Dave Filoni's Star Wars Subseries is Brilliant

 Introduction:

Look, I’ve made it very clear in my other essays how much I love Star Wars, and I consider myself a longtime member of the Star Wars fandom. 

It goes without saying, but one of the biggest defining features of the Star Wars franchise is diversity: everything takes place in the same world, sure, but we’re essentially dealing with three different trilogies with wildly different themes, ideas, locations and tones. Plus a whole host of expanded universe material that includes westerns, kids shows, war stories, political thrillers, heist movies and even Akira Kurosawa-esque samurai stories. 

Because of this, I’d argue that the defining feature of the Star Wars fandom is division: given the wide range of content, subjectivity is in full effect. 

Have you heard before that, if you shuffle a deck of 52 cards right, you’ll get a unique combination every time? Well, if you put a handful of Star Wars fans together, you’ll get a different set of opinions every time. Some people love all nine core saga movies, but have never even seen The Clone Wars, Rogue One or Mandalorian, whereas others consume every ounce of Star Wars content out there. Some people are Prequel fans, who believe that the Sequels botched its own characters and ideas. Others are Sequel fans, who believe that the Prequels are too overstuffed with meaningless subplots, politics and bad CGI. Some fans prefer Legends, others rigidly stick to the Disney canon, and you’ll find those who love both. 

All of this has led to the notion that nobody hates Star Wars more than the average Star Wars fan, because most fans have something they don’t like about this multi-billion dollar, 40-year old franchise. It’s a humorous joke, but it’s also a bit misleading. We Star Wars fans obviously love a galaxy far, far away, it’s why we’re fans; it’s just that we all have different ideas of which part of the galaxy is best. 

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And yet, there’s one name among all of this division that, almost universally, earns praise and invokes wonder in Star Wars fans. But it’s not George Lucas. No, it’s Dave Filoni. 

For those that don’t know, Dave Filoni is a friend and apprentice of George Lucas who has been incredibly involved in the Expanded Universe since 2008. He created, co-created or otherwise worked on The Clone Wars, Rebels, Resistance, The Bad Batch, The Book of Boba Fett, The Mandalorian and the Ahsoka series; this makes him one of the few creators at LucasFilm to not just survive the Disney transition, but thrive in it. 

All in all, those six stories form a sort of loose hexalogy, with The Book of Boba Fett in particular being less like its own show and more like an extension of The Mandalorian. And the storylines, characters and plot devices introduced in that hexalogy have come to define the Expanded Universe more so than any other piece of media. 

This hexalogy—helmed by Filoni, John Favreu and a handful of other creators with a clear vision—are some of the most well-received stories in the universe, with The Clone Wars and The Mandalorian in particular receiving almost universal acclaim from fans and detractors alike. But what makes them so good? How do all six of these shows fit together? What makes them so different from the more divisive films? And what kind of story are they telling? 

My name is Jonathan Dauterman, and this is my essay on the brilliance of Dave Filoni’s Star Wars television shows. 

The Dave Filoni Metaplot: 

The hexalogy I’ll be focusing on in this essay---consisting of Clone Wars, Book of Boba Fett, Rebels, Bad Batch, Mandalorian and Ahsoka---is a fascinating entity. They can all be viewed as individual stories, or they can be viewed as a cohesive sub-series within the context of the larger Star Wars universe. I choose to think of them as the latter, but no matter how you choose to think of them, they don’t just feel like companion pieces designed to make you watch the movies; rather, they stand on par with the movies. They’re telling a story with an equivalent scope but with their own stakes. 

Each television show of Filoni’s (minus the sub-par Resistance program) advances a common metaplot, focusing on the Clone Troopers, the Mandalorians they are cloned from, and the remaining Jedi fighting against the Empire in a dangerous, unforgiving galaxy. 

The main characters of these shows follow the Force in their own way, if they follow it at all. Ahsoka Tano abandons the principles of the Jedi to follow her own path. Ezra Bridger’s mentors in the Force are a blind, jaded outlaw and a former Sith lord, which gives him a skewed perception of how the Force works. And Din Djarin (while not a Force-user in his own right) embraced many philosophies of the Jedi in the process of raising his adopted son. 

None of these people have a place in the galaxy. They are all nomads: shell-shocked soldiers betrayed by their country, Force-users trying to escape persecution, bounty hunters living on the fringes of society. 

The Clone Wars is the only one of these stories to be set during the Age of the Republic, pre-Order 66, but it does a great job establishing the nomadic character archetype and that feeling of aimlessness. Anakin Skywalker is sent from one war-torn planet to the next, and his struggle with the dogmatic religion of the Jedi influences Ahsoka to leave it. Throughout the show, it’s clear that neither of them have a real home: Coruscant, the closest thing to it, is characterized by scheming politicians, assassinations plots and secret love affairs. For both Anakin and Ahsoka, the closest thing they have to a home is the battlefield. 

On paper, this is thematically brilliant. The characters of the Dave Filoni’s shows feel right at home in old Akira Kurosawa movies or Clint Eastwood westerns; just men and women wandering around in search of meaning. It pays perfect homage to the very movies that inspired George Lucas, but it feels more raw and human. 

In this metaplot---focusing on the Jedi, Mandalorians and Clones---identity is a major theme. 

• Anakin remains steadfast to his identity as a Jedi Knight, but questions the role of the Jedi Council. He knows that he can do great things as a Jedi, but he feels he can do even greater things if he were more untethered. 

• Ahsoka was trained to be a keeper of the peace, but instead she’s a glorified child soldier, and she knows this isn’t the life for her. When we see her again in Rebels, she’s confident, wise and powerful, evidence that she’s embraced a new identity as someone who’s neither Jedi nor Sith. 

• Rex and Hunter are both clones; by definition, they have no identity of their own, and need to craft one. Whereas Rex crafts an identity as a leader and a rebel, Hunter crafts an identity as a father to Omega. 

• Ezra is even more unsure of his identity than his mentor. He knows he has to become a Jedi, but he doesn’t know what a Jedi even is. Ironically, he, Kanan and Ahsoka arguably fulfill the tenets of a Jedi much better than any of their Republic-era predecessors because they aren’t hindered by tradition or groupthink. 

• Din is a Mandalorian, raised in a clan of warriors who follow the Way of the Mandalore. Even before the Empire took over, he was already on the fringes of his own society because of this. Throughout the show, he reconciles his identity as a warrior and with his new identity as a father. 

• Boba Fett is constantly in search of a new identity. The void in his life left by the death of his father has made Boba angry, lonely and empty, and he tries to fill this void both with the Tusken Raiders and with his new position as the Daimyo of Tatooine. 

Common Ideas in Each Series:

Alright, so now that we’ve established the overall plot of this hexalogy, what kinds of common ideas appear in each series?

First of all, Dave Filoni is a master of serialization. This may be due to his experiences on Avatar: The Last Airbender, but Filoni has a knack for setting up shows that are episodic (if not outright anthologies) before slowly shifting into a serialized structure. His climaxes tend to be huge affairs that need lots of setup, and he’s incredibly good at disguising set-up for those arcs as one-off episodes. Once again taking a page from Avatar, The Clone Wars ended with a 4-part finale that combined elements from no less than four separate story arcs (Ahsoka, Maul, Mandalore and Order 66) that had been set up since 2012. Clone Wars is obviously the best example of this episodic-to-serialized storytelling, just because it went so far from one end of the spectrum to the other, but each of his shows exhibit this to some degree or another. 

Second, Filoni is known for his very character-driven style of writing, which especially stick out compared to the more plot-driven Sequel Trilogy in recent memory. Events don’t just happen because a bad guy did a bad thing; events happen because the main characters are actively working towards some kind of goal. In essence, Filoni tends to write proactive protagonists, as opposed to more reactive ones like Luke and Rey. Din is probably the most obvious example: the entire show is initiated by his search for the remaining Jedi, and Moff Gideon only involves himself in response to this search, rather than the other way around. But again, all of his characters are proactive, and all of their choices constantly push the plot forward. 

Third, in accordance with this character-driven storytelling, Filoni’s shows have an emphasis on parenthood and “older sibling”-types of figures. This began with Anakin and his brotherly relationship with Ahsoka, with Obi-Wan himself serving as another brotherly figure to both. This evolved into the more rounded family dynamic of the crew of the Ghost in Rebels, with Kanan and Hera fulfilling paternal and maternal roles on the ship, while Ezra has sibling-like bickering with Zebb and Sabine. Once we got to Mandalorian and Bad Batch, this became much more overt in the relationship between Hunter and Omega, as well as Din and Grogu. 

Fourth, Filoni’s shows tend to have a real sense of consequence. I know that sounds vague, and believe me, I’m not trying to be, but I don’t know how else to word it. It’s a natural consequence of working on several continuity-heavy shows set over the course of nearly 50 years in-universe: every action has ramifications, every plot device has hidden meaning, every character has another purpose to fulfill in the narrative. Filoni is well-known among fans for his tear-jerking endings, because he’s never been afraid to show the harsh realities of the Star Wars world, and he never undoes those endings, whether it's Ahsoka and Rex watching all of their friends die in, Ezra disappearing, or Din giving up Grogu. 

Finally, Filoni’s shows tend to have some of the most morally-nuanced, well-rounded characters in the galaxy. Whereas the main movies almost always have black-and-white characters (with a few exceptions, like Ben Solo), Filoni paints the galaxy in shades of gray. Agent Kallus is an imperialist, colonialist government agent who participated in genocide, but by the end of the show he’s reconciled with the last member of the species he killed. 

But not all Filoni characters have or even need a redemption arc, like Kallus. Many of them stick with exactly the same characterization throughout their show, just fleshed out to a captivating degree. Anakin Skywalker is a war hero, a father to his men and a caring mentor, but he’s also impulsive, jealous, manipulative, emotionally stunted and always quick to draw his saber. Maul is an unrepentant son of a bitch who manages to win our hearts anyways with his persistence, sympathetic backstory and loyalty to his brother. 

All of these elements---the nuanced morality, the sense of consequence, the character-driven writing, the serialization and the emphasis on family---affect one-another, and they work together to create a cohesive whole. In Filoni shows, the morality of a character often shifts depending on their familial relations and the consequences of their actions. Anakin grew more violent and impulsive after Ahsoka permanently left the Jedi Order, whereas Ezra used the Sith holocron to protect his family and atone for Kanan’s blindness. 

Common Threads in Each Series:

In this section, I’m going to address all of the most important characters, plot devices, and plot threads that have appeared throughout Filoni’s six shows. As a disclaimer, I’m mainly focusing on Filoni’s interpretation of specific individuals and events. This will be both spoiler-heavy and extremely long. Dave Filoni’s shows are self-referential and lore-heavy to a degree that would make Brandon Sanderson blush, and while this might owe itself partially to Jon Favreu (one of the biggest heads behind the Marvel Cinematic Universe), who’s worked with Filoni for years; I think this has more to do with the fact that Dave Filoni treats his characters as people. In real life, people’s stories don’t end when we triumphed over evil or suffered a devastating defeat; their stories keep going. Our stories keep going. 

When The Clone Wars ends, the Bad Batch don’t just disappear. They go on their own journeys, they fight their own battles. Their story goes on. When Rebels ends, Ahsoka doesn’t just walk away, content with what happened. She goes out in pursuit of Thrawn. Her story continues. So when Dave Filoni has his stories reference each other constantly---and I do mean constantly---it doesn’t feel cheeky or ham-fisted, it feels perfectly organic. 

• Speaking of which, Ahsoka is probably the biggest recurring character. An invention of George Lucas, Ahsoka is one of the main characters in The Clone Wars and probably the closest thing the show has to a protagonist, considering it focuses so heavily on her growth in the war. She later reappeared in Rebels, Mandalorian and Boba Fett and is the star of her own upcoming spin-off show. 

• Behind Ahsoka, Maul is the most important of Filoni’s recurring cast. While not as prolific, only appearing in The Clone Wars and then perishing in Rebels; Maul’s impact on the story was tremendous, haunting Obi-Wan for his failure to kill him, standing against Ahsoka during the Siege of Mandalore, and mentoring Ezra in the dark side. 

• Din Djarin and Grogu are recurring characters, both making their debut in Mandalorian but having their arcs continued in Boba Fett, hence why I said earlier that Boba Fett is something of an extension to their show. 

• Thrawn is an invention of Timothy Zahn, created for his Thrawn trilogy of novels. While he initially appeared as the main antagonist in the last two seasons of Rebels, he’s been set up as the major villain of Ahsoka’s show as well. 

• In terms of items, the Darksaber is by far the most important in Filoni’s subseries. Mandalorians have had a long conflict with Jedi in both the Legends and Disney timelines, but the Darksaber was the first time we saw any attempt to equalize the playing field between the Jedi and Manadlorians. 

• In general, the Mandalorians and Mandalore are extremely consistent across Filoni’s stories. Their general position within the galaxy is established in Clone Wars, then Rebels elaborates on what happened to them without the Darksaber and with the Empire’s influence, and The Mandalorian shows that splinter groups have formed across the galaxy. Lots of Mandalorians reappear between series, like Gar Saxon, but by far the most plot-relevant (outside of Din Djarin himself) is Bo-Katan. Initially an enemy in The Clone Wars, she later reappears as Din’s ally in The Mandalorian. She knows who and where Ahsoka is because of a working relationship that was established between them to capture Maul in the final episodes of The Clone Wars. 

• Kanan and Hera were main characters in Rebels who made cameos in The Bad Batch. 

• Hondo appeared in The Clone Wars and Rebels. 

• The Trace sisters appeared in The Clone Wars and The Bad Batch. 

• Captain Rex appeared as a major character in The Clone Wars, an informant in The Bad Batch, and a major supporting character in Rebels. 

• Boba Fett appeared in The Clone Wars, which added some characterization that he desperately needed. He reappears in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. Fennec Shand appears alongside Fett, and her first real-world appearance was in The Mandalorian followed by The Bad Batch shortly thereafter. 

• Saw Garrera, in addition to his appearances in Jedi Fallen Order and Rogue One, first debuted in The Clone Wars and reappeared in a minor role in the pilot of The Bad Batch. 

• The Grand Inquisitor from Rebels was established as one of the guards at Barris Offee’s trial in The Clone Wars. 

These are just a few examples of the many, many connections between Dave Filoni’s shows. Even without these characters, Filoni’s shows are remarkably consistent and connected in other ways, such as having the fictional substance Rhydonium appear in several of his shows. 

What Makes Them Stand Apart?

Now, I know what you’re thinking. If you haven’t seen all (or even one) of Dave Filoni’s shows, it sounds like I’m just nitpicking. Obviously Star Wars has had character-driven stories before, obviously they’ve had morally gray characters (though not too many), obviously Mandalorians aren’t just a product of this one creator, and obviously other stories in this galaxy reference one-another. 

And yes, all of that is fair. So I wanted to devote this next section to explaining how and why Dave Filoni’s shows stand out from the rest of the Saga. 

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Dave Filoni really made a name for himself at LucasFilm with The Clone Wars, a show set in the Prequel era that has pretty much none of the mistakes that defined the Prequels, mainly because it’s a television show not written by George Lucas. 

• Whereas dialogue and character relationships often feel awkward in Episodes I-III, they feel exceptionally natural in later seasons of TCW, as well as Rebels, Bad Batch and Mandalorian. Anakin and Ahsoka feel like a pair of siblings, Satine and Obi-Wan are convincing as old flames, Din and Grogu won me over as a father-and-son duo, Ezra and Kanan’s brotherly bond drove me to tears, and so much more. 

• Whereas Prequel trilogy Anakin isn’t exactly known for his emotional range or likability, Matt Lanter sells Anakin as an exceptionally talented warrior trying his best in a complicated political and social situation. You can really feel the love he has for Padme in some of their conversations, just as you can feel his heartbreak when Ahsoka leaves the order. This was repeated in each subsequent Dave Filoni show, which all have exceptionally strong 

• The underdeveloped villains (something I ranted a lot about in my essay about rewriting the Prequels) is almost entirely fixed here. Unfortunately, TCW does have to adhere to characterizations established for certain characters like Grievous. But besides this, Dave Filoni’s shows really shine with entirely original villains (The Grand Inquisitor, Moff Gideon, etc.) or compelling villains that were simply underused in the films (like Dooku, Boba Fett, Palpatine and more). Part of why the villains feel so developed is because we see them so often. Maul has gone down as one of the best villains in Star Wars history because of all the characterization we got in both TCW and Rebels, for instance. 

However, comparing Filoni’s work to the Prequel era is an imperfect comparison, because so much of his work output has come out in the 2010s alongside a completely different era of Star Wars: the Sequel Trilogy, Episodes VII-IX. 

Filoni’s works have often been hailed as superior to those movies for a number of reasons, and while I think that’s a bit too subjective of a claim, I cannot deny that his shows tend to be very well-planned out. I’m not just referring to a clear beginning, middle and end. I’m also talking about adherence to continuity, minimal or no retcons, and clear roles for everyone in the cast. 

Even when a wrench is thrown in his plans (such as TCW getting cancelled early by Disney), Filoni and his team manage to find a way to bring everything together. Again, TCW is probably the best example of this, with a series finale planned years in advance that was set up by several different arcs. Though, this is far from the only example. Rebels slowly built towards Kanan and Ezra’s sacrifices, and it wonderfully set up the cast for the Ahsoka show. Meanwhile, The Mandalorian’s second season gradually built towards Din giving up Grogu while simultaneously setting up Ahsoka and The Book of Boba Fett.

Compare that to the Sequel films, which infamously had no plan. Rey was set up as a Skywalker in Episode VII, revealed to be a nobody in Episode VIII, then retconned as a Palpatine in IX. Finn and Poe were set up as the deuteragonists in Episode VII, which was reinforced in TLJ, only for them to do almost nothing in TRoS. Even when it comes to villains, Snoke was set up as the villain in Episode VIII, but when Ben Solo killed him it setup Kylo Ren as the final villain of the trilogy…only for Palpatine to set into play with no foreshadowing whatsoever. 

What Makes Them So Good?

In this final section, I just wanted to conclude the essay and go over a couple of final reasons why Dave Filoni’s subseries is so brilliant. Think of this as something of a “miscellaneous” section that doesn’t fit into previous sections of the essay, and I’ll try to avoid repeating what I’ve said before. 

Obviously I’ve discussed the realistic characters and touched on the long-form storytelling. To dive more into that, Filoni’s hexalogy presents a unique chance to get invested in characters changing over a long period of time. Obviously certain characters showed up across all nine saga films, but for the most part they function as three separate trilogies, and we don’t really see what life was like between the trilogies outside of flashbacks. The Clone Wars, Rebels, Mandalorian, Bad Batch and Ahsoka present an opportunity to watch the galaxy change the main characters over a long period of time. Ahsoka Tano becomes more sagely as time goes on, Maul becomes less chained to the Sith mentality, Rex becomes more jovial and comical, and Hunter becomes more responsible and fatherly, just to name a few. 

From a lore perspective, this hexalogy of TV shows is wonderful for bringing in so many concepts and characters from Legends. Obviously the most important is Thrawn, who was initially utilized as a villain in Rebels, but considering he’s set to return in Ahsoka five years after Endor it’s likely he’ll fulfill a role similar to that of the Thrawn Trilogy. 

Finally, if you’re still not sold on watching any or all of these shows, the biggest strength I can point out is that they’re very separate from the Saga films. That’s why I called this hexalogy a “subseries”: these shows aren’t just spin-offs to tide you over for the next movie, they are a separate narrative that sometimes references the Skywalker Saga and sometimes not. 

That grants Jon Favreu and Dave Filoni a LOT of creative freedom: since their characters never appear in Saga films, none of their stories are set in stone, and they can do whatever they want with them. Kanan can be blinded and then sacrifice himself, because there’s never an expectation for him to appear again. Boba Fett can appear in The Mandalorian because we all thought he was dead anyways. Thrawn can disappear in hyperspace without contradicting anything. 

And since Dave Filoni and Jon Favreu are treating the Skywalker Saga as a separate story, rather than an inevitable conclusion, they can work their way through Galactic History at their own pace. Thus, Mandalorian can take place only 5 years post-Endor even though the movies coming out at the same time took place 30 years post-Endor. 

Even though Dave Filoni and Jon Favreu’s shows don’t connect to the Skywalker Saga, they make the Star Wars galaxy feel lived-in. Dave Filoni shows are all about the little guy. Not the Death Stars or Chosen Ones or Palpatines, but the refugees, the farmers, the scrappers, the nameless soldiers. 

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I love these stories. Ahsoka Tano, Kanan Jarrus and Din Djarin are some of my favorite characters in this galaxy, and the Clone Wars’ take on Anakin Skywalker is so well-written he became one of my favorite fictional characters of all time. Dave Filoni’s stories have shaped how I view this franchise, and they’ve become my favorite stories in this crazy setting, and I’m sure the same applies to many of you. 

So let’s raise a toast, not just to directors George Lucas and JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson; not just to actors Mark Hammil and Carrie Fisher and Hayden Christensen; but to creators like Filoni and Favreau. People who made this universe feel real. 

My name is Jonathan, and thank you for reading.