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When The Mandalorian first debuted on Disney+ at the end of 2019, it was a welcome breath of fresh air when the Star Wars saga really needed it. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker had soiled the reputation of the theatrical films by ditching the interesting direction that Rian Johnson set up in The Last Jedi, needlessly tying the franchise back to the Skywalkers. Comparatively, it felt like The Mandalorian was a totally unique, standalone story that didn’t require the viewer to have an extensive knowledge of the pre-existing canon. However, the story arcs in The Mandalorian have become the dominant narrative in the Star Wars franchise as it connects to the animated shows created by Dave Filoni. It’s become a different sort of all-consuming narrative, and the Star Wars franchise can’t let the “Filoni-verse” become the new Skywalker Saga.
Filoni deserves respect for bringing The Clone Wars and Rebels to life during the gap between the release of Revenge of the Sith and The Force Awakens; he allowed the Star Wars saga to stay relevant, and got viewers excited about a new character with Ahsoka Tano (Ashley Eckstein). While getting to see the characters and storylines from The Clone Wars continue in the current wave of programming, it’s become an overbearing influence on nearly all the current shows. The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, Tales of the Jedi, The Bad Batch, and the upcoming Ahsoka and Skeleton Crew all tie in to storylines from animation; even Obi-Wan Kenobi had to be reworked in order to adjust.
It’s not a bad thing that these shows have connections when it makes sense, but now the Star Wars franchise is requiring viewers to keep up with multiple seasons of several animated shows in order to know what’s going on. Those who hadn’t watched The Clone Wars or Rebels might have been confused when Ahsoka (Rosario Dawson), Cad Bane (Corey Burton), and Darth Maul (Sam Witwer) popped up in live-action to make references to events that they had never heard of. We’ve seen the danger of tying everything too closely together through Marvel’s Disney+ shows, and it would be a shame if the Star Wars saga fell victim to the same issues.
‘The Mandalorian’ Grows More Complicated In a Connected Star Wars Universe
Not every live-action version of an animated character has been unsuccessful; Forest Whitaker was able to take a minor The Clone Wars character and add a new depth to him with his roles in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Andor. Likewise, Ahsoka’s initial appearance in Season 2 of The Mandalorian was largely satisfying; Dawson did a great job in the role, and it fit perfectly within the “threat of the week” structure of the show. However, the notion that The Mandalorian was about the criminal underbelly of the Star Wars universe soon grew shaky; the show that had been praised for not featuring lightsaber fights made Grogu’s Jedi training a major storyline and shoe-horned in a deeply creepy CGI cameo from Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker in its Season 2 finale.
The idea that The Mandalorian’s second season was to set up pilots for future spin-offs became evident upon the announcement of Ahsoka and The Book of Boba Fett. Ahsoka is set to include nearly all the main Rebels characters in main roles and be a direct continuation, and The Book of Boba Fett hardly provided the standalone adventure for Temuera Morrison that fans were expecting. Essentially, The Book of Boba Fett diverted into becoming a continuation of key plot points in The Mandalorian which were essential to the third season. Now that the season is airing, you’ll need to remember everything that happened in The Clone Wars, Rebels, and The Book of Boba Fett on top of everything from the first two seasons of The Mandalorian; you should also plan to watch Ahsoka and Skeleton Crew as well, as they’re both set during the same era.
The Star Wars Franchise Is at Risk of a Creative Decline
This is the exact problem that Marvel Studios faced in Phase Four. Characters from Disney+ shows would show up in movies, past events would be referenced, and it significantly impacted the quality. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever had to bring in Julia Louis-Dreyfus in order to satisfy television arcs, and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was essentially a teaser for Kang’s (Jonathan Majors) role in the future. The films and shows have begun to close themselves up so that only everyone who’s done the “homework” can watch them.
The danger of tying everything back into the same storyline can even have an effect on projects that were intended to be spinoffs; Obi-Wan Kenobi had to be significantly reworked so that showrunner Deborah Chow could adjust the plans that Filoni and Jon Favreau had. Even though The Bad Batch is a direct spinoff from The Clone Wars, its references to obscure arcs from the series like the Zillo Beast, the Jedi younglings, the Twi’lek revolution, and Cut Lawquane make it impossible to serve as an entry point. Even the miniseries Tales of the Jedi invoked controversy when it retold events from a prior novel to become the “definitive” version of the story, which just so happened to cut out a major queer character.
Star Wars Should Be an Open Galaxy, Not Confined to the Filoni-Verse
It’s no anomaly that the best and most compelling Star Wars project within the Disney+ era has been Andor, the only one that tells an entirely standalone story. Tony Gilroy didn’t even need to be a massive Star Wars fan to create the series, and its outstanding quality signifies the possibilities of what creators who haven’t “done the homework” can bring to the saga. Andor works for the hardcore fans who can appreciate references to Knights of the Old Republic and Splinters of the Mind’s Eye, but it’s also digestible for casual viewers who didn’t even see Rogue One. The series gave us reason to invest in Cassian (Diego Luna) that had nothing to do with what had come before; the show wasn’t bogged down by post-credit scenes, cameos, and tie-ins.
Satisfying story connections can be fun, but turning Star Wars into a connected universe and not an open galaxy is an issue. Filoni has added some of the best characters, moments, and installments to the entire saga, but he’s not the singular creator who has a story worth telling. Whether it’s the Skywalker bloodline or Ahsoka’s search for Grand Admiral Thrawn, no storyline should be needed for a universe this big and full of possibilities.
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