NYCC 2015: Star Wars Rebels Dave Filoni Has High Hopes for Quality of Season 2

Michael Moccio ’16 / Emertainment Monthly Editor-in-Chief
Although Star Wars: The Clone Wars received negative responses from critics as a movie, the television show proved itself time and again over, which why it’s no surprise that Star Wars Rebels is as good as it is.
“Everything affects each other,” Filoni said on the Star Wars Rebels canon and new works being made. He’s probably one of the best people to give insight on how adding characters and plots can work within continuity. After all, how many people were surprised Ahsoka came into existence and then reappeared in Star Wars Rebels? “If someone down the line is creating a story—in whatever medium—and they say it’s a rebellion story with a secret agent for the rebels, the story group will say, ‘We have that.’ The story group are people who have knowledge of all the continuities. If we had a movie close to time period, we’d be in constant contact.”
After Marvel’s creative committee disbanded it’s interesting that Star Wars’ story group would remain intact. The best advantage the Star Wars story group has? “We all grew up with it—all the lead creatives grew up it. There’s a common, ‘Can you believe we’re doing this?’ The story group binds us together and keeps everything straight. It works all directions: comic books, video games. It’s just an effort by the people who love Star Wars to make everything work as well as it can. We never want to put anything out that’s just ‘okay.’ You try and make it the best you can so fans are always associating the high quality with Star Wars. That’s what we have to shoot for.”
Filoni had a quite a bit to say on how to keep that quality level high in Star Wars Rebels. “We study and study and study,” he said. “We did over a hundred episodes of Clone Wars. While that style is different, it’s all experience. I think we’ve gotten good at it over the years. Some episodes are better than others, but we do what we can,” Filoni said on the cinematic quality of Star Wars Rebels. “We practice, practice, practice and try always to get better.”
A lot of this came from the discussion of the Kanan comic and if there would be references in the show to it. “I don’t know if ‘reference’ is the way to go,” Filoni said. “It’s all part of the same story. Greg is working on that comic and I’m very aware of it. I would tell him things I think those characters would or would not do. Everyone on that book has done a phenomenal job. It’s something to be really proud of. I love how they’re not drawn the specific art style of the show—they can exist in any medium. It’s all connected, but I don’t know if you would see anything specifically called out. If it works, it works.”
Stay tuned for more Star Wars Rebels insights from Dave Filoni and general NYCC news at Emertainment Monthly!