5 little-known facts about Dave Filoni and Star Wars

Dave Filoni is no stranger to the Star Wars fandom. From creating and serving as showrunner to the ever-popular The Clone Wars animated series to helping to shape the stories told in The Mandalorian and The Bad Batch and so much more, Filoni is so in tune with the universe George Lucas created that many fans have come to believe that Star Wars is in no safer hands than Filoni’s.

Here are five facts about the legendary animator and storyteller.

1. Filoni thought his initial meeting with George Lucas was a joke

In a conversation with his fellow directors on the first season of The Mandalorian in the Disney+ documentary series Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian, Dave Filoni recalled his initial meeting with George Lucas to discuss the potential of him working on The Clone Wars animated series. “I almost didn’t get the job because I thought it was a practical joke,” he said.

Meeting George Lucas and being involved with Star Wars is a dream of many, and Filoni couldn’t believe it when he received the phone call asking if he wanted to interview with Lucas. It took a moment for him to accept that the phone call was for real. The interview itself was a meeting of like minds, and, of course, as we all know, Filoni impressed Lucas enough for him to be hired as showrunner for The Clone Wars.

2. Filoni sees a unique thread uniting the Skywalker saga

In another conversation with the directors of the first season of The Mandalorian in Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian, Filoni shared his intimate perspective on the stories George Lucas was telling through the Skywalker saga.

“Son saves the father; the father saves the son,” Filoni said, describing the climactic arc of Lucas’ original six episodes of Star Wars when Darth Vader kills Palpatine to save Luke in Return of the Jedi. “And it works out perfectly, and I draw that line all the way from The Phantom Menace to Jedi. That’s the story of Star Wars.”

He further elaborated on how pivotal the battle between Qui-Gon Jinn and Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace was to Anakin’s destiny. If Qui-Gon had survived, he would have been the father figure that Anakin needed that would have helped Anakin develop into the Jedi the universe desperately needed. It’s a unique perspective, but it fits beautifully with the story Lucas told from Episode I to Episode VI and continues even into the sequel trilogy.

3. The real-life inspiration behind Star Wars Resistance

For some reason, Star Wars Resistance, the anime-style animated series that takes place just before The Force Awakens, isn’t one of the more talked-about stories to come out of the recent Star Wars canon, but it’s every bit of the kind of Star Wars story you’d expect from Dave Filoni. With a focus on a group of ace pilots suddenly caught up in the war between the Resistance and the First Order, Star Wars Resistance looks at the pre-sequel trilogy era of the galaxy from a unique perspective and contains some powerful character moments throughout its two seasons.

In a statement on StarWars.com, Filoni shared the real-life inspiration behind the show’s focus on pilots:

"My grandfather was a pilot and my uncle flew and restored planes, so that’s been a big influence on me. There’s a long history of high-speed racing in Star Wars, and I think we’ve captured that sense of excitement in an anime-inspired style, which is something the entire team has been wanting to do for a long time."

4. Filoni isn’t the only Star Wars creative in the house

Dave Filoni is married to E. Anne Convery, who many Star Wars fans may know from her original short story Bug, about a Nightsister that was contained in the book The Clone Wars: Stories of Light and Dark. All of the stories in the book were retellings of episodes of The Clone Wars, except for Convery’s, which looked at a different side of the Nightsisters, or, at least one in particular, from the perspective of a little girl named Bug. In an interview with Syfy.com about the story, Convery shared her inspiration for the story:

"We have this Cinderella/Aschenputtel-type character, who meets a witch, and like any witch, she has her own agenda. Is she good? Is she bad? What’s her story? I wanted a more dimensional Dathomirian witch than we sometimes get to see."

5. Filoni is a huge fan of Plo Koon

In season 1, episode 2 of The Clone Wars, Jedi Master Plo Koon and three clones are forced to survive in an escape pod while Anakin and Ahsoka mount a rescue mission after General Grievous destroys Plo Koon’s fleet with the Malevolence, a ship capable of mass destruction. The focus on Plo Koon so early in the series probably shouldn’t be surprising if you knew Dave Filoni’s office is decorated in Plo Koon memorabilia. Filoni has long been a fan of the character, even attending the opening of Revenge of the Sith dressed as the Jedi Master.