Wym, this is real. This is a real picture!!! This happened!!!

I come with every intention of writing and spoilers: this requires a lot of text but, sorry… it's an interesting read.

I've seen a lot of people complain about SW and their way of doing things; I've seen people complain about The Mandalorian and say; At what point did it become children's content?

Well, as I tell you, since season 1 this content has always turned out to be family content.

Now the people who say this; It is because it is alienated that SW does not vary; when practically the SW material is pure fantasy and there is material for everyone, of all colors and flavors. The Mandalorian cannot be pigeonholed solely into violence; friend, then you have not understood anything about this universe.

See Star Wars and everything Geroge, Filoni and Jon have been working on with a whole creative team, etc, etc. is to enter that world to which they took you "the never ending story", "the labyrinth", "Dragon Heart", "Merlin" and I can continue… magical worlds, where hope resides everywhere, where love It is an important point because despite not being able to see it, it becomes part of this environment and expresses itself in mysterious ways (yes, like strength). That is why pigeonholing SW solely in violence is taking away a vital part of its narrative, it is as if the conflicts in its different aspects were not shown; or wanting to remove something very substantial that although species from other worlds are shown; They have something that unites them with everything. "The feelings, the emotions, the humanity that exists in these aspects"

Friend, believe me, when you only get stuck in violence and don't want to look at something else; The problem is you and maybe SW is not the content you need. And hey; I'm not saying that you have to accept everything, but definitely criticizing just to criticize, hating just to hate is ridiculous and pathetic. Taking SW or the Mandalorian as entertainment after a difficult day is not bad at all. But now you want to take this as a personal vent, project yourself, harass and be an infernal hater, sorry but that's disgusting.

And believe me; That violence that you ask for so much is desensitizing you, it makes you someone who loses the notion of how you can harm others and there are people like me; who lives in violent countries, where your life is at stake every 5 minutes, that the only thing we want is to stop experiencing this violence and live fantasy and hope. So stop messing around, okay.

At the end of the day your requests are like: "You want a good development for Din Djarin, but you don't want him to associate with anyone, you want to pigeonhole him into a life in the countryside with a secondary character, You want him to continue in a dangerous profession that "no It leaves nothing good for him or his green boy, you complain about everything and it doesn't seem like anything to you.” Please; It's very obvious that you didn't watch the series and don't understand Din's development. stop fucking around.

A few days ago I was watching episode 3 and I'm going to say this; Anakin is a great character, he is a villain through and through, but all this grew like a snowball. They lost Anakin and he was already lost, Palpatine knew how to play his pieces. In the entire world of SW it is difficult to pigeonhole the characters because; The decisions are the ones that weigh the most. All SW characters have an Anakin within them, they all carry a complex and a mourning of their being; a good being or a bad being. Doing what is right or wrong is a struggle of ethics and morals.

Anakin was an enslaved child and grew up with this complex, remaining a slave due to his attachments until his death. Their actions do not have to be justified, but they do need to be understood and exposed. At the end of the day in this universe Who has not stained their hands with mud or blood to fight for something? Who hasn't had to ignore innocent people to preserve an idea or a fight? Who hasn't had to give in to the bad orders of others to save their people?

When I see people judging Bo Katan, for example; for being a terrorist in her past or for her wrong actions and them using this as a reason for Din not to be around her; I say to you.. How low and dirty do they have to be to use a person's past, in this case a character, and judge them and not allow them to redeem themselves?

Si Din let Bo Katan redeem himself this season 3 Who do you think you are to not allow it?

It hurts me a lot to see Anakin get lost and to see that here they showed us what love is. but they also show us "it's the right person at the wrong time"

Padme could fight hard but her own worries and Anakin's attitudes were driving them apart.

When Anakin is tempted to turn to the dark side to gain power and knowledge, he gives in to his attachment to Padme, his fear, and gives in to the temptation. And for example in the mandalorian from season 1 We can see how temptation tried to envelop Din Djarin so that he would leave the creed.

Many people believe that this scene with Omera was "romantic" which it was not so; This series was representative of that TEMPTATION that Din could have fallen into. It's a symbolic scene of how Din was able to abandon the creed, stop being a Mandalorian, settle down and live in a remote place. EVEN when he mentions to Omera that his main goal was to honor Mandalorian culture, which saved him from the droids. SHE tries to take off his helmet if he allows it, invasively, as a temptation. THE CLEAR THING was that he NEVER fell into temptation.

Din clearly tells him "I don't belong here."

Because many say “I wanted a quiet life with her.” I say; Since he did not agree to stay and preferred the creed and remain Mandalorian, develop his character, surround himself with other people, adopt Grogu and recover his planet together with Bo Katan, I tell you HE preferred a Mandalorian life and his lifestyle and culture may be anything but "a quiet lifestyle."

Now when they say "Bo katan is a liar, a villain" it's because they didn't understand any point I mentioned. All SW characters have had to make difficult decisions, Bo Katan has been more oriented towards being an Anti-hero. And I don't justify her but it is understood and her points of view are expressed, about why she acted that way.

Since season 2 he could have killed or betrayed Din and taken his saber, in season 3 he had all the time and opportunities to do so. AND IT NEVER HAPPENS…

And it is more than clear that she had a very peculiar interest in him, that she protected him in some way.

Always saving him, even in chapter Plazir 15, she saves him from the separatist droids just when he shows rejection towards politicians. A clear nod to the fact that she does not fall for opulence or power, she simply wants to right her wrongs and bring glory to Mandalore, so that her people have their home.

Saying that Bo Katan "didn't redeem himself because he didn't do anything" Sorry, but living with a tormented conscience, with memory and constant regret. This season 3 Brendan Wayne himself says it in a podcast where he is a guest: "Din wanted to get Bo Katan out of that depression of that cloudy cloud of thoughts and knock her out with his own feelings, it was like he was talking to my wife"

I uploaded that interview and you can find it on my wall, I don't lie like SCREENRANT, they love to lie.

I don't want to go into more detail but I'm going to close this post with this.

Let's assume Din and Bo don't want anything romantic, okay. then at least allow them to be comrades in arms; It doesn't take anything away from them, on the contrary it gives them both a lot. Both Din with his own qualities can support Bo and vice versa. So why separate them if in the end, they are just friends?

And if it turns out that there are feelings and love between the two IT ALSO doesn't take anything away from them and yes, it contributes to them.

Star Wars is a galactic opera and I repeat; Taking away love just because you are a bitter person is taking away one of its main foundations.

The Mandalorians would be another very peculiar, interesting and unique perspective on love, if they let this union flow. Because it wouldn't be the typical cliché

We would see Din and Bo fighting together, sharing moments, weapons, tactics, in the middle of a battle, a show of affection, a hug, something very human, holding hands, fighting together, sharing plans, exchanging ideas and even A Keldabe kiss..

I and many see potential, at least in this shipment there is a lot of material to refute this couple; and I'm completely in the group that wants to keep them together.

This is the way.

Again, I’m completely baffled by the lack of media literacy in Star Wars fandom… especially when it comes from people that literally write for a living and work in media…

I was reading an article about why Ahsoka decided not to train Grogu as a Jedi yesterday. The article claimed that she decided not to do it because she’s not a Jedi herself, but like, bitch, no… it had nothing to do with that. She LITERALLY SAYS she’s not going to do it because of Grogu’s attachment to Din.

Lemme break it down for you here…

So, Filoni has told us that Ahsoka does not consider herself to be a Jedi at the beginning of her series because she has lost faith in institutions. So, fair. She is, at that point, a Ronin that still follows the code and the teachings of the Jedi order, but because her faith in others has been totally shattered into a billion pieces, she works alone. It will not shock me if by the end of her series she considers herself to be a Jedi once more. It shouldn’t shock you. Filoni has been dropping bread crumbs to lead us in that direction since Ahsoka left the order. Moving on.

After Din simmers a very high-strung Ahsoka down by letting her know that Bo-Katan sent him to her, and Din explains the reason he sought her out, Ahsoka agrees to test Grogu the following morning. I’m confident she would have wasted no time refusing to do any of this if her reasoning were related to her relationship with the Jedi. She would have just been up front about that. Like, “No, I’m not a Jedi. I’m not qualified,” or, “I can’t help you because I am not a Jedi myself.” She doesn’t do that. She tests Grogu the following morning.

Ahsoka’s test was very deliberate and focused. She already knew Grogu was force sensitive because they’d communicated through the force the previous night. His force capabilities had nothing to do with what she was looking for. She was testing the bond between Din and Grogu. She was trying to determine how close they truly were. She tells Din to “connect with him (Grogu)”. Just as soon as she picked up on Grogu’s attachment to Din, she hard noped out. She wasn’t going to have anything to do with Grogu’s training. The very idea of training Grogu clearly freaked her out. She basically indicated that Din should just let Grogu’s force abilities fade, which I don’t know if that’s exactly how that works, but maybe she knows more than me about it.

Honestly, if we’re looking for the REAL (out of universe) reason(s) that she refused to train Grogu, it’s because Dave has something bigger planned out for Ahsoka’s journey.. whether that be finding Ezra, ending Thrawn and his cronies, helping Luke rebuild the order, becoming a Jedi or something greater, transcending into a force goddess, dying in some fantastical fashion or whatever is anyone’s guess.. she didn’t have time to train Grogu. Never mind the fact that Grogu is an intricate piece of the Mandalorian puzzle.

Still, Ahsoka’s unwillingness to train Grogu had nothing to do with being or not being a Jedi and everything to do with her own hang ups.

Hello! So, two things.

Firstly, I’m a big fan of your blog and I really love how you write about Anakin as an agent of fate and his predetermined destiny. I’ve had similar thoughts but you put them into words and a depth of detail far better than I ever could. The way you flush those concepts out and the ideas/details you include are fantastic! Far better than anything I could dream up. I felt I just had to tell you how wonderful they are and that I’ve read them multiple times.

Secondly, there is something I’ve wondered in conjunction to Anakin’s density as “The Chosen One”. A lot of fans and even some of the creators at LucasFilm say that had Qui-Gon Jin trained Anakin he never would have fallen. Have you seen that quote from Dave Filoni about the Duel of Fates? Especially with your idea of Anakin being a test for the Galaxy and it failing. How would Qui-Gon change that? I just curious what your thoughts are on the matter and how he’d still fulfill the prophecy.

You have such interesting thoughts on Anakin and his destiny that I felt you’d be an absolutely wonderful person to ask about this. Of course this only if you don’t mind. I don’t mean to impose upon you at all. ❤️❤️❤️

Thank you!! This ask literally made my day the other day when I received it! You are really so kind... I'm so happy to have made so many new Star Wars friends here to gleefully obsess about SW as all this amazing new media comes out!

My view on your question:

Anakin was destined to fulfill the Prophecy. But destiny always acts in conjunction with the will of many people. It is not the product of one person or a set-in-stone over-arcing narrative. So, for example, we know Anakin was destined to "balance the Force" and "end the Sith" at the very least. He was created by the Force to do this.

BUT we never know HOW he is going to do this, or WHAT "balance the Force" even means exactly! That is up to interpretation of the characters and purposefully nebulous. Many times Yoda comments "clouded this boy's future is" because the arc of Anakin's life was intentionally UNPREDICTABLE as per the Force -- but his DESTINY, the end point, was certain. The endpoint was predicted, not the means to the end point.

Anakin was to bring balance... but how? The folly was in those who thought they knew.

This was the Force "testing the Galaxy" giving them a chance to prove themselves -- everyone, the Jedi, the Sith, the Senate, the Republic, Obi-wan, Padme, Yoda, everyone.

If Qui-gon had lived, perhaps he would have advised Anakin not to pursue Padme. Perhaps he would have noticed Anakin's distress about his mother, and being the rebel against the Council that he was, forced them to allow him to bring Shmi to Coruscant. Or maybe he would have simply trained Anakin on Tatooine.

And so with the guidance & faith of his mother (and not the skewed substitute of Padme through which Anakin tried to sublimate his need for Shmi), maybe he never would have turned! He could have helped Qui-gon revamp the Order (balance), alongside Obi-wan, and they could have ended the Sith together. Perhaps he would have killed Sidious for the love his mother - knowing Sidious engineers all suffering and slavery in the Galaxy. The more peaceful end to the Prophecy of Balance.

That's just one possibility! Like perhaps if Padme rejected Anakin (and not needed him so desperately to escape the responsibilities of her life) he would never have had children, or a chance to sublimate his grief for Shmi into her, and Sidious could not have used Padme's life against him. But Padme chose Anakin. Her choice.

Or if Obi-wan had not lost Qui-gon, had not suffered so deeply from that loss of guidance, (loss of not only Qui-gon but Dooku too), he may have been more open, accepting of himself, and more of the friend Anakin needed, more of who he truly wanted to be himself. but Obi-wan chose to train Anakin anyway, knowing he was grapping and grieving. His choice.

I really believe Vader, the alter ego, ALWAYS, lives inside Anakin. It is his nature as a demi god (an ego and alter ego). But in his mortal life, until he fulfills the Prophecy and is free to integrate his prime ego and ego, how Anakin behaves is an issue of "which wolf do you feed".

That is why it's important that yes, he DID choose to bow to Sidious, to go to the Dark. That was one of many, many paths open to him. And it took many years thereafter for him to fulfill the Prophecy perhaps because of his fall. He felt sorrow and guilt for the way it happened, even if he was destined for it and could not escape it.

Because although he is at fault for his choices (and admits that), he is not the sole agent of Fate. He does not make his choices in a vacuum. He definitely had his hand forced as well as the odds stacked against him, as well as making his own bad decisions given his circumstances.

It was an intentionally complicated combination. He never truly experiences free will as we think of it.

In Star Wars: Fate, the test of the Force, rests on everyone's shoulders, and the whole Galaxy had a part to play in the fall of "Anakin Skywalker " (who is a representation of "Good People").

I hope this makes sense! When Anakin burned on Mustafar it was also the burning of Yoda, of Obi-wan, of Padme, of the Senate, of the Republic, of the Order.

Evil won over of them all.

The team lost the game because they were never truly played together.

But despite a loss, they regrouped, in perhaps the truest test of the Force. They stood up even though Evil won. They did not give up.

They all stood up once more through the Rebellion, through Ben Kenobi, through Luke Skywalker (ghost of Shmi), Leia Organa (ghost of Padme) and through Anakin Skywalker himself.

Force help us all.

And here goes nothing. This one will need a TLDR.

Well Crosshair appeared. And I did cry. A lot. So that stayed true the whole season. Yaaaay. *Sobs quietly* My poor assistance dog has been so confused about why I keep crying today, he’s been very worried bless him and keeps climbing on me and licking my face. I love him very much and felt he deserved a sentence for his kindly helping paw.

I will be treating the finale as a single episode because anyone who didn’t go immediately from episode 15 into 16 you are lying.

So. Deep Breaths. Tech.

I will be assuming he is gone. I have read a lot of convincing arguments that he is not-but I will leave those to others. I will be writing as though he has died in the permanent sense.

I knew someone was going to die. It’s season 2 and Filoni is writing it. Hunter played Kanan and got captured and then they all escaped in S1. Big goal in mind in S2 (defeat Inquisitors vs Reunite Batch), someone is going to end up in dire straits to save the others. I thought it might be Cross, more likely Cody. And then it was Tech. I did not see any of that plot line coming. Saw Garrera and a plot inconvenient explosion were the smallest surprise. I was expecting them to make it to Mount Tantiss. Apparently not yet.

But the way Tech died is important to me. It sounds silly when I write it, but I’m autistic (and so is Tech I will die on that particular hill) and most autistic characters in stories of this genre (fantasy or sci-fi) get infantilised. They then tend to get killed in front of the proper heroes by the villain to show that the villain is evil. They’ll look rather sweet and innocent and meek and say something haunting and that’ll be that. If they do something brave it’s always played off that they don’t fully understand how dangerous what they’re doing is, or how heroic they really are. Not Tech. Tech fully understands what he’s risking. He knew the second he climbed out of that cable car he might not make it back. He nearly fell at least twice before he chose to fall. Not one moment in the whole show do we ever doubt that Tech is an adult, who is fully capable of understanding risk (and often advises caution) even if he computes it a bit differently, and mature enough to know completely what that sacrifice means. He, as an autistic character, demonstrated what it was to him to adjust to not having someone around, to having to cope with change. His knows this will hurt his family-but he has to do everything he can to save them. He, as an autistic character, got something akin to a romantic subplot-which you never really see. The way Tech is-it’s never painted as being ‘in the way’ of anything. He’s different-and that just is. Everyone completely accepts that about him. And until I looked back I didn’t realise quite how rare and refreshing it was to see that-because it’s written so well. And wether we get any more of Tech or not-I will always be grateful for what we did get to see of him. His character will always be special to me for what he represents-that people like me can exist in Star Wars, and in the galaxy far far away-we are simply ourselves and nobody really bats an eye.

And most importantly-it was his choice. You could write that scene nearly identically and have it just be an accident-but it was his choice. Clones don’t get many of those in life. And Tech, over the course of two seasons, has increasingly been learning to make his own. He’s stopped quite noticeably looking to Hunter for a nod before he does things. For a Clone, death is an occupational hazard. They view sacrifice through the lens of the war dominated life they lead and to them laying down your life to save your squad-I think that’s what many of them would choose if they had to. And the rest of the batch would definitely have died without Tech’s choice. Perhaps even, indirectly, Crosshair, who may have been tortured until he lost his life before the Empire found Omega. Tech’s last words I also thought were a lovely parallel to ‘good soldiers follow orders’. Tech chose defiance to save his family-he’s undeniably one of the best soldiers of the republic and yet ‘since when do we follow orders?’. Again-the emphasis on choice. It makes it feel like the end of the ‘Order 66 Era’ to me. We’ve gone from Clones forced en mass to kill those they loved and protected, to one Clone freely deciding to die to save the family they love and would do anything to protect. From the first moments the Republic became the Empire, right the way through to Stormtroopers almost completely replacing clones, and the first sign of major projects of the Empire starting to take shape. What happens next feels less like it’s going to be dictated by the galaxy-though the Empire will certainly be more oppressive than ever, what happens next is up to them now.

And Speaking of the Empire-the villain I now hate more than I ever hated Umbridge and Mrs Coulter as a child combined (which is saying something). Dr Hemlock.

He needs to die. In a way that Thrawn really didn’t-uncharted space was fine, he just needed a comeuppance. However, this particular foul being needs to cease to exist.

He is also the perfect villain. An incredibly creepy, secretive genetics researcher who doesn’t see his ‘test subjects’ as fully human is the villain in a story about Clones who are thinly veiled disability representation, currently exploring their own individual humanity, and were introduced to show the power of difference? Hell yes someone thought that through. And then said-hmmm yes Dr deadly poison. Then everyone will definitely know he’s an evil scientist! (It’s not like it wasn’t obvious as soon as he’d talked for longer than 5mins!). I await being immensely satisfied when everything he’s ever worked for burns to a crisp. Along with him.

For forces sake when he threw Tech’s goggles at Hunter’s feet. I was screaming. Hunter’s face. And when he puts down his blaster to pick them up. Hunter has chosen his squad. He’s not a soldier anymore, not really, he’s going to do whatever he has to do to get his family safe and keep them that way. I expect he’s going to go from being a bit more ‘go with the flow’ this season, to rather more ‘completely feral’ next season. And he will have Wrecker with him-who looks like he’s got some complex emotional development of his own to do. Gods it’s heartbreaking watching anyone grieve but poor Wrecker-I think he’ll blame himself. While oddly Hunter will be doing the same thing. Echo is going to have to be sensible I think-nobody else is going to be.

I am so excited for season 3. Really hoping we don’t have to wait a similar what felt like an age as last time. I love these characters. I’m yet to watch anything Filoni has written that didn’t have an immensely satisfying (if bittersweet) ending that made all the heartbreak worth it so I hope that’s where we’re going. Until then.

Vode An. Always. 🌟

TLDR: Force that hurt. Tech will always be an immensely important part of why I love Star Wars and The Bad Batch so much for so many reasons. Next season is going to be crazy. And if the Star Wars of equivalent of a creepy ableist medical researcher working for an authoritarian government imprisoning everyone doesn’t die horribly and have all his work destroyed I may riot.

CLOAK OF DARKNESS (#103, SEP 2008)

The Clone Wars animated feature—and the television series to follow—provides new insight into Anakin’s heroics and the wartime abilities of the Jedi generals and their clone soldiers. Fifteen-year animation veteran Henry Gilroy is a chief writer of the new tales. Here, he tells Insider how The Clone Wars is different from other animated series, how many of the story ideas came from George Lucas, and which member of the Jedi Council is going to be your new favorite.  Words: Dan Wallace

Insider: What can fans expect from the movie and series? Having already seen glimpses of The Clone Wars in Revenge of the Sith and the final, treacherous way that Darth Sidious brought an end to that conflict, how do you handle writing characters with predestined fates?

Henry Gilroy: Have you ever missed an episode of your favorite serialized TV show and refused to watch the 411 current episode until you’ve seen the one you missed? We’re going to see the reasons why Anakin misses Padme so much in Episode III. We’re going to see why Grievous hates Jedi so much. We’re going to see why the Jedi are so war weary and determined to end the fighting.

In Episode I, Qui-Gon Jinn told Padme, “I can’t fight a war for you.” In Episode II, Mace Windu says, “We are keepers of the peace, not soldiers.” Dave [Filoni, director of the movie and supervising director of the series] and I wanted this theme to permeate everything, because while the Jedi are forced into the role of military generals and must command clone armies, they are doing something that is opposed to their ideals. It really set the stage for interesting stories that have relevance today about how easy it is to be drawn into wars that maybe we shouldn’t [be].

How did you come to be writing for Star Wars: The Clone Wars?

Back in April 2005, I met with producer Catherine Winder. I brought her a one page pitch of what The Clone Wars could be with a logline that read, “Star Wars meets Band of Brothers.” I don’t think anyone ever saw my pitch, but I think she was impressed that I knew the universe well enough to have something prepared. I also had written several Star Wars comics [The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones] as well as having a decade of experience on various animated action-adventure series [Batman, Justice League] that made me a good candidate. I think another big reason I got the job is that I love to collaborate with other creative people, and being able to do that well is a necessity on a project like this. After weeks of writhing in agony and suspense as Catherine met with other writers, I got the thrilling news that I was ‘the chosen one’ and here I am three years later.

How did The Clone Wars go from script to finished animation?

The initial 15 or so story ideas were generated by myself and [director] Dave Filoni. We’d develop the stories into one- or two-page premises, then meet with George Lucas and he would input his ideas. Once George liked a story, we’d go through the outline process to figure out the specific character and plot arcs, and then we’d turn that into a script. Once we were happy, we’d send that back to George for his input. When George liked it, the script went final and the story would go into production, which means characters, ships, and locations are designed by our terrific design team. Then the script is pre-visualized, or storyboarded, by our awesome story team.

When the script goes final, it’s not really ‘final.’ The final script would be the end of the writing process on 95 per cent of animated television series. But at Lucasfilm, George uses movie-like pre-visualization and editorial stages as a big part of the writing process. The great thing about working this way is that you can really refine the story visually, adding and subtracting story elements to build drama and tension. Even though The Clone Wars started as made for television, George wanted a process where he could be involved creatively at every step. So making The Clone Wars series is more like making an animated feature except that every single episode is done this way! As Dave and I came from TV, George would regularly remind us, “We’re not making television here. We’re making cinema.” And that’s why it wasn’t really a surprise when he decided to release The Clone Wars first as a full-fledged animated feature.

It sounds like George Lucas was involved every step of the way.

George is the Alpha and the Omega, and is involved in the story from beginning to end. On The Clone Wars, that means from the initial story idea until the final sound mix. I knew from the moment I got the job that The Clone Wars was going to be George’s show. My job was to execute his vision and I have always tried my best to do that.

Who are the other writers involved?

My chief collaborators were Dave Filoni and George Lucas. Every story idea I had, Dave would hear first and once we got it to a place we liked, we would submit it to George who would bring his own magic. After about the first batch of stories, George got so excited about the show, he started writing his own story outlines! He’d send them over and we’d craft them into scripts. As time went on, George became more involved and wrote more stories and just about every story now comes from ‘The Maker’ himself.

The primary freelance writer I worked with was prolific animation veteran Steven Melching, who was invaluable because he is a great talent and really knows the Star Wars universe well. Then about a year into the project, I got some much needed help at Skywalker Ranch in writer Scott Murphy, who brought his experience as a live action TV story editor to the production for a few months. A couple of other writers I’d like to mention who did solid work on the series were George Krstic, Paul Dini, and Katie Lucas. [The screenwriting credits for the movie go to Gilroy, Melching, and Murphy.]

Are there any characters from the prequels you really wanted to explore?

I really enjoyed writing Obi-Wan Kenobi. Early on, I pushed for a story that gave us a little window into Obi-Wan’s past that added a new dimension to him. I think it really deepens this character that we already love. I had a personal goal to realize every member of the Jedi Council on the screen as a memorable personality that we would want to see again and again. I want to credit Lucas Licensing and the novels and comics creators for laying the groundwork for those characters, which we tried to stay true to. As for original characters in the series, I really enjoyed working with George and Dave to develop Anakin’s relationship with his Padawan, Ahsoka. Their snappy big brother/little sister interaction was a blast to write and I have high hopes for Ahsoka as a character who will soften the heart of even the most skeptical Star Wars fan. Jedi Master Plo Koon was the biggest challenge for me. I have to give all credit to Dave Filoni for really defining his voice. I think Plo is going to be an enduring favorite of fans for a long time.

So how readily did you and Dave Filoni collaborate?

In the early days of the studio, somebody created the nickname “Filroy Gilroni” because we were always together. In the very beginning of development, Dave and I used to meet at this coffee shop in Burbank almost every day and talk Star Wars, and we still talk Star Wars every day. We discuss the films, novels, comics and the stories we are developing and how to execute them thematically and visually, and how the characters interact and grow. Did I mention that the coffee shop is right next door to a Toys “R” Us? After our story meetings we’d go nerd out and see what latest Star Wars goodies were available. Anyway, it’s always been a lot of creative give and take, where I might pitch Dave an idea for a character or a story and the next day he’d email me this amazing concept painting for it. Or he would pitch me a one sentence idea for a story and I’d write it into a two page premise—Plo Koon, hint, hint.

Once I get the stories onto paper as premises, outlines, and scripts, Dave reads everything and his collaboration helps me get it ready for George, as well as production. Because Dave sits in editorial so much with George, he knows better than anyone what George wants. As time went on, George gave us boundaries and then took them away. He challenged us all the time to make it better than just good. One of his favorite quotes as he would finish our meetings was, “Dare to be great!”

We’re excited about the movie, but can you also give us any hints about episodes from the series?

I always tried to give the episodes titles that sounded like they came from the pulpy adventure sci-fi serials of the 1930s that inspired George. Here’s a few that don’t give anything away: “Rising Malevolence,” “Cloak of Darkness,” “Lair of Grievous,” “Downfall of a Droid,” and “Ambush in the Outer Rim.”

Keeping the right tone is critical to having something feel like Star Wars. How do you do that without getting bogged down in formula?

As far as the kind of stories we could tell, George told us that Star Wars could be a forum for any kind of tale. So even though the movie and series are set against the backdrop of The Clone Wars, there are dramas, romances, mysteries, horrors, comedies, and more. The biggest challenge was making the universe feel as large as it is in the existing Star Wars movies within the limitations of an animated movie and TV series, meaning we couldn’t go to three new planets every episode or have 10 new characters. We tried to include new characters in every single episode, extremely difficult on a weekly CG animated TV show. There is the time limitation—the original attack on the Death Star took 20 minutes of screen time, but our entire episodes are only 22 minutes, so it was great to be able to start with a full feature-length movie. It’s always a great challenge to squeeze in all the stuff we love about Star Wars: exotic planets and aliens, epic space battles, exciting lightsaber duels, plus the solid character development that brings it all together into our limited screen time.

How do you capture the voices of characters that fans know inside and out from watching the movies?

I was working directly with George and he created these characters. No one knows them better. The fun part for me was putting the characters we know from the live-action movies in new situations to explore how they would behave. I think Dave and I got it right most of the time, then George would come in and add bits of action, dialogue, and humor that only he can to give it that classic Star Wars feeling.

WHO’S HENRY?

As well as scripting the Dark Horse comic-book adaptations of The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, writer Henry Gilroy has had plenty of experience writing for animated TV series and movies made for DVD release. Here’s a selection of his pre-The Clone Wars credits:

Transformers: Animated (2008)

Justice League (2004)

Lilo & Stitch: The Series (2003)

Bionicle: Mask of Light (2003)

Atlantis: Milo’s Return (2005)

Timon and Pumba (1995)

The Tick (1994)

Batman (1992)

WRITER’S ROOM

What have the other writers on The Clone Wars done?

Steven Melching

Legion of Super Heroes (2008)

The Batman (2004-05)

Scott Murphy

Flash Gordon (2007)

Angel (2001-02) [writer & story editor]

The Nightmare Room (2001)

*+:｡.｡the mandalorian!｡.｡:+*

｡･ﾟﾟ･my thoughts and opinions!!･ﾟﾟ･｡

not proof read. if there’s typos, i’m sorry >:

because i really love this show and i want to rant about it. incredibly late to the bandwagon of din djarin simp train buttttttt better late than never amirite?!

firstly, the mandalorian is a really good star wars series to introduce a new fan to the universe. i like that even the main characters of the show are rather uninformed of the jedi and the ways of the force. we learn about the ways of mandalore and parts of it (the different tribes and sub groups) with the characters. it’s a really good insight of how normal (haha i say that as if din djarin is a normal dude) civillians (pfttt im a joke but you get me right?) view things old fans and new fans know. they call the jedi ‘magic wielding wizards’, they call lightsabers ‘laser swords’. i don’t know about you, but i appreciate that sense of unknown, curiosity and confusion (even though i know those things). the plot and storyline, characters’ ambitions and goals are clearly shown in a constant and steady storyline mountain (starting, build up, climax, aftermath, resolve, blah blah blah basic story building + writing stuff) it’s easy to follow what is going on in the series.

secondly, as i’ve stated before, the storyline is really steady and easy to follow + acting was super well done. in my honest opinion, none of the episodes disappointed me. save for the book of boba fett. i’ll talk about my views on that series in another post (maybe). the scenes were executed well with a clear vision in mind. jon favreau, dave filoni, taiki watiti, deborah chow, etc knew what they wanted, and they made the scenes come alive. the cast also performed wonderfully, from pedro pascal to even bill burr! they both portrayed the trauma of their characters exceptionally well. i’m going off topic, but i can’t help but send kudos to the whole production team, casting team, post-production team blah blah. quite a lot of ppl say this show saved the star wars universe for them.

thirdly, Moff Gideon. pretty compelling antagonist. i enjoyed how the actor, giancarlo esposito, carried himself as the character. i could feel the dominance and authority ooze out of my tv screen. seeing even our main characters get taken aback by the closed off, secret and private information announced by gideon was pretty nail biting. i enjoyed him as the main antagonist of the series.

fourthly, PEDRO PASCAL IS SO HOT OH MY GOD. when he first spoke i knew i was head over heels for him. HIS VOICE?? ugh i lovr him. tbh, when i wasnt a fan of mandalorian and i searched up din djarin, i wasnt so attracted. but after seeing the whole series, i cldnt help but get attached!! 

anyways, thank you for reading through all this!  ヾ(＾-＾)ノ♡

Mixed Bag

So I'm exceptionally late to this boat because it took much longer than i expected to catch up on Andor. That sh*t was a slog, man. I’ll get into why later but, long story short, because of my aversion to finishing KK’s magnum opus after she absolutely gutted the franchise for half a decade, i distrust anything she co-signs. And Andor was a BIG co-sign. Literally her middle finger to the absolute god’s work Favloni are doing over in their half of Lucasfilm. Speaking of, Tales of the Jedi dropped, too, so you’re going to get a double review? I mean, I'm going to gush about one of these things and be real measured with another. You can read on to see which id which if you want but i bet you can guess how this is going to go after reading this opening.

Tales of the Jedi

Surprise, i loved this f*cking thing. Look, i am on record as to being an absolute Ahsoka fanboy. I’m a Vader stan so anything Anakin Adjacent, is going to be a principal in my hierarchy of Star Wars love and Ahsoka is literally right there. That said, her stories were kind of average. I liked them, of course i did, particularly her last one, but like most of the fandom, i felt they could have been a bit better. I’m not as upset with the changes Filoni made for Resolve. By now, most people know that episode is a loose adaption of the Ahsoka by E. K. Johnston. There are some creative choices made that seem controversial and a little unnecessary but they didn’t bother me as much as a lot of the fandom. Personally, thought the previous episode, Practice Makes Perfect, was the best of the Ahsoka half. Anytime you can give me more Skyguy and Snips, I'm all over it. With the announcement that Anakin and Vader are going to make an appearance in the upcoming Ahsoka show, this episode was a nice little appetizer for what comes next. Admittedly, i enjoyed the Ahsoka stuff a little more than i should have because, in all honesty, it’s just nostalgia bait. What isn’t was the Dooku stuff and, more to the point, how much i loved that sh*t.

I don’t like Count Dooku. Even after The Clone Wars did the herculean job of redeeming his nothing character, i still never took to the guy. I thought he was just a henchman-of-the-week until Papa Paps could get into Ani but this show proved me wrong. I already knew that The Dooks was right. I knew why he chose to betray the Jedi and align with Sheev. I just didn’t care. It made sense but it never really rang true, mostly because it was just in print. It’s hard to make a character i don’t like compelling without a solid aesthetic to back them. Like, left to my own imagination, if i have a bad impression of them, the revelations won’t hit as hard. That was my frustration with Dooku. His episodes went a REAL long way to elevating that. I’m still not a Dooku fan but i wholeheartedly agree, and understand, why he chose to align with Palpatine. Dooku’s short, three episode haunt, did a whole lot to recontextualize his entire character and, by default, the entire Disaster Lineage. That seed of doubt which lead to the fall of the Jedi, started with Dooku and he was right to doubt. It’s wild to speculate how things would have went if Dooku got that seat at the table rather Mace. Maybe the Star Wars would never have happened?

Andor

Andor was good. There, i said it. It was good show, the strongest of KK’s contributions to the Star Wars lore. That said, i don’t care. I don’t like the character of Cassian Andor. He’s the new Dooku for me and, unlike the good Count, this series did nothing to sway my indifferent opinion of him. Look, credit where credit is due, Rogue One is my favorite thing KK has done in her tenure as head of A Galaxy Far, Far, Away. I think that sh*t is peak Star Wars and it was dope to watch, even if she absolutely derailed production of the original vision; Something that would absolutely become a stale of her “management style.” I’m not going to sit her and say that it stands strongly next to the original trilogy, or even the sh*t Filoni has made, but Rogue One was the closest thing to Star Wars the Mouse House has vomited out since they bought the brand. Outside of the Favloni situation, of course. I would have been on board for a Rogue one spin-off series if it followed Krennec, Galen, Jyn, Chirrut and Baze, or even f*cking Saw Guerra but Cassian? The nothing character that was little more than a plot device? Really?

Giving Cassian a whole show was the right choice. He needed the extra content to be fleshed out as a character. What little of him we got in Rogue One was nowhere near enough to properly understand his motivations or world view. He was a means to an end and served his purpose but that was Jyn’s film. An Andor series makes sense, on paper, but in execution? Man, was this thing hard for me to get through. Those first three episodes were bunk, man. It took me a month to finally finish them. I just didn’t care about this man’s overly dramatic plight. It felt... very fan fiction-y. It was like the writers needed to pile on the bullsh*t in order for us to care ONLY about Andor and his plight. This, for me, was a strong disservice for a character i already had a difficult time caring for in a movie where that was absolutely necessary for the film’s plot. It was a poorly transparent attempt for me, as the audience, to empathize with a character that we were introduced to as a f*cking murderer. Now, I'm fine with that as long as the character is charismatic. Look what Mads did with Hannibal. But Diego Luna is not Mads Mikkelsen and Cassian Andor is NOT the good doctor. That is the problem with this show in a nutshell; Andor, as a character, is bad.

The world around Cassian is amazing. I love seeing the Empire at the height of it’s power and the seeds of rebellion being planted as they cut a cruel swath across the galaxy. The look of this show is wonderful and a lot of the newer characters introduced embody the feel of Rogue One, the feel of Star Wars. Once you get past those first few episodes, the narrative really opens up. However, it is a narrative built around a sh*tty character that never really become any better for me as a fan. Cassian Andor is underwritten and, after a full twelve episode count another on the way in a second season, i don’t have confidence he gets better. I could  be wrong, i hope i am for the sake of the Star Wars mythos as a whole, but i have no faith in KK’s writing room. At least in terms of characters. The plot to Andor is decent and, if it was more of an ensemble or framed around a new character that could be a blank slate, it might have been better but, for me, ten episodes in, this show is a dud.

Mixed Bag

So I'm exceptionally late to this boat because it took much longer than i expected to catch up on Andor. That sh*t was a slog, man. I’ll get into why later but, long story short, because of my aversion to finishing KK’s magnum opus after she absolutely gutted the franchise for half a decade, i distrust anything she co-signs. And Andor was a BIG co-sign. Literally her middle finger to the absolute god’s work Favloni are doing over in their half of Lucasfilm. Speaking of, Tales of the Jedi dropped, too, so you’re going to get a double review? I mean, I'm going to gush about one of these things and be real measured with another. You can read on to see which id which if you want but i bet you can guess how this is going to go after reading this opening.

Tales of the Jedi

Surprise, i loved this f*cking thing. Look, i am on record as to being an absolute Ahsoka fanboy. I’m a Vader stan so anything Anakin Adjacent, is going to be a principal in my hierarchy of Star Wars love and Ahsoka is literally right there. That said, her stories were kind of average. I liked them, of course i did, particularly her last one, but like most of the fandom, i felt they could have been a bit better. I’m not as upset with the changes Filoni made for Resolve. By now, most people know that episode is a loose adaption of the Ahsoka by E. K. Johnston. There are some creative choices made that seem controversial and a little unnecessary but they didn’t bother me as much as a lot of the fandom. Personally, thought the previous episode, Practice Makes Perfect, was the best of the Ahsoka half. Anytime you can give me more Skyguy and Snips, I'm all over it. With the announcement that Anakin and Vader are going to make an appearance in the upcoming Ahsoka show, this episode was a nice little appetizer for what comes next. Admittedly, i enjoyed the Ahsoka stuff a little more than i should have because, in all honesty, it’s just nostalgia bait. What isn’t was the Dooku stuff and, more to the point, how much i loved that sh*t.

I don’t like Count Dooku. Even after The Clone Wars did the herculean job of redeeming his nothing character, i still never took to the guy. I thought he was just a henchman-of-the-week until Papa Paps could get into Ani but this show proved me wrong. I already knew that The Dooks was right. I knew why he chose to betray the Jedi and align with Sheev. I just didn’t care. It made sense but it never really rang true, mostly because it was just in print. It’s hard to make a character i don’t like compelling without a solid aesthetic to back them. Like, left to my own imagination, if i have a bad impression of them, the revelations won’t hit as hard. That was my frustration with Dooku. His episodes went a REAL long way to elevating that. I’m still not a Dooku fan but i wholeheartedly agree, and understand, why he chose to align with Palpatine. Dooku’s short, three episode haunt, did a whole lot to recontextualize his entire character and, by default, the entire Disaster Lineage. That seed of doubt which lead to the fall of the Jedi, started with Dooku and he was right to doubt. It’s wild to speculate how things would have went if Dooku got that seat at the table rather Mace. Maybe the Star Wars would never have happened?

Andor

Andor was good. There, i said it. It was good show, the strongest of KK’s contributions to the Star Wars lore. That said, i don’t care. I don’t like the character of Cassian Andor. He’s the new Dooku for me and, unlike the good Count, this series did nothing to sway my indifferent opinion of him. Look, credit where credit is due, Rogue One is my favorite thing KK has done in her tenure as head of A Galaxy Far, Far, Away. I think that sh*t is peak Star Wars and it was dope to watch, even if she absolutely derailed production of the original vision; Something that would absolutely become a stale of her “management style.” I’m not going to sit her and say that it stands strongly next to the original trilogy, or even the sh*t Filoni has made, but Rogue One was the closest thing to Star Wars the Mouse House has vomited out since they bought the brand. Outside of the Favloni situation, of course. I would have been on board for a Rogue one spin-off series if it followed Krennec, Galen, Jyn, Chirrut and Baze, or even f*cking Saw Guerra but Cassian? The nothing character that was little more than a plot device? Really?

Giving Cassian a whole show was the right choice. He needed the extra content to be fleshed out as a character. What little of him we got in Rogue One was nowhere near enough to properly understand his motivations or world view. He was a means to an end and served his purpose but that was Jyn’s film. An Andor series makes sense, on paper, but in execution? Man, was this thing hard for me to get through. Those first three episodes were bunk, man. It took me a month to finally finish them. I just didn’t care about this man’s overly dramatic plight. It felt... very fan fiction-y. It was like the writers needed to pile on the bullsh*t in order for us to care ONLY about Andor and his plight. This, for me, was a strong disservice for a character i already had a difficult time caring for in a movie where that was absolutely necessary for the film’s plot. It was a poorly transparent attempt for me, as the audience, to empathize with a character that we were introduced to as a f*cking murderer. Now, I'm fine with that as long as the character is charismatic. Look what Mads did with Hannibal. But Diego Luna is not Mads Mikkelsen and Cassian Andor is NOT the good doctor. That is the problem with this show in a nutshell; Andor, as a character, is bad.

The world around Cassian is amazing. I love seeing the Empire at the height of it’s power and the seeds of rebellion being planted as they cut a cruel swath across the galaxy. The look of this show is wonderful and a lot of the newer characters introduced embody the feel of Rogue One, the feel of Star Wars. Once you get past those first few episodes, the narrative really opens up. However, it is a narrative built around a sh*tty character that never really become any better for me as a fan. Cassian Andor is underwritten and, after a full twelve episode count another on the way in a second season, i don’t have confidence he gets better. I could  be wrong, i hope i am for the sake of the Star Wars mythos as a whole, but i have no faith in KK’s writing room. At least in terms of characters. The plot to Andor is decent and, if it was more of an ensemble or framed around a new character that could be a blank slate, it might have been better but, for me, ten episodes in, this show is a dud.

when I first acknowledged about dinluke some months ago on Pinterest I never thought I would love it as much as I do now. And I never thought I would return to Star Wars because of this ship after the (personally) great disappointment of TLJ.

like, it was one normal day scrolling through my messy Pinterest page looking for some cool shit, and I met baby Yoda. I knew about him, he's pretty famous on the Internet; saw him on some memes, he was on Twitter trending some time ago, that one artist I like drew him once,...And I scrolled down 2 more centimeters and saw a dinluke fanart with baby Yoda in it. At first, I was oh so confused. Like , is that Luke? When did Luke and baby Yoda met? And who's that person with him? Wait a sec is this..."romantic" vibe I'm seeing right here? Who in the world would ship Luke Skywalker with this weird...um, "silver helmet armored person"? Didn't he have a wife named Mara Jade in Legends? What about the Sequels? Because I left Star Wars since TLJ, I didn't know a shit about The Mandalorian, just baby Yoda being kinda famous.

But man, I just got a little curious ya know, wanted to figure out where the heck did this ship emerged from (and if it's gay or not lol ). So I clicked the image and the next thing I saw was a bunch of dinluke fanarts - totally quality contents spreading through my PC screen. So I got MORE curious and clicked several more images until I reached that one short comic by ngrogu. (you know, the one that is still residing at the top of the dinluke tag? about war trauma angst? yea that one. I still friggin love it.) I thought it was interesting, so I went strait to the Tumblr link to read it in full context. In which the link leaded me directly to the top section of dinluke tag. AND HOLY MILKING SITH I WAS MOTHERFUCKIN SURPRISED WITH SOOOOOO MANY DINLUKE CONTENTS HITTING MY EYES. And it was also here that I learned-- " wait is that Luke? Is it him in that huge black hood? oh it is... wait a sec I don't remember any scene like this in the originals ...does that mean Luke Skywalker returns on screen?-wait, no that's impossible , is this some kind of high quality fan made thingy then?-*sees tags*- HOLY SHIT LUKE SKYWALKER RETURNS ON SCREEN IN SS2 OF THE MANDALORIAN??????? HOW DO I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS!!!!!?????? "-- and then I went to Youtube, watched the hallway massacre, took in some deep breaths("HOLY FUCK, HOLY FORCE, HOLY FUCKIN SON OF THE FORCE"), return to Tumblr to scroll down from the top of dinluke tag to read and see almost every content of dinluke I can until my PC got too slow. After that I decided to watch every episode of The Mandalorian there are to exist.

---And here I am , after months of falling deeper and deeper and DEEPER into dinluke. After months of checking Tumblr everyday just to see new dinluke stuff. After months of reading dinluke fics into the midnight hours. I have realized that I have never loved and adored an OTP this much. Or maybe it was the first OTP I have ever had. I can't count how many times I have imagined my "Sequel trilogy rewrite ~feat dinluke " fic in my head . I can't stop praying for the ship to be cannon although I definitely know and UNDERSTAND that dinluke can possibly never be cannon. I got so mc'fuckin frightened when there was a rumor on Youtube that says Mara Jade will be making an appearance on the Luke Skywalker show that Dave Filoni is planning to make- if this was before knowing dinluke, I would joy, joy that Star Wars is finally back . But this crack ship, dinluke, has changed me.

It had changed me with the template Star Wars found family trope, but this time with "an absolutely powerful and pretty space magic wizard sunshine twink" on one side and "a space Viking single dad who is also a fierce bounty hunter but actually introverted himbo" on the other side with "a green cute gremlin baby alien son with magic powers who has became an Internet celeb" in the middle; with it's absurdly immense potential (ancient enemies, the last of their kind/tribe, Luke "daddy issuse" Skywalker and Din"single dad"Djarin,..etc,etc...) ; along with it's incredibly talented writers and artists all over Tumblr and ao3.

I had fallen in love with this one hell of a ship and I'm in agony everyday just thinking about this ship.

AND I REGRET NOTHING.

Pedro for EW (11-20/20)

By Chancellor Agard • Photographer: Radka Leitmeritz Related: photoshoot / list of articles 

Human connection. It’s vital. Especially in a year like 2020. Especially for Pedro Pascal. So it’s ironic that the 45-year-old’s highest-profile success to date is working with an adorable animatronic puppet, inside a chrome helmet he famously can’t take off. "It is why I wanted to do this show. Selfishly, I knew [the Child, a.k.a. Baby Yoda] was likely to make people fall in love with the show," says Pascal of tackling the title role on The Mandalorian, the Emmy-nominated hit Star Wars series, which returned for its second season on Disney+ in October.

The Chilean-American actor has an eye for choosing projects where he’ll stand out, from popular network procedurals including The Good Wife, The Mentalist, and Law & Order to his breakout roles as the charming — and horny — Oberyn Martell on Game of Thrones and, soon after, DEA agent Javier Peña on Net­flix’s Narcos. But it’s the stoic bounty hunter safeguarding a frog-egg-eating 50-year-old toddler that’s made him a house­hold name. The new season of The Mandalorian followed Pascal’s galaxy-traveling warrior as he searched for the home of the Child, generating countless memes in the process.

Playing the Mandalorian has been one of the hardest and most unique experiences of Pascal's career to date. At this point, it's no secret that he wasn't physically under the helmet as much as he would've liked in season 1 and recorded his dialogue in post-production to match what his doubles, stunt actors Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder, did on set in the armor. Giving a largely vocal performance was a challenge for a physical actor like Pascal, who is almost unrecognizable when you compare his turns on The Good Wife and Game of Thrones, for example, because of how he carries himself. Yet, being on set way more in The Mandalorian season 2 didn't make his job any easier because he still had to figure how to make Mando compelling while also being as economical as possible in his physical movements and vocal performance.

"I'm not even sure if I would be able to do it if it weren't for the amount of direct experience that I've had with being on stage to understand how to posture yourself, how to physically frame yourself into something and to tell a story with a gesture, with a stance, or with very, very specific vocal intonation," says Pascal, who believes his collaborative relationship with creator Jon Favreau and executive producer Dave Filoni, a.k.a. his "Mandalorian papas," also helped him inhabit the role in season 2. 

Speaking of collaboration: Working with comedian Amy Sedaris, who plays gruff Tatooine mechanic Peli Motto, was one of the highlights of The Mandalorian’s sophomore season. “I followed Amy Sedaris around like a puppy. [I was] like, ‘Hey again. I’m not leaving your side until you wrap,’ and she’s like, ‘Cool,’” Pascal says. “I love the Child — it really is adorable — and it is so fascinating to see it work, but somebody who makes you spit-laugh right into your helmet will always be my favorite thing."

Pascal longed for those kinds of interactions during quarantine, which proved difficult for the actor who was living alone in Los Angeles. But he lights up, is even giddy at times, when the conversation turns to bonding with the Community cast right before a charity table read back in May (he filled in for Walton Goggins), or FaceTiming his friends to celebrate Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' election victory on Nov. 7. "Ahhhh! Ahhhh!" Pascal exclaims, reenacting the joyous calls with buddies like Oscar Isaac that Saturday morning. "It was screaming and jumping and dancing and crying…. I very arrogantly took screenshots of everything and [shared them], like, 'I am a part of this!'"

"I'd be less nervous playing tennis in front of the Obamas than I was seeing a reunion of these people that I think are brilliant and have this incredible chemistry with each other and stepping in and having really, really, bad technology in this new space that I had moved into. I really resented having to actually participate acting-wise because there were instances where it was way too much fun to watch."

His appreciation for those around him has only grown during the pandemic. Before flying to Budapest to film The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent with Nicholas Cage, Pascal leaned on his bubble for support. Community's Gillian Jacobs, for example, hosted him for an outdoor socially distanced pizza night every Saturday in the early weeks of lockdown. (He suspects that's why he was recruited for the sitcom's table read when Goggins couldn't participate.) 

"The friends that got me through it are absolutely everything to me and very beautifully marked in my head. I've got old friends and new friends that literally did nothing short of parent me through the experience," says Pascal, who has "survivor's remorse" for being in Europe right now. "I feel guilty not being [in the States] with my friends through [this tumultuous time] but also grateful that, individually, I was able to gain a little bit of separation from the stress of it."

Those tight bonds helped redefine, or at least clarify, what success means to him. "I want to make sure that my relationships are right, and I want to make sure I'm nurturing meaning in a sustaining way, and that won't necessarily be related to getting good jobs and making lots of money," he says. But he'll take them — as he did for both of his 2020 projects, about which he's thrilled. And how could he not be, starring in two of the year's most feverishly anticipated properties?

Besides The Mandalorian, Pascal appears in Patty Jenkins' superhero epic Wonder Woman 1984, which has endured a Homeric journey to its release (read: several pandemic-related delays). Thankfully, the odyssey is almost over because Warner Bros. recently confirmed that it will open in both theaters and on HBO Max on Dec. 25. Pascal is stoked audiences will finally see his turn as the villainous Maxwell Lord because playing the greedy dream-seller pushed him out of his post-Game of Thrones action role comfort zone.

"With Wonder Woman, [Gal Gadot and Kristen Wiig] are doing the action, baby, and I'm doing the schm-acting!" he says, hilariously elongating that final syllable. "I am hamming it up!" (Indeed, Pascal reveals Cage inspired his performance in one particular scene.)

But Pascal felt he was up to the challenge because everything he needed was right there in the screenplay, which Jenkins co-wrote with Geoff Johns and David Callaham. "I didn't have to take something and figure out how to put more flesh onto it. I had to achieve getting into the skin of what was being presented to me," he says, contrasting the experience with playing a DEA agent for three seasons on Narcos. "For me, Colombia was almost the central character, and then I was allowed to make him depressive and to tonally interpret what the character was. And in this case [on Wonder Woman 1984], there was just so much for me to meet rather than to invent."

He continues: "That was an incredible delight and challenge because Patty Jenkins is a director who loves actors and when she sees she can ask for more, she does. And there isn't anyone better, in my experience, to give more to."

Morai appeared in the Clone Wars season finale and I’ve realized that she symbolizes Anakin’s connection to Ahsoka

As we’re all reeling from the Clone Wars finale, I’m struck by the lingering image of a convor circling above Vader as he holds Ahsoka’s lightsaber. Since the convor is so strongly linked with Ahsoka I can only guess that it’s actually Morai and that this is where she begins to guide Ahsoka personally.

I’m sure we’ve all read meta about Morai’s symbolism as the Light Side of the Force, more specifically the Daughter from the Mortis Arc (especially since they share the same colour scheme). After Anakin helps the Daughter transfer her lifeforce to Ahsoka, the convorees begin to appear whenever Ahsoka is being tested. Filoni has even said:

"In some ways, I could say that it's a messenger, it's an observer. It is definitely something. And... I would rather have fans debate—but I would suggest... that whatever that thing is an avatar of has actually appeared in the animated Star Wars universe before. So decrypt from there."

This symbolism continues throughout Rebels where Ahsoka calls Morai by name, actually acquainted with the bird. Morai even leads Kanan to the Bendu when he was in need of guidance.

Ahsoka is intrinsically tied to the convor and through it, the Light Side of the Force. This lingering scene at the end of Victory and Death is absolutely so important, helping tie in the episode, and Vader as we see him, to the rest of the Star Wars universe.

Vader finds the 501st ship at last. We don’t know how long it’s been, how can we? All we know is that snow has covered the ruins and the carefully dug graves. We don’t even know if the troopers with him are clones or normal men. Silent and alone, Vader steps into the ruins. Eventually he stops and observes the wreckage, only to notice a glint in the snow. He bends his knee and reaches down. Almost gently, he brushes the snow away and discovers:

Ahsoka’s lightsaber.

He cradles it in his hand, brushing the snow away again with the other. Then, inexplicably, he flicks it on and we see Vader wielding a blue lightsaber for the very last time onscreen. Who knows why he turned it on. Maybe he couldn’t quite believe it was Ahsoka’s and that she’d lost it once more. Maybe he was testing to see if it still worked or if the colour was still that brilliant blue he tweaked it into.

Maybe it was one last goodbye.

But his gaze follows the point of her ‘sabre and when he reaches the end he sees Morai, soaring high above. He watches her for a long moment and this is when we see his eyes. Darth Vader’s eyes.

Anakin’s.

It doesn’t matter whether they’re blue or a sick-sulfur gold. All that matters is that we see them. We’ve never seen Vader’s eyes through his mask. In this one little moment, in Ahsoka’s lingering presence, we see Anakin Skywalker again.

It’s a clear parallel to Twilight of the Apprentice when Ahsoka destroys the side of his mask with her ‘sabre and Anakin leaks through.

Vader leaves and takes the ‘sabre with him.

It’s so, so obviously clear that he still loves Ahsoka in this moment. That Ahsoka still brings out the good in him. That this is, awfully, their final goodbye as they knew each other.

We always read about how Ahsoka and the convor are linked and how it’s really Ahsoka and the Light Side of the Force that’s linked. But I don’t think we’ve ever really seen anything about how Anakin is linked to the convor and Ahsoka.

The thing is, I think the convor also represents the link between Anakin and Ahsoka.

During the Mortis Arc, Ahsoka essentially dies. The Son kills her, inadvertently mortally wounding his own sister in the process. As the Father grieves, Anakin rushes over to Ahsoka and pleads with the Father.

“You must help her!” Anakin says.

But the Father only replies: “I cannot undo what is done. There is no hope.”

Despite dealing with his own trauma and insecurity and then, of course, eventually Falling to the Dark Side, Anakin has always been a hopeful person. We see this from the very first time we see him: a bright and cheerful slave who only wants to help others.

So of course Anakin pleads again: “Yes, there is. There’s always hope!”

Through his hope and conviction, Anakin convinces the Father to help, and so Anakin becomes the conduit through which the Daughter’s lifeforce is transferred to Ahsoka. As this happens, the main Star Wars theme rises.

This is so incredibly essential to the Star Wars universe, which has always, always been about hope.

Obi-Wan and Bail sequestered the twins away because of hope. The Rebellion rose and thrived and eventually won because of hope.

Luke saved his father because of hope.

Every single goddamn movie is about hope and the perseverance it takes to continue on, one step at a time, no matter how hard it gets.

The Star Wars movies have also always been about Anakin Skywalker. He’s the overarching shadow and the brilliant light in every single one, whether he’s actually in it or not. It’s called the Skywalker Saga for a reason. The only reason Star Wars exists is because of him. He is both villain and hero. He leaves behind a legacy that we can’t shake.

Luke saved his father, but only because Anakin had that little bit of light left in him. That little bit of lingering hope.

And we see it in the finale, in those few moments where Anakin holds Ahsoka’s lightsaber and she points him towards the Light, towards Morai. And we see him for who he is, who he was, and who he will become.

Anakin Skywalker has always been about hope, and because of that Ahsoka survives Mortis. Because of him, she survives everything that killed all the prequel Jedi. She survives the entire original trilogy.

Right after the Mortis Arc, Ahsoka gets kidnapped. It’s the first time she’s ever really been alone and forced to fight to survive. But she manages it, despite the other Padawans on the island giving up or succumbing to their fate. Again, out of everyone, Ahsoka survives. This is also the first time we see the convorees.

During this arc, Anakin is left alone, as well. Fearful and lost, he worries for Ahsoka, but Plo, the Master who found Ahsoka in the first place, guides him.

“What is Ahsoka’s strength?” Plo asks him.

“She is fearless,” Anakin replies.

“That can also be a weakness. Is she a worthy apprentice?”

“No one has her kind of determination.”

“Except you.”

“I’ll find her.”

“This may not be within your power.”

“Whatever you’re trying to say Master Plo, just say it!”

“I am suggesting that perhaps if you have trained her well, she’ll take care of herself and find a way back to you.”

This, again, is so, so important. “Except you,” Plo says. No one has Ahsoka’s determination except for Anakin. No one has her hope except for him. Ahsoka was already a wonderful, resilient person, but Anakin brought it out in her. He taught her, guided her, and now those lessons must guide her as she faces the world alone. This is only reiterated when Anakin and Ahsoka reunite.

“Ahsoka, I am so sorry,” Anakin tells her, clearly very upset.

“For what?”

“For letting you go, for letting you get taken. It was my fault.”

“No, Master, it wasn’t your fault.”

“I should’ve paid more attention. I should’ve tried harder. I…”

“You already did everything you could, everything you had to do. When I was out there, alone, all I had was your training and the lessons you taught me. And because of you, I did survive. And not only that, I was able to lead others to survive as well.”

This is, of course, a recurring theme throughout the Clone Wars and Rebels. Ahsoka perseveres and survives. She saves and guides people in kind. Ahsoka will always be Anakin’s Padawan, his legacy. She embodies all his best qualities, including, of course, his ever-lingering hope.

And that is one of the reasons why Ahsoka is so important: Anakin’s goodness lives on within her. Of course she is her own person, I wouldn’t love her as much as I do if she wasn’t, but being Anakin Skywalker’s Padawan shaped her into the woman we know today.

“You never would have made it as Obi-Wan’s Padawan,” Anakin told her in that very first movie so many years ago. “But you might make it as mine.”

That has never been more true.

If Ahsoka had been Obi-Wan’s Padawan, she’d be dead along with the rest of the Order. If she’d been Obi-Wan’s Padawan, yes she’d be skilled, and yes she would have learned to persevere throughout hardship— But there’s a certain passion for life and hope in Anakin that Obi-Wan simply doesn’t possess.

Ahsoka inherited that from him.

So now we circle back to the convor.

In various cultures owls represent death and wisdom. Filoni has even confirmed that in the Star Wars universe, it is the same. This isn't surprising when Anakin and Ahsoka are constantly facing off death and rising above it, becoming wiser because of it. And, horribly, I'm reminded that this finale is the death of them. They cannot be who they once were, and they cannot be to each other who they once were.

But owls can also represent luck and good fortune.

“Master Kenobi always said there’s no such thing as luck.”

“Good thing I taught you otherwise.”

All throughout her life, Anakin’s lessons and influence guide her, and after the Mortis Arc in moments of great struggle: a convor appears.

What I’m trying to say, I suppose, is that the convor not only symbolizes the Light Side of the Force. It also symbolizes Anakin Skywalker.

And maybe that’s because Anakin Skywalker does embody the Light Side of the Force. Despite everything he goes through and everything he does, Anakin Skywalker clutches onto that bit of hope and comes back to the Light. He brings Balance to the Force.

The convor lingers above Anakin at the end of the Clone Wars after Ahsoka has survived despite the odds. It appears again after their duel in Twilight of the Apprentice. Morai watches Anakin limp out of the Temple, and then returns to Ahsoka after guiding her back from the World Between Worlds.

After guiding her back to Anakin.

“I am suggesting that perhaps if you have trained her well, she’ll take care of herself and find a way back to you,” Plo told Anakin that first time Ahsoka was lost. And he’s right. Ahsoka does find her way back. Again and again and again.

She loves him. He’s her brother and he taught her everything he knew, and she survives because of it. Ahsoka won’t ever let that bit of Anakin go. She won’t ever lose sight of the good in him, or in anyone else.

“I won’t leave you,” she promises him. “Not this time.”

It’s more a promise of hope than anything else. A declaration of loyalty and determination and love. She still believes in him, and she wants, no needs him to know that.

So yes, we talk a lot about how the Daughter and Ahsoka are connected through the convor, but we never talk about how Anakin was that conduit in the first place. The Light and life flowed through him into Ahsoka and so she survived.

As she continues to.

And maybe the ending of the Clone Wars was unbearably heartbreaking. And maybe it’s still making me cry as I write this, but we know how this story ends, and we’re reminded when Anakin, not Vader, looks up into the sky, Ahsoka’s lightsaber in hand and watches Morai circle above.

Star Wars is about hope. It always has been. Despite everything they’ve gone through, there is hope for Anakin Skywalker. And there is hope for Ahsoka Tano, too.

Pedro Pascal is flying high on The Mandalorian, but defining success by his earthly bonds

The Wonder Woman 1984 and The Mandalorian star is one of EW's Entertainers of the Year.

Human connection. It’s vital. Especially in a year like 2020. Especially for Pedro Pascal. So it’s ironic that the 45-year-old’s highest-profile success to date is working with an adorable animatronic puppet, inside a chrome helmet he famously can’t take off. "It is why I wanted to do this show. Selfishly, I knew [the Child, a.k.a. Baby Yoda] was likely to make people fall in love with the show," says Pascal of tackling the title role on The Mandalorian, the Emmy-nominated hit Star Wars series, which returned for its second season on Disney+ in October.

The Chilean-American actor has an eye for choosing projects where he’ll stand out, from popular network procedurals including The Good Wife, The Mentalist, and Law & Order to his breakout roles as the charming — and horny — Oberyn Martell on Game of Thrones and, soon after, DEA agent Javier Peña on Net­flix’s Narcos. But it’s the stoic bounty hunter safeguarding a frog-egg-eating 50-year-old toddler that’s made him a house­hold name. The new season of The Mandalorian followed Pascal’s galaxy-traveling warrior as he searched for the home of the Child, generating countless memes in the process.

Playing the Mandalorian has been one of the hardest and most unique experiences of Pascal's career to date. At this point, it's no secret that he wasn't physically under the helmet as much as he would've liked in season 1 and recorded his dialogue in post-production to match what his doubles, stunt actors Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder, did on set in the armor. Giving a largely vocal performance was a challenge for a physical actor like Pascal, who is almost unrecognizable when you compare his turns on The Good Wife and Game of Thrones, for example, because of how he carries himself. Yet, being on set way more in The Mandalorian season 2 didn't make his job any easier because he still had to figure how to make Mando compelling while also being as economical as possible in his physical movements and vocal performance.

"I'm not even sure if I would be able to do it if it weren't for the amount of direct experience that I've had with being on stage to understand how to posture yourself, how to physically frame yourself into something and to tell a story with a gesture, with a stance, or with very, very specific vocal intonation," says Pascal, who believes his collaborative relationship with creator Jon Favreau and executive producer Dave Filoni, a.k.a. his "Mandalorian papas," also helped him inhabit the role in season 2.

Speaking of collaboration: Working with comedian Amy Sedaris, who plays gruff Tatooine mechanic Peli Motto, was one of the highlights of The Mandalorian’s sophomore season. “I followed Amy Sedaris around like a puppy. [I was] like, ‘Hey again. I’m not leaving your side until you wrap,’ and she’s like, ‘Cool,’” Pascal says. “I love the Child — it really is adorable — and it is so fascinating to see it work, but somebody who makes you spit-laugh right into your helmet will always be my favorite thing."

Pascal longed for those kinds of interactions during quarantine, which proved difficult for the actor who was living alone in Los Angeles. But he lights up, is even giddy at times, when the conversation turns to bonding with the Community cast right before a charity table read back in May (he filled in for Walton Goggins), or FaceTiming his friends to celebrate Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' election victory on Nov. 7. "Ahhhh! Ahhhh!" Pascal exclaims, reenacting the joyous calls with buddies like Oscar Isaac that Saturday morning. "It was screaming and jumping and dancing and crying…. I very arrogantly took screenshots of everything and [shared them], like, 'I am a part of this!'”

"I'd be less nervous playing tennis in front of the Obamas than I was seeing a reunion of these people that I think are brilliant and have this incredible chemistry with each other and stepping in and having really, really, bad technology in this new space that I had moved into. I really resented having to actually participate acting-wise because there were instances where it was way too much fun to watch."

- PEDRO PASCAL ON SHOOTING THE COMMUNITY TABLE READ.

His appreciation for those around him has only grown during the pandemic. Before flying to Budapest to film The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent with Nicholas Cage, Pascal leaned on his bubble for support. Community's Gillian Jacobs, for example, hosted him for an outdoor socially distanced pizza night every Saturday in the early weeks of lockdown. (He suspects that's why he was recruited for the sitcom's table read when Goggins couldn't participate.) "The friends that got me through it are absolutely everything to me and very beautifully marked in my head. I've got old friends and new friends that literally did nothing short of parent me through the experience," says Pascal, who has "survivor's remorse" for being in Europe right now. "I feel guilty not being [in the States] with my friends through [this tumultuous time] but also grateful that, individually, I was able to gain a little bit of separation from the stress of it."

Those tight bonds helped redefine, or at least clarify, what success means to him. "I want to make sure that my relationships are right, and I want to make sure I'm nurturing meaning in a sustaining way, and that won't necessarily be related to getting good jobs and making lots of money," he says. But he'll take them — as he did for both of his 2020 projects, about which he's thrilled. And how could he not be, starring in two of the year's most feverishly anticipated properties?

Besides The Mandalorian, Pascal appears in Patty Jenkins' superhero epic Wonder Woman 1984, which has endured a Homeric journey to its release (read: several pandemic-related delays). Thankfully, the odyssey is almost over because Warner Bros. recently confirmed that it will open in both theaters and on HBO Max on Dec. 25. Pascal is stoked audiences will finally see his turn as the villainous Maxwell Lord because playing the greedy dream-seller pushed him out of his post-Game of Thrones action role comfort zone.

"With Wonder Woman, [Gal Gadot and Kristen Wiig] are doing the action, baby, and I'm doing the schm-acting!" he says, hilariously elongating that final syllable. "I am hamming it up!" (Indeed, Pascal reveals Cage inspired his performance in one particular scene.)

But Pascal felt he was up to the challenge because everything he needed was right there in the screenplay, which Jenkins co-wrote with Geoff Johns and David Callaham. "I didn't have to take something and figure out how to put more flesh onto it. I had to achieve getting into the skin of what was being presented to me," he says, contrasting the experience with playing a DEA agent for three seasons on Narcos. "For me, Colombia was almost the central character, and then I was allowed to make him depressive and to tonally interpret what the character was. And in this case [on Wonder Woman 1984], there was just so much for me to meet rather than to invent."

He continues: "That was an incredible delight and challenge because Patty Jenkins is a director who loves actors and when she sees she can ask for more, she does. And there isn't anyone better, in my experience, to give more to."

In 2021, he rejoins the good guys as an aging superhero and father in Robert Rodriguez's kid-friendly Netflix drama We Can Be Heroes. The inherent optimism of the Netflix film's title also complements Pascal's hope for the new year. Says Pascal, ”If [fear] can take a little bit of a backseat and not be the main character in everybody’s life, that would be great.”

SOURCE

OKAY, IF I’M GONNA DO THIS, I’M GONNA DO IT PROPERLY.  WHICH MEANS YEAH IT’S GONNA GET REALLY LONG. A couple of things to say ahead of time:  Lucasfilm’s Story Group has always said CANON > WORD OF GOD when it comes to these matters, so when I quote canon examples from supplementary materials that contradict what he says, that’s LF’s official position, but that doesn’t mean that an influential person like Dave’s views couldn’t affect how things will be shaped in the future, like Deborah Chow listening to this may be influenced by it on the Obi-Wan show, despite that Master & Apprentice contradicts him.  It’s an incredibly murky area!  Mileages are going to vary.   Another thing to keep in mind is that Dave Filoni never worked on The Phantom Menace, that was long, long before his time at Lucasfilm (which I think he joined sometime around 2007? and TPM was released in 1999), that he has worked with George more than probably anyone else, but we cannot and should not treat him as infallible or the True Authority on things, because even Dave himself has said things like: “I mean, I know why I did that and what it means, but I don't like to explain too much. I love for the viewers to watch stuff and come up with their own theories -- and they frankly come up with better things that I intended.”  --Dave Filoni, Entertainment Tonight 2020 interview Or, in the same episode as the above Qui-Gon interpretation:

So, when I dig into this, I’m not doing this out of a sense of malice or even that I suddenly hate Dave or don’t appreciate all the incredible things he’s brought to SW, but in that I disagree with his take, Dave understands that he doesn’t always get it right, that he enjoys that fans come up with different things than he does and sometimes he likes those even more.  There’s room for both of us and, for all that Dave mentions George a lot (and, hey, fair enough, the guy worked with George and I’m just quoting what George Lucas has said) doesn’t mean that this is straight from George, especially because I have never seen George Lucas utter so much as a peep about how the Jedi were responsible for Anakin’s fall.  He has explicitly and frequently talked about how Anakin’s fall was his own choice, as well as I’ve never seen him say anything Jedi-critical beyond “they were kind of arrogant about themselves”.  I have read and watched every George Lucas interview I could get my hands on and maybe I’m still missing something, but that’s literally the extent of him criticizing the Jedi I have EVER seen. (It’s from the commentary on AOTC where he put in the scene with Jocasta to show they were full of themselves, but I also think it’s fair to point out that Obi-Wan immediately contradicts this by going to Dex for help, showing that it’s not necessarily a Jedi-wide thing.) Before I go further, I want to say:  this is not a post meant to tear down Qui-Gon, he is a character I actually really do love, but the focus is on showing why the above interpretation of him is wrong, which means focusing on Qui-Gon’s flaws. He has many wonderful qualities, he is someone who cared deeply and was a good person, I think things would have been better had he lived!  But Anakin’s choices did not hinge on him, because Anakin’s choices were Anakin’s, that has always been the consistent theme of how George talks about him, the way he talks about the story is always in terms of “Anakin did this” or “Anakin chose that”, and the Jedi are very consistently shown as caring, they believed very much in love and Dave’s own show (well, I say “his own show”, but honestly TCW was George’s baby primarily and he had a lot of direct, hands-on say in crafting it, through at least the first five seasons) is plenty of evidence of that. I’m not going to quote the full thing because this is already a monster post, I’m just going to focus on the Jedi stuff, because I like the other points a lot, but if you want the full text, it’s here.  The relevant part is: “In Phantom Menace, you’re watching these two Jedi in their prime fight this evil villain. Maul couldn’t be more obviously the villain. He’s designed to look evil, and he is evil, and he just expresses that from his face all the way out to the type of lightsaber he fights with. What’s at stake is really how Anakin is going to turn out. Because Qui-Gon is different than the rest of the Jedi and you get that in the movie; and Qui-Gon is fighting because he knows he’s the father that Anakin needs. Because Qui-Gon hasn’t given up on the fact that the Jedi are supposed to actually care and love and that’s not a bad thing. The rest of the Jedi are so detached and they become so political that they’ve really lost their way and Yoda starts to see that in the second film. But Qui-Gon is ahead of them all and that’s why he’s not part of the council. So he’s fighting for Anakin and that’s why it’s the ‘Duel of the Fates’ – it’s the fate of this child. And depending on how this fight goes, Anakin, his life is going to be dramatically different. “So Qui-Gon loses, of course. So the father figure, he knew what it meant to take this kid away from his mother when he had an attachment, and he’s left with Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan trains Anakin at first out of a promise he makes to Qui-Gon, not because he cares about him. When they get Anakin, they find him on Tatooine, he says “Why do I feel like we’ve found another useless lifeform?” He’s comparing Anakin to Jar Jar and he’s saying “this is a waste of our time, why are we doing this, why do you see importance in these creatures like Jar Jar Binks and this ten-year-old boy? This is useless.” “So, he’s a brother to Anakin eventually but he’s not a father figure. That’s a failing for Anakin. He doesn’t have the family that he needs. He loses his mother in the next film. He fails on this promise that he made, “mother, I’m going to come back and save you”. So he’s left completely vulnerable and Star Wars is ultimately about family. So that moment in that movie which a lot of people I think diminish, “oh there’s a cool lightsaber fight”, but it’s everything that the entire three films of the prequels hangs on, is that one particular fight. And Maul serves his purpose and at that point died before George made me bring him back, but he died.“  --Dave Filoni  I’m going to take this a piece at a time to show why I really disagree with the content of both the movies and The Clone Wars supporting what Dave says and, instead, contradicts it a lot. The rest of the Jedi are so detached and they become so political that they’ve really lost their way and Yoda starts to see that in the second film. He doesn’t explain what this means, but I’m pretty sure that he’s referring to this conversation: OBI-WAN: “I am concerned for my Padawan. He is not ready to be given this assignment on his own yet.” YODA: “The Council is confident in its decision, Obi-Wan.” MACE WINDU: “The boy has exceptional skills.” OBI-WAN: “But he still has much to learn, Master. His abilities have made him... well.... arrogant.” YODA: “Yes, yes. A flaw more and more common among Jedi. Hmm... too sure of themselves they are. Even the older, more experienced ones.” MACE WINDU: “Remember, Obi-Wan, if the prophecy is true, your apprentice is the only one who can bring the Force back into balance.” OBI-WAN: "If he follows the right path.” None of that has anything to do with being “detached” and, further, I think this is something that’s come up with Dave’s view of Luminara a lot, because he’s described her (re: the Geonosis arc):  “We were trying to illustrate the difference between the way Anakin is raising his Padawan, and how much he cares about her, and the way Luminara raises her Padawan. Not that Luminara is indifferent, but that Luminara is detached. It’s not that she doesn’t care, but she’s not attached to her emotionally.” Here, he says that the Jedi care, in the above, he says that the Jedi don’t care, which makes me think there’s a lot of characterization drift as time goes on, especially when fandom bombards everyone with the idea that the Jedi were cold, emotionless, and didn’t care.  However, look at Luminara’s face in that arc, when she’s talking with Anakin:

That is not the face of someone who doesn’t care.  She even smiles brightly in relief when Barriss is shown to be okay, that this really doesn’t convey “detached” in an unloving or uncaring way.  (We’ll get to attachment later, that’s definitely coming.) (I’m also mostly skipping the political thing, because I think that’s just a fundamental disagreement of whether Jedi should or should not lean into politics.  My view basically boils down to that I think ALL OF US should be leaning more into politics because we are citizens who live in the world and are responsible for it, and the Jedi are no different.  This is evidenced by:  - M&A’s storyline has Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan saving the day specifically because they play politics, that’s how they manage to free the slaves, through playing politics and being part of the Republic/having Senate backing. - The Clone Wars has shown that the Jedi believe “lasting change can only come from within” and “it’s every citizen’s duty to hold their leaders accountable” when Ahsoka teaches the cadets on Mandalore, as well as that politics are not inherently bad, given that Padme and Bail are working to make the system better or “create lasting change from within [the system]” - "Trying to serve the greater good does not always make you popular” says Padme Amidala in a very caring speech - Star Wars Propaganda makes the case that the Jedi might have won the war had they leaned more into politics. - Sometimes the Jedi get unfairly accused of playing politics when there’s just no good choice and they still have to choose one or the other.) But Qui-Gon is ahead of them [re: caring and loving] all and that’s why he’s not part of the council. This is flat-out wrong in regards to canon.  Mileages are going to vary, of course, on how much one takes a novel into consideration, but Dave Filoni is not a fan with the luxury of deciding what is or isn’t canon, he works on Star Wars where canon is canon.  Now, does that mean canon will never contradict itself, especially if Dave gets to write something for Qui-Gon?  Of course not, SW isn’t immune to continuity errors and they themselves have never said otherwise, even when fans want to hold them to that standard. However, this is still pretty much a big “that’s not what happened” instance.  In Master & Apprentice, the Jedi Council offer a seat to Qui-Gon on the Council, specifically BECAUSE he has different opinions from them and they welcome that.  (Excerpt here.)      “We hope it will also be our gain,” Mace replied. “Qui-Gon Jinn, we hereby offer you a seat on the Jedi Council.”      Had he misheard? No, he hadn’t. Qui-Gon slowly gazed around the circle, taking in the expressions of each Council member in turn. Some of them looked amused, others pleased. A few of them, Yoda included, appeared more rueful than not. But they were serious.      “I admit—you’ve surprised me,” Qui-Gon finally said.“I imagine so,” Mace said drily. “A few years ago, we would’ve been astonished to learn we would ever consider this. But in the time since, we’ve all changed. We’ve grown. Which means the possibilities have changed as well.”      Qui-Gon took a moment to collect himself. Without any warning, one of the turning points of his life had arrived. Everything he said and did in the next days would be of great consequence. “You’ve argued with my methods often as not, or perhaps you’d say I’ve argued with yours.”      “Truth, this is,” Yoda said.      Depa Billaba gave Yoda a look Qui-Gon couldn’t interpret. “It’s also true that the Jedi Council needs more perspectives.” Ultimately, Qui-Gon is the who turns them down and gives up a chance to shape the Jedi Council because he doesn’t like the shape they’re taking.  That he does become less political, but this is after he’s argued that the Jedi should be working to push the Senate harder, so when he has a chance to help with that, he turns it down.  It has nothing to do with caring and loving, it’s about Qui-Gon’s desire to not have to deal with the work himself, when he wants to be more of a hippie Jedi.  (I’ve written a lot about Qui-Gon in M&A, why I actually think it’s really spot-on to someone who can be both really kind and really kind of a dick, but it’s not the most flattering portrayal, even if narrative intention likely didn’t mean what came across to me.  I think this post and this post are probably the most salient ones, but if you want something of an index of the web that’s being woven with all the various media, this one is good, too.) So he’s fighting for Anakin and that’s why it’s the ‘Duel of the Fates’ – it’s the fate of this child. And depending on how this fight goes, Anakin, his life is going to be dramatically different. I have only ever seen George Lucas talk about Anakin’s fate in one instance and it’s this:  “It’s fear of losing somebody he loves, which is the flipside of greed. Greed, in terms of the Emperor, it’s the greed for power, absolute power, over everything. With Anakin, really it’s the power to save the one he loves, but it’s basically going against the Fates and what is natural.“ –George Lucas, Revenge of the Sith commentary I’ve made my case about why I think Anakin’s fate is about that moment in Palpatine’s office, and so I’m not fundamentally opposed that “Duel of the Fates” is about Anakin’s fate, but here’s what George has provably said about the “Duel of the Fates” part of the story: - In the commentary for The Phantom Menace during “Duel of the Fates” and none of Dave’s speculation is even hinted at, there’s more focus on the technical side of things and the most George talks about is that it’s Obi-Wan who parallels Luke in going over the edge during the fight, except that instead of a Sith cutting off a Jedi’s hand, it’s a Jedi cutting a Sith in half, drawing the parallels between them. - He does say of the funeral scene that this is where Obi-Wan commits to training Anakin and how everything is going to go (though, in canon we see that Obi-Wan still struggles with this a bit, but Yoda is there to support him and nudge him into committing even more to Anakin, because the Jedi are a supportive community to each other).  This is some solid evidence for that Obi-Wan is already caring about Anakin beyond just Qui-Gon. - Then here’s what he says about the “Duel of the Fates” fights and themes of them in "All Films Are Personal": George Lucas: “I wanted to come up with an apprentice for the Emperor who was striking and tough. We hadn’t seen a Sith Lord before, except for Vader, of course. I wanted to convey the idea that Jedi are all very powerful, but they’re also vulnerable — which is why I wanted to kill Qui-Gon. That is to say, “Hey, these guys aren’t Superman.” These guys are people who are vulnerable, just like every other person. “We needed to establish that, but at the same time, we wanted the ultimate sword fight, because they were all very good. It sort of predisposes the sword fight between Anakin and Obi-Wan later on. There’s real purpose to it. You have to establish the rules and then stick with them. The scene illustrates just how Jedi and Sith fight and use lightsabers.” “So Qui-Gon loses, of course. So the father figure, he knew what it meant to take this kid away from his mother when he had an attachment, and he’s left with Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan trains Anakin at first out of a promise he makes to Qui-Gon, not because he cares about him.  We’ll get to the “attachment to his mother” thing in a bit--but, for now, let’s just say, George Lucas’ words on this are not that attachment to her was a good thing. Fair enough that “not because he cares about him” is up to personal interpretation, but canon has also addressed the topic of Obi-Wan’s treatment of Anakin and Obi-Wan stepped up to the plate on this.  In addition to how we see Obi-Wan REPEATEDLY being there for Anakin and being concerned and caring about him, they specifically talk about Qui-Gon and overcome this hurdle.

No, Obi-Wan is not Anakin’s father figure, on that we definitely agree.  Anakin never really even treats Obi-Wan like a father--he says “you’re the closest thing I have to a father” in Attack of the Clones, as well as he says Obi-Wan practically raised him in The Clone Wars “Crystal Crisis” story reels, but Anakin has never actually acted like Obi-Wan is his father--”then why don’t you listen to me?” Obi-Wan points out in AOTC--as well as Obi-Wan glides past those remarks, which I’ve always taken that he doesn’t want to reject Anakin’s feelings, knowing that Anakin can be sensitive about them, but neither does he want to confirm them. This does not mean Obi-Wan was not supportive, caring, and loving.  He says, “I loved you!” to Anakin in Revenge of the Sith, he asks after him and if he’s sleeping well in Attack of the Clones, and even George Lucas himself said that the elevator scene was set up TO SHOW OBI-WAN AND ANAKIN CARE FOR EACH OTHER:

PUTTING THE REST UNDER A READ MORE FOR A BETTER LENGTH REBLOGGABLE VERSION, IF  YOU WANT.

This is further evidenced by how the Jedi do see themselves as family, they just don’t need to put it into strict nuclear family dynamics:     - “You were my brother, Anakin!  I loved you!”  [–Obi-Wan Kenobi, Revenge of the Sith]      - “We are brothers, Master Dibs.” [–Mace Windu, Jedi of the Republic - Mace Windu]      - “Did your parents bicker?” she asked. “The adoptive ones, I mean.”         A slow smile broke across Ashla’s face, curling first one side of her mouth and then the other. Whatever she was remembering, Kaeden could tell it was good.         "All the time,“ Ashla said, almost as if she were talking to herself. [–Kaeden Larte, Ahsoka Tano, Ahsoka]      -  Vos, brought to the Temple even younger than most, felt that he had hundreds of brothers and sisters, and it seemed that whenever he went into the dining hall he ran into at least half of them. [Dark Disciple]       - “It was not his birthplace, exactly, but the Jedi Temple was where Quinlan Vos had grown up. He’d raced through its corridors, hidden behind its massive pillars, found peace in its meditation hall, ended-and started-fights in rooms intended for striking blows and some that weren’t, and sneaked naps in its library. All Jedi came here, at some point in their lives; for Quinlan, it always felt like coming home when he ran lightly up the stairs and entered the massive building as he did now.” [Dark Disciple] Brothers, sisters, and other more non-traditional kinds of family are not lesser and Obi-Wan and Anakin absolutely were family, just as the Jedi are all family to each other, so, no, there was no “failing” Anakin, except in Anakin’s mind, perhaps.  (In that, I can agree.  But not on a narratively approved level, canon too thoroughly refutes that for me.) Rebels as well pretty thoroughly shows that non-traditional families are meaningful and just as important--we may joke that Hera is “space mom”, but she’s not actually Ezra or Sabine’s mother, Kanan is not actually their father, and even if they sometimes stray into aspects of those roles (as the Jedi do as well in the movies and TCW), that they don’t need that traditional nuclear family structure.  Mentor figures--and Kanan is Ezra’s mentor--are just as meaningful and needful as a “dad”.  And I’m kind of :/ at the implication that anyone without a dad/father figure or mom/mother figure is being “failed”. When they get Anakin, they find him on Tatooine, he says “Why do I feel like we’ve found another useless lifeform?” He’s comparing Anakin to Jar Jar and he’s saying “this is a waste of our time, why are we doing this, why do you see importance in these creatures like Jar Jar Binks and this ten-year-old boy? This is useless.” Whether or not Obi-Wan is being genuinely dismissive in this movie (I think you could make a case either way), the idea that Qui-Gon is better than Obi-Wan about this, as shown through Jar Jar isn’t exactly very supported given how Qui-Gon and Jar Jar first exchange words:

QUI-GON: “You almost got us killed. Are you brainless?”   JAR JAR:  “I spake.”   QUI-GON: “The ability to speak does not make you intelligent.” Qui-Gon is just as bad as everyone else to Jar Jar, he’s not somehow elevated above them. It’s also baffling because, Dave, I have watched your show.  The Jedi are specifically shown to be kind to people and creatures, not considering them “useless”.  Henry Gilroy (who was the co-writer for The Clone Wars and frequently appeared in featurettes on the same level as Dave Filoni) explicitly draws this to The Jedi Way, that “life is everything to the Jedi“, when he said this about the Ryloth episodes:

(Caps cribbed from Pan’s blog, because I cannot make another gif, save me, please.)      Henry Gilroy in an Aggressive Negotiations Interview:  "Obi-Wan truly is a Jedi in that he’s like, ‘Okay, I’m not going to murder these creatures [in the Ryloth arc of The Clone Wars].  They’re starving to death.  They’ve basically been unleashed against these people as a weapon, but it’s not their fault. They’re just doing what they do.  They’re just animals who wanna eat.’     "So the idea was–and I think there was an early talk about how, 'Oh, yeah, he’ll go running through them and slicing and dicing them and chop them all up or whatever, and save his guys.  And I’m like, 'Yeah, but that’s not really the Jedi way.  He’s not just gonna murder these creatures.’     "And I know the threat is [there], to save one life you have to take one, but the idea of him [is]: why can’t Obi-Wan just be more clever?  He basically draws them in and then traps them.     "It says something about who the Jedi are, they don’t just waste life arbitrarily.  And someone could have gone, 'Oh, yeah, but it would have been badass if he’d just ran in there with his lightsaber spinning and stabbed them all in the head!’  And 'Yeah, you’re right, I guess he could be that, but he’s trying to teach his clones a lesson right then, about the sanctity of life.’       "That is the underlying theme of that entire episode.  Which is:  A tactical droid is using the people as living shields.  Life means nothing to the Separatists.  The droids.  But life is everything to the Jedi.  And even though he doesn’t have to say that, it’s all through the episode thematically.“ It’s also Obi-Wan who teaches Anakin about kindness to mindless creatures in the Obi-Wan & Anakin comic:

"These beasts are nearly mindless, Anakin.  I can feel it.  They are merely following their nature, they should not die simply because they crossed our path. Use the Force to send them on their way.” Now, fair enough if you want to say Obi-Wan was taught by Qui-Gon, but also Qui-Gon is dead by that point and Obi-Wan growing into being more mature is his own accomplishment, not Qui-Gon’s, especially given that we see Qui-Gon himself being pretty dismissive to Jar Jar in TPM. This isn’t unique thing either, Padme is incredibly condescending to Jar Jar in “Bombad Jedi” and expresses clear annoyance with him to C-3PO when sighing over him.  Jar Jar is a character you kind of have to warm up to, pretty much the only one we’ve seen consistently being favorable to him is Yoda (and maybe Anakin, though, Anakin doesn’t really interact with him a ton) and Mace Windu warms up to him considerably in “The Disappeared” and even specifically is shown to be teaching him and helping him, which is a huge theme of the Jedi and how much they care.

So, ultimately, the point I’m winding my way towards is--the other Jedi do show kindness and consideration to Jar Jar Binks, including characters like Mace Windu, so if you’re judging the Jedi based on that, the conclusion of Qui-Gon somehow being more compassionate and loving is really pretty thoroughly disproved by The Phantom Menace and The Clone Wars themselves. So, he’s a brother to Anakin eventually but he’s not a father figure. That’s a failing for Anakin. He doesn’t have the family that he needs. He loses his mother in the next film. He fails on this promise that he made, “mother, I’m going to come back and save you”. So he’s left completely vulnerable and Star Wars is ultimately about family.  You could be charitable and say this is just from Anakin’s point of view that it’s a “failing”, but within the context of what Dave’s saying, it’s clearly meant as a more narratively approved take, not just Anakin’s point of view, and I really, really dislike the idea that Anakin--or anyone, really--needs a traditional nuclear family, ie a “mom” and/or a “dad”, or else it’s a “failing” for them. Setting aside that the idea that Qui-Gon would need to be Anakin’s dad to be kind to hi (which is ?????) is contradicted by The Clone Wars as well.  Yes, Qui-Gon is warm with Anakin in several scenes, which is what Dave is presumably drawing on to show that Qui-Gon believed the Jedi should be caring and loving, but you know who else is warm to younglings?  OTHER JEDI COUNCIL MEMBERS.

Those two scenes have the exact same kind of warmth to them.  Ie, THE JEDI ALL BELIEVED IN BEING LOVING AND KIND, NOT JUST QUI-GON.  The things evidenced to show Qui-Gon was loving and kind are evidenced just as much in other Council members, in Dave’s own show. As a bonus--have Mace Windu, known Jedi Council member, being super kind and loving towards a young Twi’lek girl he just met in a canon comic:

But I know that this is about the way the Council treated Anakin in The Phantom Menace testing scene, but here’s the thing--when I go back and I watch that scene and the Jedi aren’t ever mean to him, they’re neutral in an official testing situation, where they are trying to determine if he’s able to adapt to the Jedi ways.  They never once say he’s bad for holding onto his fear, only that he does--which Anakin digs his heels in and gets angry about, he can’t really even admit that he’s afraid and that’s a huge deal for the Jedi. I’ve made a longer post about it here (and here), but the basic gist is: - That scene has Yoda giving the famous “Fear leads to the dark side” speech which is almost word for word how George Lucas describes how the Force works, showing the Jedi are narratively correct - “Confronting fear is the destiny of a Jedi” may be from the sequels, but it is thoroughly supported by the movies and TCW and Rebels and even supplementary canon material, including that the Jedi literally design their tests around both Masters and Padawans for it (Ilum, the Jedi Temple on Lothal, etc. - Anakin cannot admit to his fears in that TPM scene - We have examples of Jedi younglings do admit to their fears and the point isn’t not to have them, but to face them--the younglings in “The Gathering” are the most blatant example of this, but it’s also pretty much the entire theme of Jedi: Fallen Order, especially when Cal goes to Ilum to face his fears and get another kyber crystal. The point isn’t that Anakin--who has very good reasons to be afraid! nothing in the story or the Jedi have said he didn’t!--is wrong or bad, but that he’s not a great fit for the Jedi life because he is “unwilling to accept [Jedi philosophy] emotionally”.  And they’re right about this, because this is how George Lucas describes Anakin in commentary: “The fact that everything must change and that things come and go through his life and that he can’t hold onto things, which is a basic Jedi philosophy that he isn’t willing to accept emotionally and the reason that is because he was raised by his mother rather than the Jedi. If he’d have been taken in his first year and started to study to be a Jedi, he wouldn’t have this particular connection as strong as it is and he’d have been trained to love people but not to become attached to them.”  --George Lucas, Attack of the Clones commentary And so this brings us to A T T A C H M E N T, which, yeah, we’ve been having this discussion forever, but I’m going to state it again:  Within Star Wars, ATTACHMENT IS NARRATIVELY A BAD THING.  It is consistently tied to possessive, obsessive relationships, to greed and an unwillingness to let things go when it’s time (letting go is a huge theme in Star Wars) and equating love with attachment is fundamentally wrong according to George Lucas’ Star Wars worldbuilding: “The Jedi are trained to let go. They’re trained from birth,” he continues, “They’re not supposed to form attachments. They can love people-- in fact, they should love everybody. They should love their enemies; they should love the Sith. But they can’t form attachments. So what all these movies are about is: greed. Greed is a source of pain and suffering for everybody. And the ultimate state of greed is the desire to cheat death.” --George Lucas, The Making of Revenge of the Sith If attachment and love were the same thing, then he would be saying, “They should love their enemies, they should love the Sith.  But they can’t love.”  The way George makes the distinction shows that, no, attachment and love aren’t the same thing at all, attachment is not caring.  Further, there’s another instance of him showing there’s an important distinction between relationships and attachment and the association of attachmets with possession:  "Jedi Knights aren’t celibate - the thing that is forbidden is attachments - and possessive relationships.” --George Lucas, BBC News interview So, yes, when Anakin is attached to people, it is directly tied to obsession, possession, and greed, all things of the dark side: “He turns into Darth Vader because he gets attached to things. He can’t let go of his mother; he can’t let go of his girlfriend. He can’t let go of things. It makes you greedy. And when you’re greedy, you are on the path to the dark side, because you fear you’re going to lose things, that you’re not going to have the power you need.”  --George Lucas, Time Magazine  “But he has become attached to his mother and he will become attached to Padme and these things are, for a Jedi, who needs to have a clear mind and not be influenced by threats to their attachments, a dangerous situation. And it feeds into fear of losing things, which feeds into greed, wanting to keep things, wanting to keep his possessions and things that he should be letting go of. His fear of losing her turns to anger at losing her, which ultimately turns to revenge in wiping out the village. The scene with the Tusken Raiders is the first scene that ultimately takes him on the road to the dark side. I mean he’s been prepping for this, but that’s the one where he’s sort of doing something that is completely inappropriate.“ --George Lucas, Attack of the Clones commentary ATTACHMENT IS BAD IN STAR WARS AS THEY DEFINE IT. Finally, I’m going to circle back to: Because Qui-Gon is different than the rest of the Jedi and you get that in the movie; and Qui-Gon is fighting because he knows he’s the father that Anakin needs. Because Qui-Gon hasn’t given up on the fact that the Jedi are supposed to actually care and love and that’s not a bad thing. Here’s the thing about this:  You know who else, by this logic, Qui-Gon should have been a father to?  OBI-WAN KENOBI. This isn’t said as “Anakin specifically needs a father” (which I think would be an interesting idea to bandy about and I’m not disagreeing, though, it’s complicated because of what Anakin refuses to accept emotionally), it’s said in a bigger context, that Qui-Gon is better than the other Jedi because he understands the need for fathers (and thus this ties into Return of the Jedi) and he’s ahead of the other Jedi, who apparently think loving and caring about people are bad things, but Qui-Gon does not treat Obi-Wan like his son.  Or, if he does, he’s not exactly a stellar dad about it. Within Master & Apprentice, there’s an incredibly consistent theme of how Qui-Gon thinks supportive things about Obi-Wan, but never says them aloud.  He thinks he should talk to Obi-Wan about the upcoming decision to be on the Council and then never does.  He could have explained why he kept Obi-Wan training the basics but he never does.  There are multiple instances showing that Qui-Gon is actually really, really bad at actually handling a young apprentice who needs him to talk to them about important things.  Qui-Gon continues this in From a Certain Point of View where he still never talked to Obi-Wan about everything that happened, even after he became a Force Ghost.     Damn, damn, damn. Qui-Gon closed his eyes for one moment. It blocked nothing; the wave of shock that went through Obi-Wan was so great it could be felt through the Force. Qui-Gon hadn’t thought Kirames Kaj would mention the Jedi Council invitation. It seemed possible the soon-retiring chancellor of the Republic might not even have taken much note of information about a new Council member. --Master & Apprentice     That comment finally pierced Qui-Gon’s damnable calm. There was an edge to his voice as he said, “I suspected you would be too upset to discuss this rationally. Apparently I was correct.”     “I thought you said my reaction was understandable,” Obi-Wan shot back. “So why does it disqualify me from hearing the truth?”    Qui-Gon put his hands on his broad belt, the way he did when he was beginning to withdraw into himself. “…we should discuss this at another time. Neither of us is his best self at the present.” --Master & Apprentice     Obi-Wan walked toward the door, obviously outdone. “At the beginning of my apprenticeship, I couldn’t understand you,” he said. “Unfortunately, that’s just as true here at the end.”     Only yesterday they had worked together as never before. How did Qui-Gon manage to get closer to Obi-Wan at the same time he was moving further away?     Just before Obi-Wan would leave the room, Qui-Gon said, “Once, you asked me about the basic lightsaber cadences. Why I’d kept you there, instead of training you in more advanced forms of combat.”     Obi-Wan turned reluctantly to face him again. “I suppose you thought I wasn’t ready for more. The same way I’m not ready to believe in all this mystical—”     “That’s not why.”     After a long pause, Obi-Wan calmed to the point where he would listen. “Then why, Qui-Gon?”     “Because many Padawans—and full Jedi Knights, for that matter—forget that the most basic technique is the most important technique. The purest. The most likely to protect you in battle, and the foundation of all knowledge that is to come,” Qui-Gon said. “Most apprentices want to rush ahead to styles of fighting that are flashier or more esoteric. Most Masters let them, because we must all find our preferred form eventually. But I wanted you to be grounded in your technique. I wanted you to understand the basic cadences so well that they would become instinct, so that you would be almost untouchable. Above all, I wanted to give you the training you needed to accomplish anything you set your mind to later on.”     Obi-Wan remained quiet for so long that Qui-Gon wondered if he were too angry to really hear any of what he’d said. But finally, his Padawan nodded. “Thank you, Qui-Gon. I appreciate that. But—”     “But what?”     “You could’ve said so,” Obi-Wan replied, and then he left. --Master & Apprentice     "I owe you that. After all, I’m the one who failed you.“     "Failed me?”     They have never spoken of this, not once in all Qui-Gon’s journeys into the mortal realm to commune with him. This is primarily because Qui-Gon thought his mistakes so wretched, so obvious, that Obi-Wan had wanted to spare him any discussion of it. Yet here, too, he has failed to do his Padawan justice. --From a Certain Point of View, “Master and Apprentice” (Further, in Master & Apprentice, Qui-Gon thinks that the Jedi give Rael Averross--who is HUGELY paralleled to Anakin--too many exceptions, were too soft on him because he came to the Jedi later than most and has trouble thinking of them as his family, and he thinks they should have been stricter with him.) It’s also readily apparent within The Phantom Menace itself:

You can take some charitable views of this scene, that Qui-Gon was pushed into a corner where he had few other options (and this is the view I generally take even!), but this is after the entire movie where he’s never once indicated that Obi-Wan was ready, has instead indicated that he still has much to learn (not just of the Living Force, but in general), as well as made it clear that he’s still teaching Obi-Wan, like on the Trade Federation ship. And I do think Obi-Wan got over this because he understood, because Obi-Wan actually is a very selfless person, he clearly cares (which is furthered by how we see him warm up to Anakin very quickly), but look at their faces. This was not a good moment, and they do somewhat make up, where Qui-Gon says that Obi-Wan has been a good apprentice, that he’s wiser than Qui-Gon and he’ll be a great Jedi--but if we’re counting that as Qui-Gon being this great Jedi, then you can’t say Obi-Wan failed Anakin, given that we show him doing the exact same thing, except better.  He tells Anakin, “You are strong and wise and will become a far greater Jedi than I could ever hope to be.”, echoing Qui-Gon’s words, but also he never threw Anakin aside for someone else. This is kind of a major undercurrent throughout The Clone Wars, where Obi-Wan never takes another apprentice, where he continues to teach Anakin, to support him, even to the point of occasionally co-Mastering Ahsoka with him.  “This has been quite a journey for our Padawan.” Qui-Gon’s treatment of Obi-Wan in this scene isn’t the worst, he’s kind about it later (though, he never actually specifically apologizes for this), but we can see that this is a moment where Qui-Gon hurts Obi-Wan and knows it. And you know what George Lucas has to say about Qui-Gon?  This: “So here we’re having Qui-Gon wanting to skip the early training and jump right to taking him on as his Padawan learner, which is controversial, and ultimately, the source of much of the problems that develop later on.”  –George Lucas, The Phantom Menace commentary There’s nothing about Qui-Gon being right or better than the other Jedi, but instead that Qui-Gon’s actions here are a source of much of the problems that develop later on. So, ultimately, I liked some points Dave made in that speech, it’s a beautiful and eloquent one, but I thoroughly disagree with his interpretation of George’s intentions for Qui-Gon and I thoroughly disagree that that’s what the movies, The Clone Wars (DAVE’S OWN SHOW), and the supplementary canon show about Qui-Gon and the other Jedi.  I still stand by my appreciation of Dave’s contributions to SW as a whole, I think he does a really good job at making Star Wars, but he doesn’t always get everything right and this is one thing where I think the canon and George’s commentary show otherwise, as much as I love his desire to defend the prequels’ importance in the story.  Because, my friend, I have felt that every single day of my SW life.

ATTACK OF THE CLONE (#116, APR 2010)

One of Los Angeles’ most versatile voice actors, Dee Bradley Baker faced an all-new challenge when he was enlisted to voice the Republic’s clone warriors. James Burns meets the man who articulates an army!

Star Wars Insider: How did you get into the voice-over business?

Dee Bradley Baker: Through bribery, trickery and scandal; it’s a crooked path! In reality, I’ve been a performer ever since second grade, doing all kinds of things including plays, operas, singing telegrams, children’s theatre, corporate shows, theme parks, stand-up comedy, and improvisation. It all slowly narrowed, in my thirties, to doing voice-overs. I finally moved out to Los Angeles and it’s worked out.

It seems like you’ve done everything. Was Star Wars something you were keen to add to your resume?

Star Wars was something I never dreamed I’d be able to be associated with. I’d worked previously with Dave Filoni on Avatar: The Last Airbender doing creatures and monsters, which I specialize in, and a lot of other stuff that you’d call utility work—some wackier and comedic stuff. This is very straight ahead, but I really love Star Wars. I think I know the tone of it well. They brought me in and had me read for the voice of the clones and I apparently hit it right!

How governed were you by what Temuera Morrison had done onscreen in Episodes II and III?

The original performances in the feature films are the templates and reference points for where we began, but the writers have really fleshed out the clones in a big way, making them much more interesting and adding a lot of depth to them. I’m merging both aspects—from what little is expressed vocally in the movies to all the cool dialogue in the scripts—so I mix the two.

How do you ensure that all the clones sound distinctive?

When it becomes more of a challenge, like in the episode “Rookies,” we record the voices separately. I go straight through the script and that makes it a little bit easier to maintain the subtle distinctions that we apply to every single clone, so that they all seem like they’re individuals.

Were you surprised at just how varied all the clones are in the show?

Coming into the project I had no idea it would take that route. As far as I knew they were all going to sound the same. When we did “Rookies” it became clear at that moment that we really needed to make these guys different. Since then we’ve set out to make that real, and I think it’s working! Fortunately the writing is clear and Dave Filoni knows what he wants and knows the spin on each of the characters. I’m in good hands with Dave; he helps me get through this and ensures that I keep these guys unique.

In “Ambush” we saw the relationship between Yoda and the clones.

A wonderful moment is when Yoda gives each of the clones his own “fortune-telling” reading and you see that each is a different person with different challenges and paths ahead, that these guys are individuals. It is a revelatory moment—and how nice to open up the series with that, too!

What makes a good voice actor?

A good voice actor is first and foremost a good actor! There’s nowhere to hide behind a microphone; you’ve got to be good to work with and not just talented. You must have enthusiasm and enjoy what you’re doing. It all comes down to being a good actor, though.

What was your favorite episode in Season One?

I love “Rookies” to death. I’ll put that at the top; my second favorite would be “Innocents of Ryloth” because I’m a dad and that one really touched me a lot. I really thought those two episodes were quite remarkable. There’s some jaw-dropping stuff in Season Two, especially the episodes on Geonosis, and you see a tot more clones this season.

DEE BRADLEY BAKER CAN ALSO BE HEARD AS

Boba Fett Star Wars The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition

Dark Helmet Spacebalis: The Animated Series

Gollum The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II (video game) Nightcrawler X-M en Legends, X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (Video games)

Dogmatix Asterix and the Vikings

Daffy Duck, Tasmanian Devil and The Bull Space Jam Captain

Jack Sparrow’s talking parrot Pirates of the Caribbean ( Disneyland and Magic Kingdom rides).

All right, reactions to Mando 2.05, “The Jedi”, in...semi-coherent form. Spoilers, obvs. I hated this episode, so keep scrolling now if you don’t want to see negativity.  This is not in any kind of order except stream-of-conscious.

again, I reiterate, spoilers.

again, I reiterate, this is REALLY negative.

Rosario Dawson...yikes.

how...did Bo-Katan know that Ahsoka was on Corvus? are they in contact? since when? Ahsoka seems to have been on Corvus for long enough to be a nuisance to the Magistrate (Morgan Elsbeth), but normally Ahsoka is very efficient and she just...really does not seem to be here? I did not get the impression she was planning on sticking around for any period of time.

(the same could be true for Frog Lady and Bo-Katan on Trask several episodes back. that wasn’t a convert, that was three Mandalorians hanging around the port in cloaks. I guess they could be doing that on the regular, but? would the Empire not then be more worried about being attacked by Mandalorians?)

there was only ever a very, very slim chance that I was going to be happy with any translation of Ahsoka from animation to live action.  I am on record as thinking that animation is the medium for Star Wars and that live action is always going to be a weaker medium than animation and that a lot of things that can be done in animation just cannot be translated to live action in any meaningful form.  I knew Ahsoka’s fighting style couldn’t translate to live action convincingly (here’s what I said about the mo-capped duel in TCW); it never occurred to me that they couldn’t pull off TOGRUTA given that Shaak Ti, you know, exists, and also there are so many excellent Ahsoka cosplayers.

(Consider KM Creations’ excellent silicone lekku (S7), which have beautiful movement; the cosplayer behind that is CallMeSnips and her epilogue prototype is from SWCC is in there somewhere.  I think Rei Kennex’s are latex (you can tell they don’t have much movement) but at least they’re the right length.  I think Ahsoka94′s are also latex (again with the movement); this is her Mortis vision grown-up Ahsoka.)

AND YES, THE LEKKU/MONTRALS WERE A DEAL-BREAKER FOR ME.

I feel very “you have made your bed and now you have to die in it” about that -- apparently the reasoning is for stunts and movement, but for me here’s the thing: her lekku length wasn’t optional.  This is not the equivalent of changing a hair style, which some people seem to think (believe me, I have read so many hot takes); this is like...I’m trying to think of a good comparison.  Like putting Peter Mayhew or Joonas Suotamo in a wig because Chewie’s head was too hard for the actor to see out of, or giving them normal human hands because they can’t grip with the Wookiee hands.

Also your main character wears a helmet at all times that (if it’s anything like my Mandalorian helmet) is pretty poor visibility and full body armor and THIS was your breaking point for stunts?

Ahsoka’s lekku and montrals grow as she ages. These are about S7 length; as @reena-jenkins put it, THEY DE-AGED HER HEAD.  Ahsoka fans coming in know this.  PEOPLE SAW THE REBELS EPILOGUE.

I wonder how many of the people being self-righteous about being totally fine about Ahsoka’s lekku are the same people who claim that Katee Sackhoff is too young to play Bo-Katan.

this also puts them in a weird position in regards to the inevitable merchandise: do they go with normal Ahsoka from TCW and Rebels, the one everyone is familiar with, or do they go with these stunted lekku?

(I can’t believe they’re going to make Her Universe sell merch with this Ahsoka on it. it’s not going to happen but I wish HU was going to be petty enough to not sell any nu!Ahsoka merch.)

Here is some nice art of how Ahsoka’s lekku and montral should have looked.

hoo boy were those prosthetics also just Bad.

“but the stunts” buddy I’m sure Pedro Pascal and his various stunt doubles aren’t having a great time in full armor with almost no visibility either

if you’re going to put the character in, do it right

YOU CAN’T CHEAT

look, I am really, really aural -- the best example I can give is that even though intellectually I know that Matt Lanter and Hayden Christensen both play Anakin Skywalker, I literally cannot parse them as both being the same Anakin Skywalker and for that reason TCW and the PT don’t exist for the same continuity for me.  (This also goes for Ewan McGregor and James Arnold Taylor, Natalie Portman and Cat Taber, and Samuel L. Jackson and TC Carson. I can kinda cope with the multiple Palpatine VAs. Yes, the decision to use Hayden and Sam in Ahsoka’s vision in “Shattered,” even blending into Matt’s voice from Hayden’s, threw me so badly I couldn’t take the vision seriously.)  Ashley Eckstein has a very distinctive voice, and moreover has been the only person to ever voice Ahsoka up to this point (even in the Ahsoka novel audiobook). Barring a MIRACLE I was never going to be able to parse another actress’s voice as Ahsoka’s, solely because of how my brain works.

I could probably have parsed someone else’s face because animated Ahsoka is pretty stylized but the voice thing is a huge problem for me because of how aural I am.

(I say this but when Squadrons did a more live action-style Hera -- knowing they mo-capped Vanessa Marshall I think they used Vanessa’s face for Hera’s, which is also what it looks like on the revised art and face sculpt for the Black Series Hera -- I kind of had a meltdown about it (for...weird reasons). And that was the same VA.)

(The timeskip between TCW and Rogue One, then Rebels, probably saved Saw Gerrera for me here, but he was also never a main character.)

can you believe that Sam Witwer’s Maul got more live action respect than Ashley Eckstein’s Ahsoka

I love Sam’s Maul but wow

this is particularly jarring because Dave Filoni and Ashley Eckstein always seemed like they were friends? I realize that this gets skewed by how little of their actual lives we see online, but that is the vibe that I’ve gotten from interviews and social media posts.

can you believe that TROS gave more respect to Ashley Eckstein’s Ahsoka than Dave Filoni’s Mando episode did (here is her statement on TROS.)

back in March, when the Dawson casting rumors first dropped (or leaked, as the case may be), Ashley posted a statement about it saying that she was not involved in The Mandalorian. she has over the years been very vocal about desperately wanting to play live-action Ahsoka, who is a character solely associated with her up until today, and honestly this just breaks my heart.

I am not the massive Ashley Eckstein fan that many Ahsoka fans are, but I have never heard anything bad about her (I saw her at my hotel at SWCC while I was waiting for my roommate to arrive! that’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to her, a distance of about six feet), and I really desperately hope that someone told her about this beforehand and she didn’t find out from watching the episode.

Also, while I’m here talking about Ashley Eckstein, the characterization here was extremely off, in that specific way that happens when a writer/director is working with their absolute favorite character, DAVE FILONI. I do trust Ashley to course-correct Dave on Ahsoka (in the same way we’ve heard about Sam Witwer pushing back on people about Maul), and that...was not happening here.  (I think Katee Sachoff said something similar to this about Bo-Katan in her interview last week, as well.)

how did you get Bo-Katan so right and Ahsoka so wrong

look, Dave Filoni is truly living up to George Lucas’s legacy in that he can story tell pretty well but he’s not actually that great at nitty-gritty of writing and directing. (none of the really good TCW episodes are his.)

this episode made me think of A Friend in Need (which he directed) which is not, like, a BAD episode but quite notoriously includes the Bo-Katan ass-slap and also Ahsoka beheading four Mandalorians at once.

it also includes a helpless village of oppressed and exploited Asian-coded civilians who are there mostly as background scenery so the bad guys can be bad and the heroes can feel righteous

I’ll come back to that one

the level of violence in this episode was...weird. honestly, too high? in a way that probably would not have registered if it was anyone but Ahsoka. look, I am an animated shows person. I know TCW and Rebels inside and out. I know that neither one is particularly shy about killing off faceless bad guys (though if you watch Rebels S1 compared to Rebels S4 they really dial back the amount of fatal violence the main characters commit in the last season, lol).  But this felt off for Ahsoka in a way I can’t really articulate.

why is Ahsoka attacking a random Mandalorian (her allies are Mandalorians!) who is walking through the woods WITH A BABY? WITHOUT WARNING?

part of that is just her movement -- when they animated her for TCW back in 2008, they made a deliberate decision to give her mannerisms and movement and a fighting style that a human can’t do because she isn’t human and animation can do that. which means that they hobbled themselves when they came to translating her to live action because uh a human can’t do that.

something about her lightsaber blades looked really, really wrong and I can’t put my finger on what. it’s like they just used the illuminated blades of the stunt sabers but didn’t do the extra CGI that the films do? I don’t know.

Ahsoka did a LOT of dramatic posing and what WAS that?

Dave can’t direct live action, that’s what that was

since when can you canonically convey that much information mind to mind

are Ahsoka and Grogu a dyad in the Force (I know the answer is no but also: what? what was happening?)

the only people we’ve seen who can do that sort of thing are Quinlan Vos and Cal Kestis, who both have the rare talent for telemetry, and even that’s not mind to mind communication, that’s touching a thing and going “YIKES”

you are telling me that Ahsoka Tano, whom six months ago we saw take on Darth Maul, a whole barrage of Mandalorian warriors, and her entire clone trooper battalion and walk away without a scratch, had to work up a sweat fighting one woman with a spear

you do know that we all saw TCW and Rebels right

and here’s the problem! this episode makes zero sense if you HAVE seen TCW and Rebels because (1) she doesn’t look right (2) she doesn’t fight right (3) timelines? we’ve never heard of them? (4) is Thrawn back? did you find the Chimaera? (you all do remember that Ezra and Thrawn aren’t out there alone and are in fact with a 40,000 man crewed star destroyer right) (5) did you NOT find them? (6) are you even looking? (7) this is supposed to be AFTER the Rebels epilogue unless you’ve decided to take advantage of that specific ending scene not being super specifically dated and if it’s before IT MAKES IT EVEN WORSE! because I desperately hate that epilogue and its implications EVEN AS IT IS! (8) why would you call this episode “The Jedi” when since 2013 Ahsoka’s whole thing has been not being a Jedi

to be fair I’m pretty sure S7 tried very hard to course correct that but unfortunately, they could not because the rest of canon exists

are you still trying to deny me grown Ahsoka and Rex when we know you got Temuera back for a five second shot of Boba

to be fair I would have the same aural problems with Temuera voicing Rex because that’s Dee Bradley Baker as far as I’m concerned (I reiterate that this is because of how my brain process character and sound, not anythign else)

if you haven’t seen TCW and Rebels this is a random Jedi wandering around for no specific reason namedropping a completely random person who has no prior significance unless it’s going to turn up later

this entire show has consisted of namedropping random people and things with no prior significance within the show itself and it remains entirely unclear whether they’re ever going to have significance within the show itself

look, I can buy Ahsoka not wanting to train the kid both for her stated reasons and for some implied stuff from earlier on in canon (the kids in the Ahsoka novel, the babies from Future of the Force), even what happened with Ezra, and obviously she has Plans and cannot haul a baby around with her when that baby is going to be a baby for an indeterminate amount of time

which honestly is something that ought to come up because even if Ahsoka wanted to train the kid by the time she grew old and died he might, if we were very lucky, have advanced to being essentially a pre-teen and then would be on his own again? this is also true for Din.

lol sure go cast yourself out into the Force, I’m sure there’s absolutely not a single darksider still wandering around the galaxy who might perk up at “ooh, free apprentice!”

I’m literally starting to think that this show takes place in an alternate universe where Luke and Leia either don’t exist or died at some point in the OT

me, baffled, last season: you’re telling me Cara Dune, Alderaanian, had never heard of the Jedi? was she not keeping up with whatever Leia Organa was doing? was the Rebel Alliance actually big enough that PEOPLE IN IT HADN’T HEARD OF LUKE SKYWALKER?

what...is Luke doing right now. isn’t he training Leia?

WHAT HAS AHSOKA BEEN DOING FOR TEN YEARS are we seriously supposed to believe she peaced out of the Rebel Alliance after Malachor and whatever the hell they’re going to make that out to be (honestly at this point I’m betting on “they will never touch it”)

does or does Ahsoka not know that Luke exists

hoo boy can you just see them trying to cast a younger Luke, or do you think they’d CGI de-age Mark Hamill?

oh yeah let’s go through this again in a season with someone else playing young Luke, let’s, I’m not emotionally invested in that so I’m prepared to be entertained

hasn’t Sebastian Stan been floated (even if just on Twitter) for young Luke?

why are these not-imperials on this planet. what are they doing here. what’s the point.

 why is the planet...being burned? I was half-expecting, like, normal deforestation (in terms of logging for lumber) but I’m also a bit ??? about this.

since when is beskar resistant to lightsabers, I thought cortosis was the only thing that was? whatever, it’s new canon, they can do whatever they want. (ETA: apparently that’s been true for a while; I am more a Jedi person than a Mandalorian one as far as the EU goes and my Mandalorian lore is my weakest point.)

dear god were these fight scenes bad

I did spot Morai and I appreciated the tookas

okay, I am taking the next thing out of bullet points because I was really, really upset by it, and as an Asian-American woman it affects me directly.

I was really, really shaken by the use of village of (space) Asian people who were portrayed solely as background victims to be tortured and exploited.  Star Wars has a long history of Orientalism, and some of it I can look away from and some of I can’t.  Mando especially has a very bad track record with its treatment of Asian characters (Fennec Shand), and in recent years the rest of Star Wars live action has also been pretty bad about it; I will never forget how shaken and upset I was by Paige Tico’s death at the beginning of TLJ, and Rose’s sidelining in TROS was a lot to deal with. There has also been some pretty appalling anti-Asian racism from the Mandalorian fandom that I have seen in regards towards casting rumors about Sabine (which brought me to the point of tears as recently as yesterday).

I had been braced for Rosario Dawson Ahsoka because it’s been rumored for so long, if never officially confirmed by Lucasfilm, and after they pulled the original VA for Leia from Resistance a few years ago (without ever making an official statement but it was after she made really dismissive statements during the Kavanaugh hearings) I was still really hoping they’d pull Dawson for the transphobic assault allegations, or that the rumors were false, or...something.  I was not expecting the way that they treated the Asian civilian population here.  I kept hoping that there was going to be something, and it’s like they kept almost going there with Governor Wing (you want to make either his name or his position clear in the actual episode, maybe?) but then kept pulling back, which just made the whole population victims that had to be rescued by outsiders. And exploited, and tortured, and abused in general.

And yes, I’m aware the Magistrate/Morgan Elsbeth is an Asian-American woman.  That doesn’t make it better?  Since Ahsoka presumably kills her offscreen?

(Also Diana Lee Inosanto is a stunt performer and a fight choreographer, why is that fight scene so wooden, damn.)

okay back to bullet points to wrap up

I realize I haven’t said much about Din and the kid and that’s because they didn’t...do...much? I guess if you’re actually invested in them “YAY HE HAS FEELINGS” is a major thing but I’m not

I have flashes of being invested in Din, but the problem is that I never know what the hell this show is doing because it’s all over the place.  We are 5/8 of the way into season 2 and I have no idea what it’s trying to do: they keep setting stuff up and then not doing anything with it. I can make vague predictions based on what’s set up and based on my knowledge of canon, but this show is so weirdly set up and paced that I can never tell if they’re something for A Reason, for the lulz, or for the Aesthetic.

I feel extremely vindicated by the revelation a few weeks ago that Din grew up in a cult but I also straight-up feel like I spent the past year being gaslighted about what Mandalorians were, and that’s...not a great feeling. Do I think that the show is going to do anything with that? Fuck, I don’t know. I hope so. I know what I’d do as a writer. But I can’t predict anything they’re doing and that makes me really uneasy.

jeez, at least when George Lucas was making Star Wars you knew he was doing it to entertain himself and tell a specific story rather than constantly having to go back and wonder what story lines got compromised for a project down the road.

like, is this why they did mo-cap Ahsoka in S7, to brace us for live action Ahsoka here? I know they had already filmed Mando S2 before S1 came out. WHY THEY DIDN’T THEY REUSE LAUREN MARY KIM AS AHSOKA’S STUNT DOUBLE THEN? it’s not like she hasn’t stunted in Mando before?

if this was supposed to be a backdoor pilot to a Rebels sequel...I will flip a table

I enjoyed the Bad Batch eps in TCW S7 but knowing that there’s going to be a Bad Batch show I’m now wondering if they’re only in S7 to backdoor pilot that show

how far back does this go? did they put the Legacy of Mandalore story line in Rebels S4 solely to set up for this? especially considering that that’s the one thing in S4 that actually has saga weight and then they immediately got rid of everything it accomplished to set up for this?

I presume that this is the reason they refused to release the turnaround for Ahsoka’s epilogue look two years ago. apparently it doesn’t matter given they changed her entire epilogue color scheme and also her lekku and personality.

Look -- at the end of the day, there was only about a 2% chance I was ever going to like this episode, but I was holding out for it nevertheless. I do get surprised from time to time! I liked the Bo-Katan episode! This was, however, a hot mess. And yes: a lot of the things that bother me are not going to bother other people. (I haven’t seen anyone comment on the Asian villagers, for example.)