arc for the series, the upcoming “Bonus Content” episodes, and starting a new series in Star Wars Rebels without input from George Lucas. Here are some highlights of the interview about those topics:
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StarWars.com: When you made Season Five, you didn’t really know it would be the end of the series, but the last arc still feels like a finale. How do you feel about it as an ending?
Dave Filoni: Well, I didn’t know it would be the end of the series, per se, but I had a decent inkling that it would be the end of the show on Cartoon Network. You look at it realistically, the show had been on the air for five years at that point. That’s a long time for an animated show that’s not in prime time. So I thought, if this is the last season on Cartoon Network, then I want to have a proper ending for the people that have watched it.
That was the whole thing with Ahsoka, and giving that character some finality in that timeline. It was an important moment. I directed that as if it was this big goodbye, kind of knowingly that it might be a goodbye to at least the way Clone Wars was broadcast, if not the show itself. And I’m happy with that. I was very glad that it ended with Ahsoka, because it very much began with Ahsoka in the movie. Everyone pointed out from the beginning — we know what happens to Anakin, we know what happens to Obi-Wan, and to Padmé. So where’s the mystery and where’s the suspense? Well, it turned out Clone Wars was largely about this girl, Ahsoka, who no one knew. And while every episode definitely was not about her, her thread shows you the way the Jedi are looked at in the war, how they’re fighting the war, what they’re questioning. So it was a proper way to go out.
StarWars.com: So, there is more Clone Wars to come with the bonus episodes. I know you can’t talk about some things, but what can you tell us about them?
Dave Filoni: The finished episodes were the ones that were already pretty far down the track in terms of production. They were very near completion.
When you look at level of importance to wrap things up for fans, I think that two story arcs that fans will get to see are really, really important for the overall Clone Wars story. So I’m very glad that fans will get to see them in their completed form.
It’s not like all of the bonus material that comes out was planned on really answering things for fans. It’s more, “This is where we were headed,” and the Yoda story arc [announced on Twitter] definitely gives a sense of closure. One of the story arcs, which is very short, is not essential to the overall story but it is a nice final showcase for one of the prequel characters.
The stories coming out definitely will cause a lot of debate and discussion among fans, which is what good Star Wars stories always do, and I look forward to talking about the stories with them when the time is right.
And when George and I get together, when I go have lunch with him, he and I still talk about [The Clone Wars]. We talk about things, and it’s just good to discuss because you never know with Star Wars. I never thought in my lifetime there would be a [Star Wars: Episode] VII, VIII, and IX, and here they come. So it’s just good to keep talking about these things and figure out as much about them as possible, because who knows. I could be a very old man and some kid that was raised on Clone Wars will want to continue the story, so I better know that story when they come for it.
StarWars.com: It strikes me that as you’re working on Star Wars Rebels now, you’re basically telling the first canonical Star Wars stories without input from George Lucas.
Dave Filoni: Oh, that’s very challenging. It’s a legacy thing that a lot of us take very seriously. It’s not just about telling the stories; it’s how the stories get made, it’s the quality of the stories that we’re telling. There’s a certain feeling that Lucasfilm stories have that we need to maintain.
So there’s a lot of responsibility, and yet it’s exciting, too, when you work with new people from the outside. And that’s a very important part of Star Wars, is to have new ideas, and new things come into it, and to be open to new ideas. It’s where that meets that you get the real creativity in Star Wars, and I think it’s meeting well. I’m excited by the people I’m working with now, and I’m excited by the results that we’re getting on Rebels. We’re moving very fast, but we have some really great stuff happening already. It’s different from Clone Wars, and it should be. I know some fans just see Rebels as an extension of Clone Wars, but it’s not. It’s an entirely different thing with a different feeling and a different vibe.
It is a different time, but you know, when Revenge of the Sith ended and I woke up and found myself tasked with moving Star Wars forward in an animated form, I don’t think anybody at Lucasfilm other than George understood what that meant, which was that that was going to be the main vehicle for Star Wars for practically the next decade. There were other things — The Force Unleashed came along, The Old Republic came along, but a gaming experience and any kind of theatrical television experience is different. I don’t mean that they’re not good, it’s just that it’s different. And we were the ones that were working with George constantly to keep his stories going. So, you know, I’ve been in this position before. [Laughs] It’s nothing new. If anything, I understand the daunting task that it is and how fans will react, the most.
Before, when I was fronting [The Clone Wars], I was largely the spokesperson. This’ll be nice to have some flanking support with [executive producers] Simon [Kinberg] and Greg [Weisman].
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More interesting stuff teased about the “Bonus Content” from Dave Filoni in that interview. If I had to guess, the two arcs that he says will cause debate amongst fans are looking they’ll be the Yoda arc he talked about, as well as the Order 66 arc we first got to look at when the “Bonus Content” was first announced. But now I am wondering what that short arc will be about, and what prequel character it will deal with? Of course we’re still awaiting more official details about the “Bonus Content,” but they are still sounding like they will be big stories that will wrap the series up in an epic way, and I can’t wait for them!
Be sure to check out the full 3rd part interview with Dave Filoni over at the official Star Wars Blog.
