Dave Filoni: Animated Origins and Unexpected Fates Panel Impressions (SWCO 2017)

As has been the custom over the past two celebrations, Dave Filoni and Pablo Hidalgo reveal inside looks at characters and unreleased behind-the-scenes details and new footage from the animated shows The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels. Unlike The Untold Clone Wars or Ahsoka’s Untold Tales, Animated Origins and Unexpected Fates wasn’t nearly as revealing, though there were teases for what’s to come on Rebels‘ 4th season (including Ahsoka returning!) and a great clip from TCW featuring Boba Fett and Cad Bane, but Filoni and Hidalgo are such a joy to listen to talking about Star Wars, the panel is always a blast no matter how much they give away.

(Here’s the livestream video above, but I guess it doesn’t show either the artwork or the footage (due to technical difficulties they say). I have screenshots of both below!)

The hour went by smoothly enough, as Filoni, Hidalgo, and David Collins feel into an easy pace to the point Collins really didn’t need to say or do much because the main stars took over and ran the thing no problem. There was an odd moment where a bunch of cosplayers placed themselves up in front of the stage and I’m still not sure if it planned or not, but as usual the costumes were top-notched and including many fan favorites from the two animated series, which launched Filoni on a little chat about how he designs things with cosplayers in mind from time to time and how crazy it is to see his drawings come up to him and say, “Hi.”

We’ll get the big teases out of the way, but Filoni promised we’ll see Ahsoka’s tale continue very soon on the same show that left her fate up to question, aka Rebels, while when talking about the clones Gregor and Wolffe (who went back to joopa slinging in the start of S2 unlike Rex) he mentioned they’ll be seen again very soon. Both of these teases are going to be expanded upon in the Rebels S4 panel on Saturday, April 15, so fans of those character should already be eagerly anticipating that panel anyways. Because of the S4 panel yet to come, there wasn’t much in reveals beyond those teases…well, besides a little never before seen video (of unfinished animation like the Utapau arc and the Bad Batch) where young Boba Fett (in his armor already) and Cad Bane get into a Western-like standoff; it ends with Bane’s fate unknown and Boba gaining his scar on his helmet (Update: seems someone taped it so here it is)! This seems to be an extension of the Bane teaches young Boba arc, as first seen and heard about back at the Untold Clone Wars panel in 2015 (where we got footage of the two fighting back Tuskens).

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As for the rest of the content, things started off with Filoni’s original sketches for the Maul v Obi-Wan battle in “Twin Suns” and you can see from the sketches it pretty much went down shot for shot as he originally had it…expect he had the dual MUCH shorter and I feel like it was perfect as is. He spoke again about how it was George Lucas’ idea to bring Maul back and he left it up to Filoni to figure it out, but spider-legged Maul was Lucas’ thought for it at least. There was a brief attempt to cover what happened to Maul between The Phantom Menace and The Clone Wars, but that’s being left untold for the time being (and likely a long time). They then moved onto bringing back Rex and the other clones, plus Filoni’s original plans for 9 (!) surviving clones instead of 3, though he conveniently forgot the list in case you were curious who else might’ve lived.

Then there was an extended Ahsoka section, giving us a look at his literal very first drawing of the character, with her hood over her head, and some maquettes that included a slightly more alien-looking head to Ahsoka which Lucas veto-ed and went for a more human-like look (which seems to have paid off). There were also several images of her from around 2005, when he was just beginning to launch into production of the show, some of which I have in my gallery above. Both Hidalgo and Filoni were happy with how well Ahsoka’s novel sold, while Filoni talked about the process of drawing the cover and working with E.K. Johnston on the book. Expect more about her on Saturday!

And for everyone excited about seeing Chopper, the Ghost, and the Hammerhead corvettes in Rogue One, we were treated to some CGI models ILM cooked up for the ships and the tale about driving Chopper in his only scene.

UPDATED: The official site has 11 highlights from the panel and includes hi-res scans of the pictures/drawings they showed. Enjoy!

All in all, it was another fun little panel, but like I said, compared to the previous two years, this one didn’t have as many oohhs and aahhs, but I’m betting those will come on Saturday with the Rebels S4 panel.

Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website @MynockManor.

Dave Filoni: Animated Origins and Unexpected Fates Panel Impressions (SWCO 2017)

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