Star Wars: Ahsoka writer and Executive Producer Dave Filoni recently attempted to justify contradicting Star Wars canon.
While speaking to ScreenRant at Star Wars Celebration 2023 in London, England, Filoni first asserted that the current creatives of Lucasfilm are a “great group.”
He said, “There’s a great group of creatives now working in Star Wars. The truth is there have always been great creatives throughout the history of the franchise, working, exploring, telling different stories.”
Filoni then turned his attention to Star Wars canon saying, “People get into all of these debates of what’s canon, what’s not, and sometimes forget just the special nature of telling a good story and creating great characters.”
“Part of the fan debate in the past always used to be what’s canon, what’s not, because there was George and we always knew George was the canon. I look at it very broadly and just say, there’s just a love of Star Wars. Because I knew George, I worked with him. None of us are going to be him, but we love the galaxy he created and we are very much a product of it, growing up with it,” he concluded.
Back in November 2020, Filoni made it clear he was open to changing Star Wars even past physical descriptions of characters. He was asked by Vanity Fair, “What else had to happen as part of the transformation into Ahsoka?”
Filoni responded, “I said, “Well, Ahsoka’s eyes are blue and yours are not, but I don’t want you to worry about it. If you don’t want to go for that, we can just say that in this version they’re not.”
He would go on to reveal that Rosario Dawson rejected this suggestion for the live-action appearance of Ahsoka in The Mandalorian, “And Rosario insisted. She’s like, ‘No, no, no. Let me try it.’”
RELATED: Star Wars Story Group Writer Matt Martin: Star Wars Canon Is “All Fake Anyway”
Filoni’s comments about canon are not unheard of when it comes to Lucasfilm employees. Star Wars Story Group member Matt Martin noted back in 2020 that Star Wars canon is “all fake anyway.”
After a lengthy Twitter thread attempting to explain his position, Martin summarized it writing, “So to summarize: there is a reason that we need to internally know what is and isn’t canon so we can keep our line of official storytelling as aligned as possible but that doesn’t mean fans can’t individually pick and choose what they want to accept as true.”
He then added, “It’s all fake anyway so you can choose to accept whatever you want as part of the story.”
However, the issue that both Martin and Filoni seemingly fail to take into consideration is one J.R.R. Tolkien specifically highlighted in his essay On Fairy Stories. Tolkien wrote, “What really happens is that the storymaker proves a successful ‘sub-creator.’ He makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is ‘true’: it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside.”
“The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed,” he continued. “You are then out in the Primary World again, looking at the little abortive Secondary World from outside. If you are obliged, by kindliness or circumstance, to stay, then disbelief must be suspended (or stifled), otherwise listening and looking would become intolerable.”
“But this suspension of disbelief is a substitute for the genuine thing, a subterfuge we use when condescending to games or make-believe, or when trying (more or less willingly) to find what virtue we can in the work of an art that has for us failed,” Tolkien asserted.
By breaking the rules of the universe and story or changing the canon you are in fact pushing people outside of the Secondary World. You are creating disbelief in the people you want to stay immersed in the story. Thus no matter how hard you might try to create great stories or great character, you will fail because you have ignored the laws of the world.
Clearly, Filoni and other creatives at Lucasfilm have not learned this lesson and seemingly don’t have any intention of doing so, which will more than likely result in driving more and more people away from Star Wars given they can’t stay in accord with the laws of Star Wars that were made before their time.
What do you make of Filoni’s comments about Star Wars canon?