Dave Filoni was chosen to serve as the supervising director for The Clone Wars, an animated series created by George Lucas and set in the latter’s Star Wars franchise. Despite being a part of a larger franchise, the animated series delivered some of the best character-driven storytelling thanks in large part to its episodic format.
During an interview, Filoni discussed working on the show’s fifth season, which features one of the best episodes of the entire series. However, fans will be surprised to learn that Filoni had to take some of the most important creative choices of the episode on the fly. Here is how Filoni made one of the greatest The Clone Wars episodes with a little bit of last-moment improv.
Dave Filoni admits improvising on one of the best Star Wars: The Clone Wars episodes
Star Wars creator George Lucas personally chose Dave Filoni to serve as the supervising director for The Clone Wars animated series, which bridges the gap in the prequel trilogy. Filoni discussed his work on the show’s fifth season in an interview with the official Star Wars website.
Filoni talked about the Young Jedi arc of season 5, which included the ninth episode, titled A Necessary Bond. The showrunner revealed that the tank chase sequence at the episode’s start wasn’t initially planned but improvised later during production.
The opening of part four, where they have the tank chase, none of that was in the script that way at all. In the original script, the kids are being chased on a tank by a tank, and a stray shot flew over their tank and hit the Crucible, and blew it up.
Filoni made the above comment, explaining that most characters were meant to die in the sequence aside from the younglings in the original script.
However, Filoni revealed that since the arc was important for the development of the younglings, he decided to rewrite some portions. Instead, Filoni decided to shape the action scenes in a way that allowed the characters to evolve.
Dave Filoni reveals how one George Lucas move inspired The Clone Wars episode
In the same conversation, Filoni explained how he added depth to the characters through the action sequence, admitting to taking a page out of his mentor George Lucas’ book. Filoni revealed having a conversation that helped him rewrite the scenes.
I took a page out of something George and I had been talking about, which was expressing a lot of character through action. He and I had been talking a lot about Indiana Jones at the time.
Filoni made the above comment, referencing the truck escape in Raiders of the Lost Ark and the fight on top of the tank in Last Crusade as inspirations for his rewrite.
Ultimately, Filoni and Lucas wanted to create a problem for the characters that would worsen as the sequence progressed, forcing them to evolve. As a result, Filoni not only created one of the best scenes in the series but also provided a fitting conclusion to the Young Jedi arc.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars is streaming on Disney+.
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