Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni Are Giving Star Wars Back to The Fans
Spoilers ahead for The Book of Boba Fett
Let me get this out of the way: I did not like the sequel trilogy that Disney threw together. If you enjoyed it, I am happy that you did. There were aspects I liked about it, but I just felt like it was rushed and had no story structure or communication within the changing writers and directors.
With the messy release of the sequel trilogy, I felt a bit sad for the future of Star Wars. I felt they really messed up some of the original characters, and didn’t fully understand them — more specifically Luke Skywalker.
Then Disney+ came along with this new show called The Mandalorian. I knew the history of Mandalorians from Star Wars Legends and from Dave Filoni’s Clone Wars animated series. So naturally, I was intrigued by what this new show had to offer. And boy, I wasn’t disappointed.
Jon Favreau was the head of The Mandalorian and it was fantastic to start. He had the whole world intrigued with this “Baby Yoda” figure that was introduced right off the bat.
Somehow, Favreau and the writers on The Mandalorian were able to convey great emotion from a guy who never took off his helmet. And introduced a lot of awesome characters along the way — the best being Bill Burr’s Migs Mayfield in my humble opinion.
When The Mandalorian started introducing characters from Dave Filoni’s creations, or as the internet calls it, “The Filoniverse”, that’s when things really started to pick up.
Ahsoka Tano is a character who had never been in a live-action film, yet was a lot of people’s favorite character. She had great depth in her character and had plenty of episodes to pull from in Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels, both having Dave Filoni as one of the creators.
So when Ahsoka (played by Rosario Dawson) showed up in The Mandalorian Season 2, it was a huge win for fans of Star Wars. We were already loving The Mandalorian, and now it introduced a fan favorite in Ahsoka. Shortly after that, Disney announced that Rosario Dawson would be getting her own Disney+ show.
They had Boba Fett survive the Sarlacc Pit, just as he did in Legends, and he showed up in The Mandalorian. Which has led to his own show.
Then we get to the Season 2 finale of The Mandalorian where we have Luke Skywalker show up. A lot of fans were very critical of the CGI work they did on Luke to make him look like a young Mark Hamill. I admit it wasn’t the best, but just the scene itself was so powerful. I was jumping up and down like I was a little kid again.
That leads us to where we are at now. The Book of Boba Fett. I have had my ups and downs with this show. But what we just saw with Episode 6 was amazing. Granted, Boba Fett was barely in it, but as a Star Wars fan, it was fantastic.
I didn’t think we’d see Grogu and Luke until The Mandalorian Season 3, so I was happily surprised for them to be in this episode. Then boom, Ahsoka shows up once R2D2 leads Din Djarin to the new Jedi Temple. She says that Luke is a “family friend”, which was just an awesome touch.
This time around, the Luke Skywalker CGI was incredible. They really improved on it and I believe (and hope) they’ll do an entire show with Luke Skywalker. We need a bit of redemption from what they did to his character in the sequel trilogy. The voice was incredible as well. I really felt like I was watching Return of the Jedi deleted scenes. Now, if only I could see Luke in a crazy lightsaber battle…then my life would be complete.
I thought Ahsoka and Luke were enough, I didn’t think they could outdo themselves. Until one of the last scenes in Episode 6 where they bring in Cad Bane. This was his first live-action spot, and he is voiced by the same guy who voiced him in the animated series, Corey Burton.
For fans who don’t know him, go watch Star Wars: The Clone Wars and get to know Cad Bane. He is a bounty hunter, like Boba Fett. He is just a really cool character and will be an awesome antagonist for Fett.
With the Obi-Wan Kenobi show coming soon, I am just really confident about the future of Star Wars. The fact that Ewan McGregor is coming back for that role is awesome. Hayden Christiansen is coming back for his role as Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader, as well. Hayden will also be in the Ahsoka show, presumably in flashbacks and maybe as a force ghost, because it takes place at the same time as The Book of Boba Fett and The Mandalorian.
I love where Star Wars is right now because of Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni. All of the Star Wars content of late has made me want more. Their vision and passion for Star Wars have made being a fan fun again.
It’s what fans would have wanted if they were in control of Star Wars once Disney bought them. They’d make shows and movies for all of their favorite characters. Hopefully, we haven’t even scratched the surface yet.
