Dave Filoni Talks Rebels, Clone Wars & Episode VII

By: Benjamin Hart

Dave Filoni, the former supervising director of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, is now hard at work with his crew on Star Wars Rebels. Empire recently revealed a clip from the upcoming animated series and had a short interview with Filoni along with it. They asked Dave if Rebels would have any connection to The Clone Wars and how Rebels works alongside Episode VII:

"We asked executive producer Dave Filoni if these films would have a connection to Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

"I think it’s important that Rebels be its own thing," said Filoni. "We created a monster in Clone Wars and there is a generation of kids now that love those characters, so you can imagine that when we’re in the story room I am pitching connections here and there. And to be honest [fellow executive producers] Simon [Kinberg] and Greg [Weisman] have watched Clone Wars and they are excited by it. Star Wars is such a universal thing. I think people would be disappointed if there wasn’t some connection, but at the same time I want the Star Wars Rebels characters to shine in their own right, and I want them to capture a new generation of fans as each, you know, moment in Star Wars storytelling does. They need their own space as well."

But what about the upcoming Star Wars: Episode VII? Is there a sort of Star Wars High Command to determine that the series and the movie (which are both canon) don't clash?

"The answer would be yes. I am aware of things that are going on all over the Star Wars galaxy. The same story team that is working on collaborating with the creatives on the feature collaborates with me, so I have a direct link to everything going on, which is incredibly exciting and incredibly stressful because of all the secrets that we now carry inside our astromech units. You know, I think it’s important. I love working with creative teams that appreciate that and take the time to make it all happen, because you can imagine that it’s a tremendous effort to have all these stories going on the whole time.""

This is great to hear from Dave! Now that canon has been defined and the Lucasfilm story group is in place, Star Wars stories from all different mediums - books, comics, TV shows, Movies - should now work together in unison to tell one cohesive story. Characters from the Clone Wars could show up in Rebels, and Rebels characters could connect with Episode VII, and so on. How exciting is that?

Source: Empire