If the Star Wars universe seems big, that’s because of its side stories. You’ve got the grimdark Rebel spies of the prequel Rogue One, sure, but also names like Ahsoka Tano (Darth Vader’s student when he was still good guy Anakin Skywalker) or Hera Syndulla (leader of the Rebel cell operating from the starship Ghost). If you read all that and think, “Wait, who?” then you didn’t obsess over the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars or Star Wars Rebels. And you’ll probably have the same wait-who reaction to another name: Dave Filoni.

That’s a bummer. Filoni was a supervising director on Clone Wars and executive producer on Rebels, some of the best Star Warsian content anyone has generated since the 1980s. Now he’s an executive producer on The Mandalorian, the Star Wars show that’s launching the streaming service Disney+. As a recent Vanity Fair profile said, George Lucas handpicked Filoni—they call him the “Chosen One”—to execute Lucas’ particular vision. Until now, Filoni has been a little bit of a fan-favorite secret weapon, the Y-wing to normie Millennia Falcons like George and J. J. and Kathleen.

Consider the Loth-cat out of the bag: Filoni may be emerging as a key player in Disney’s new Star Wars strategy. See, Disney has instituted a “pause” on new movies; David Benioff and D. B. Weiss (late of Game of Thrones) have opted out of a deal to make a new trilogy, and the company hasn’t clarified the fates of a trilogy to come from Last Jedi writer-director Rian Johnson or another feature from Marvel producer Kevin Feige. The emphasis, CEO Bob Iger has said, is shifting to TV like Mandalorian, as well as an Obi-Wan Kenobi show with prequel-player Ewan MacGregor and a prequel-to-the-prequel Rogue One with Diego Luna.

But as Han Solo would have said if we were a television executive, flying through the hyperspace of over-the-top streaming ain’t like dusting crops. Think of all the Xes over the faces of dead or soon-to-die Marvel TV shows. Even Lucas himself tried and failed to make a live-action Star Wars TV show for ABC—For All Mankind and Outlander showrunner Ron Moore wrote for it, to no avail. That makes Filoni technically the only Star Wars creative to ever succeed at television (assuming you don’t think the holiday special or the two Ewok Adventures worked)—four seasons of Rebels and an upcoming seventh season of Clone Wars. So it’s beard-strokingly interesting that Filoni now has a more influential role. “A great many truths we cling to depend largely on our point of view. People come to the stories from their own experiences,” he says. “That feels very Jedi to me. I don’t have mandates. I just have advising. I don’t think I’m a measure or a rule that people have to follow.”

Filoni often talks like a Jedi. “Ultimately, I have a unique point of view on the whole thing because I was fortunate enough to be trained by George,” he says. “I’ve always seen my role as almost more of a caretaker and a shepherd of this galaxy.” Filoni even self-deprecates his job as an EP and director on The Mandalorian, a show about an armored warrior from the same planet as the bounty hunter Boba Fett from the movies (and holiday special). “Working with [EP] Jon Favreau on Mandalorian, I have learned a tremendous amount about not just live action but about storytelling,” Filoni says. It’s a gracious tip of Filoni’s customary cowboy hat, and the show is going to be a must-see for fans. Yes, I’m saying that The Mandalorian is mandatorian.