When it comes to the animated corner of the ever-expanding Star Wars Universe, Dave Filoni has emerged as the Jedi Master, first as a principal writer, director and creative force on Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and then as the creator and executive producer of Star Wars Rebels , which just completed an epic four season run on Disney XD.

19 Shows We Want to See on Disney’s Streaming Service 21 IMAGES

Loading

Star Wars: Every Jedi and Every Sith Ever 96 IMAGES

Loading

During Filoni’s Rebels reign, many changes were afoot within the Star Wars Universe, steered by the Lucasfilm Story Group - including the development and release of several new film installments and the canonization of new tie-in media like comic books, novels and games. Rebels increasingly demonstrated its willingness to connect with each: the droid Chopper was just one of a few Easter eggs to be found in Rogue One; Kanan Jarras’ Jedi backstory was revealed in a Marvel Comics limited series; and Ahsoka Tano headlined her own novel that led into her Rebels appearance.Indeed, Rebels incorporated characters and aspects from every facet of Star Wars, including appearances of Original Trilogy stalwarts like Princess Leia, Lando Calrissian and Darth Vader. It also contributed to the ongoing development of Clone Wars regulars like Ahsoka and Rex, and offered re-imaginings of formerly non-canon fan favorites like Admiral Thrawn, and references to brand-new elements like Rogue One’s Deathtroopers.At the same time, at its core, Rebels was a bona fide, highly satisfying Star Wars saga in its own right, telling the tale of the Force-adept Ezra Bridger and how he turned a ragtag team of insurgents into both a surrogate family and a full-blown foundation for the Rebellion. As the fourth and final season makes its Blu-Ray debut, Filoni joined IGN to reflect on the accomplishment, as well as offer a glimpse into the two animated Star Wars series in his future, Star Wars Resistance and the surprise final season of The Clone Wars , which was announced at Comic-Con.Dave Filoni: Well, I loved making the show. There's no doubt about that, but I didn't really even think about it being over until we were done with the final mix. There was so much to do, and I was trying to just go through the story again and again and again to get it to be as good as it could possibly be. And everybody I think was focused on that. We didn't have time to be sad about it. We just had to really land the airplane that was Rebels really well, and I think we did.I became excited because so many things start to naturally fall in place. But I did have to call a lot of creative retakes – especially on the final two episodes, because you just felt it wasn't good enough; we wanted to set things up with such a bang and really have the fans get the ending that they deserved, so everybody did a great job at being flexible and working hard to get the best possible ending we could.I think it's a lot of situational things. There was a previous version of Ruhk’s confrontation with Zev that I just thought didn't really go anywhere, and it didn't play out right and it didn't feel special. It felt like something we'd always seen before, so we completely re-staged that portion of it.There were things about Ezra's confrontation with the Emperor that I kept going over and over on to get the wording just right and to make that gateway between his world and the world of his parents clear. And I kept questioning that, right up to the end.And then there were all kinds of secret things I had on the side that not even most of the crew knew about, which was the epilogue ending. A very small group of people worked on that, and I actually had to cut it down, lose some shots, just to get the whole thing to time. So there were a lot of things to juggle when you're dealing with different levels of logic throughout the story, but we made the changes we needed to. I think it came out good.It's very inspiring to have other people working around you, and frankly we all have the same problems – Star Wars problems – and you all kind of wind up in the same traps. You all wind up stuck in the room with Stormtroopers knocking at the door. So you can have these conversations with other creatives.I find it funny, sometimes, when the films wind up in situations, I'm like, "Oh, I've been there,” but it's a neat collaboration across many fronts. Even to the different novels: like the Ahsoka novel, which I helped influence, or the comic books or games - you get a big lift out of seeing this large group of people that all like the same thing that are all investing in these characters and this Star Wars galaxy, so it's a lot of fun.I was fortunate to have this master class with George prior to all of this for years, so I think I've been well prepared, and a big part of my responsibility is to help pass on that knowledge he gave me to whoever I can, because then I think we maintain the integrity and the authenticity of Star Wars. Because while it is this massive expansive universe, with so many characters now and many, many creatives behind it, it really comes down to one creative, which is George.And I think [for] any artists out there, if you want to understand the story, you go back to the original material and the original hand and listen to him and what he was doing and then you can kind of take it from there and expand and be creative in your own way, which is what I've tried to do with the series I've done.Well, the Force is the most core important thing in Star Wars, the magic of it, and you have to be careful when you flesh it out because you don't want to rob from the magic of it by over-explaining it. But I’ve had a lot of talks with George about it and what was important about the Force, and I thought I had an opportunity to further some of those themes, to really set them down so people have more examples of what George believed the Force was about – its selfless nature versus its selfish nature, about when you wield it, what the results of that can be, and [how to] relate to it on a very personal, human level.I got a little bit more into what I believe is the living Force that we used to talk about, and somewhat the Force that's all around us – the Force of nature. A lot of people focus on the light side and dark side through the Jedi or the Sith, which is those people taking the Force and using it for their own will, sometimes selflessly and sometimes selfishly. But it's a little bit different, and understanding the idea that the Force exists apart from the Jedi and the Sith. They don't have sole dominion over it. And so I was bringing some of those ideas a little bit further out into the open that we had dealt with George on the Mortis trilogy and then the Yoda Arc in Clone Wars.So it was really fun and people seemed to really like the ideas and like the stories that we told. And that, again, I credit back to the source material and the fundamental ideas that George set down.It's one of those things that gets brought to your attention by other people at work and they're like “Hey, people are saying this,” so I'm like "Oh, that's fascinating – haven't really thought about that, that's weird." But on some of those things, it's like you're taking a character that had existed prior to my coming along as part of that Rebel Commando Unit, and I didn't want to lay it down in stone one way or the other, if that is Rex, is not Rex. For some people it's fun to believe it is Rex and some people don't want to believe it's Rex, and I'm fine either way with that and I think I left it in a state where you could believe one way or the other.Maybe I'm too diplomatic that way, but I don't know. It's not important to my story that Rex be that guy. Rex could fight the battle at the end of Endor and not be that guy. He could be somewhere else in the Battle of Endor. So it's maybe that's cheating and maybe that's being complicit, I don't know, but I think it's fun.I love that fans make that connection and I don't like saying the term "I like when fans do that…" because I still feel myself as a fan. And so it seems weird to me to say "Oh, those other people" when I feel like I'm just a part of them. Because I get why they do it, because I do it all the time when I watch stuff or when I think of things and you make connections. It's like the greatest, as a fan of these things. It's like when you saw Predator 2 and you saw the Alien skull and the collection of things that the Predators had, you were like "What?!" That's mind-[blowing]. It's like all you could talk about when you left the theater, is that Aliens and Predators exist in the same universe. And for us back then, that was incredibly exciting stuff.So those connections are special and they're exciting when you can do them. That's why when Lucasfulm did Rogue One and we just had Chopper in the hangar – he just rolled by. He didn't roll up to camera, he didn't interact with R2, he just kind of went by. The story's not about him, but he was there, right? He's in the background, and so was the Ghost, but nobody talked about the Ghost. Hera didn't have a line in the movie, but the Ghost was there.I love those connections because I think it gives back to the fans, that deep connection that they love and that insider knowledge which they discovered. And so when they're gasping and the other people [don’t get it] and they point and their friends go "What? What? What's everybody excited about?" "Oh, you don't know? Well you don't watch Star Wars Rebels, because that was Chopper.” And that so much of being a fan is about that, right?You know, I knew all the bounty hunters’ names in Empire. “How do you know that? They never say it.” Well, I have the figures. It's the fun of it, something that goes that deep.I just look at, always, the big picture of Star Wars, not just the stuff I'm working on. I try to be aware of what everybody's doing and look for tiny opportunities or make sure we're not repeating. There are many levels you have to work at and wrap your brain around so that people are always getting something unique and meaningful in our vast variety of storytelling that we're doing now in Star Wars, from the comic books all the way through the feature films. We all stay in touch through the Story Group to try to be aware of what each other are doing. For me, it's fun because I have been involved in so many things that, whether I'm the person actually doing it or just giving somebody a thought to consider, it feels good to be a part of it.So right now, Resistance is a bit different, in that I'm not on that day-to-day. I created and set it in motion, but I've given that to other people to raise up, people that I've worked with a long time, who I think deserve the opportunity to tell stories and I think it's exciting, and I give them my thoughts and notes – I was just doing that this morning, like George would give me. So that's fun.And then obviously with Clone Wars I'm very in the weeds on that and will have to be, because I myself have had to go back and watch a whole bunch of stuff that I had done, and I went back and watched Revenge of the Sith and Attack of the Clones in depth again. I'm like, "I have to upload this whole timeline." Just the intricacy of how the clones got made and where Dooku was and all of those things were stuff that I was just doing from memory at the time, because I was in it. Then I switched time periods and went on and did Star Wars Rebels, so to go back into Clone Wars, I have to remember, “Wait – where was everybody? How did that work?" And I had charts and figured all this stuff out, but I've uploaded the chip now, so I'm good.It was pretty interesting, but I had some fun conversations with people and I went "Where'd that come from?" And they're like "Well, you did that!" and I'm like "Oh really, I did? Wow, okay." Star Wars is so rich in detail that you’ve got to keep refreshing to remember it all. But I'll tell you, I've met kids that know it way better than I do, and they will hold you to task on the smallest thing. I always say, you show me a ten-year-old, I'll tell you a kid that knows more about Star Wars than I do. They will ask me a question that I do not know. So we'll see: I hope I get it right for them all. Of course, they're all now 15, 16, those kids, so...Yeah, that's fine. I enjoy it, it's all good. I would do the same thing.Without getting too much into detail - because I love the fan speculation - but it would be a real shame to have done all this work and not use it. So we are looking at everything and going over all those scripts we had. I think that the biggest thing for me is "how do we make this show better?" And I think that means examining all the work we had done, the work we were planning on doing, and also trying to honor the work of so many people that were in the middle of making stuff.And I want to make sure that some of the things we were doing come to light, so it's exciting, it's a great opportunity, but my main focus is how do we do this the best we can do it, and give this great story the new, exciting episodes that it needs? Which is what we did every season on Clone Wars: "How do we make the next season better?" So the focus is on being better than before, but absolutely on looking at stuff we haven't [used].Some of the fans already know because even though the trailers are… it's four shots, really, and there's a lot in those four shots that I put in their specifically for people to decrypt over the next however-long-it-is until this thing is out. And they will, they will! They've probably done it already. But it's all part of the fun in digging deep on clips and seeing what's there.

Every Upcoming Star Wars Movie and TV Show 13 IMAGES

Star Wars Rebels Season 4 is now available to buy on Blu-Ray and DVD. For more on the animated Star Wars universe, check out how The Clone Wars could inform the future of the movie franchise , and what we hope to see in the final season , plus our ranking of the top 10 episodes , and how to watch the series in chronological order . And for a look back at Rebels, read why we think the series is crucial to canon , and how the finale could set up a new animated series