Dave Filoni - Blog Posts

Tales of the Empire review, the problem with Filoni

Spoilers for "The Path of Anger" below

So, to start off with the obvious, Dave Filoni has never read a single Cannon Thrawn novel. The timeline of events in this episode made no sense for the timeline of the novels. Thrawn was an admiral, yet he was already accompanied by Rukh and Pallean, whom he wouldn't even MEET until he reached grand admiral status. At this point in the Cannon novels, he would have been accompanied by Eli Vanto, not Pallean. In fact, he wouldn't even meet Pallean until the events of Treason. The choice by Folini to overhaul this story erases the conical nature of the "Cannon" Thrawn novels.

Before I get into my real point on the problem with how Filoni writes, I'll give my review of the episode as a whole. It was fine, not much to write home about. The animation was beautiful as to be expected, and very expressive. The writing was... just ok. The empire was depicted as cartoonishly evil, though it is a cartoon so, maybe that's justified. For a short that was supposed to teach us more about Morgan and her motivations, I feel like we didn't learn much about her that we didn't already know? She's good with ship design, she wants revenge and power, etc. Nothing new. Personally, I found the pacing of the episode to be quite boring, it was very slow despite the short runtime. Overall, I don't know if I would recommend it, though I thought the episodes following Barris were quite enjoyable.

Now for the real problem I have with these episodes: Filoni's insistence on his own version of cannon at the cost of others' work. I don't deny Filoni is a good writer and director, Rebels is one of my favorite shows of all time! But he's been on this power trip after being essentially being handed the reigns to Star Wars. There was a period where Star Wars was a collaborative effort between a ton of creatives working on something they loved, the second golden age, that made it into a beloved franchise for a new generation. But now it's just Filoni, and he decides what part of other creative works he'll pick and choose to tell his own story. I feel so bad for Zhan. He created this beloved character, and wrote AMAZING NOVELS, only to have his incredibly complex character be forced into a 2d stereotype. Filoni needs to do better because if he keeps going down the path of writing he has been Star Wars is going to be a shell of its former glory.

No, because this is beginning to be an actual issue I have with modern Star Wars. One or two people are often responsible for telling a story, and ignore the works of writers and artists who came before them to steamroll in their own ideas. Star Wars has been a collaborative effort between many different creators since the novels first started coming out. To see the ability to decide what parts of it hold value delegated to one Disney employee is disheartening.

Hey Dave Filoni! There’s this really cool thing called a book, have you ever heard of it? Yeah there’s some really good Star Wars ones. Some new Star Wars books too!!! Not just the legends ones! You should totally take a look at them! And take them into consideration when making new Star Wars things! Please do this!!!!

Every time someone says the Bad Batch isn’t a good show I remember how bad The Clone Wars movie is and I only get more excited for season 2

Please defect, your brothers miss you

Guess who finished season 6-7 in a day

I WAS WAITING FOR THIS MOMENT EVER SINCE THE SPACE WHALES MADE OFF WITH MY BLUE BOY THANK YOU DAVE

YOU'VE YEE'D YOUR LAST HAW STINKY BLACK NERD SHIRT MAN

Anakin: *appears*

*Vader's theme plays*

Me (with increasing hysteria): What do you mean by that? Dave?! DAVE, WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT