Dave Filoni talks to Deadline.com about the finale of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the future of Star Wars Rebels, season 2 of The Mandalorian, and the character he was instrumental in creating, Ahsoka Tano.
Beware of spoilers ahead if you have not yet seen the last episode of The Clone Wars on Disney+!
With Clone Wars over, do you think we’ll see another season of Rebels?
No. Not really. I was really happy with how that series turned out, and I feel like we got to tell a complete story there. It was one of the things that really drove me to thinking, well, it would be great to have a complete feeling like that for Clone Wars, so now to have both is really great. I think that there’s always potential for stories that involve the characters from Rebels, which is maybe a better way to put it. They’ve all earned their place in the galaxy, so to speak, so I’m sure there’s some more of them to do.
I ask not only because of Ahsoka Tano’s ending here with Clone Wars, but there are many who’d like to see the arc of Sabine and the black-bladed lightsaber. Do you think we’ll ever see another continuation of that storyline?
Oh, I think it’s possible. I mean, it’s definitely something that I left hanging at the end and part of that reason is just it’s always nice in my mind when there’s another story. I like things in a series, even when I read or watch them, and there’s always a bit of sadness when something does come to an end, so potential is a great thing. I love that people are thinking about these stories in the same way that I wondered about many stories. As a kid I wondered what happened to Luke after Return of the Jedi and all my heroes. I think it’s a natural part of enjoying this, and I think there’s always potential for further stories. Certainly, I will say it’s something I’ve given a decent amount of thought to, so you never know when or if it will actually ever take shape.
The ending for Clone Wars, where Vader finds the lightsaber of his old Padawan Ahsoka — was that the finale you were always envisioning or was there an alternative? Also, what was your thought process on how deep you’d take the last season into Revenge of the Sith?
I always had in mind an ending that would somehow involved Vader. I thought it was really compelling and the imagery of the lightsaber and him holding it; that spoke so much. It also spoke to something that I discussed with George (Lucas) over the years as far as the aftermath of the Clone Wars. The reason why we never saw too many Jedis fighting against the empire is the fact that a lot of them felt that they failed in their goal to protect the Republic, and they were all deceived. And so a lot of them realized that fighting a war maybe isn’t the best way and created violence. They set their sabers down, they tried to find different paths to helping people than perhaps, you know, being violent, and so there is an old idea there.
I think also it was an interesting way in these four parts to tell a complete story of Anakin (Skywalker) that’s not the same as the film, and one of the things that I was very careful to do is, while I am near the film and paralleling the film, and sometimes interwoven with it, I never want to change anything that’s happening in there or say if you look at it from this way, it’s different. I’m trying to maintain the integrity of what George did in his work and just say, this is how it went for Ahsoka and Rex. And so it was easy at the end to kind of split things apart, and it wasn’t really about saying, ‘Here’s the greatest hits of things, remember this from Revenge of the Sith?’ All the scenes that you saw and moments that crossover are actually very relevant for Ahsoka and Rex, and at a certain point I needed that story to kind of go in its own direction to make sure I wasn’t violating the space that belonged to the Anakin Skywalker saga. So, that remains intact, because I’m over here talking more about the Ahsoka Tano/Rex saga, which is the end of the Clone Wars proper. So that’s why I didn’t go too far into (Sith). All these other events that were covered, were covered by George, and that’s where they’re important and from his perspective is important.
Read the interview in full at the link below.
