#i love your thoughts and your big brain
George Lucas was a visionary, Dave Filoni is a storyteller.
The united force of both George Lucas’ vision and Dave Filoni’s ability to tell stories is just one of the reasons why Star Wars: The Clone Wars is so good.
The Star Wars universe was big, and whole, rife with socio-political nuance from it’s inception. But the failing of the Movie franchises was being able to clearly represent these things.
Under George Lucas’ direction, specifically in the Prequels. the portrayal of the issues George centered the universe around were delivered in either a very stale or a very overstated way. There was always this disconnection from the human, breaking the suspension of the disbelief for us as viewers.
Take Padme and Anakin’s relationship in AOTC for example. For many it was unrelatable to see how Padme, in her heart, could still happily exist alongside Anakin. Same goes for the political aspect, the delivery was stale and depersonalised and therefore difficult for a viewer to contextualise in a meaningful way and thus the effect George Lucas was trying to create failed and the biggest teachings of the movie are shrouded in bore and cringe.
George Lucas was a visionary though, he always could see Star Wars from this very intricate zoomed out perspective, much like an omniscient being, he could see how things would play out, but he never could quite condense and communicate it effectively. Some say that that’s why ESB was one of the best films, was because George Lucas wasn’t sitting in the directors chair, yet his ideas were still being workshopped.
The same goes for the Clone Wars.
The ability that Dave Filoni has to write and connect with human stories became a superpower in the TCW arsenal. George Lucas stepped fully into his visionary role during this series, guiding the themes and ideas, but largely left the humanity to Dave Filoni. Through the lens of these two directors we were able to get a very nuanced character arc from Ahsoka, quite engaging episodes that explored deeper issues with politics and the contextuallisation of the larger universe for the first time.
The Star Wars universe started to feel large and feel real. But neither man could have achieved this without the other. While Dave Filoni has an excellent understanding of the Star Wars lore, he has stated that during the Mandalorian he guided his process by what would George do, and I don’t think that working alone, George Lucas would have been able to achieve the narrative clarity that Dave Filoni brought to the clone Wars.
I think it’s extremely important to appreciate all that Dave Filoni has done for star wars, as he has absolutely transformed it. But I think it’s also very important to remember, in the wise words of every Fanfiction.net fic disclaimer, “It’s George Lucas’ sandbox, i’m just playing in it.” And Dave made one of the best sandcastles ever.
