By George & Josh Bate
With the announcement of Dave Filoni taking over Lucasfilm (alongside Lynwen Brennan) last week, questions have been raised about the future of his crossover movie that was initially announced at Star Wars Celebration Europe 2023. This week’s changes at Lucasfilm and the resultant news fallout have shed unexpected light on Filoni’s movie, which, coupled with what we’ve learned in the nearly three years since its announcement, paints a blurry picture of what we may be in store for.
Deadline reported last week that Dave Filoni’s movie has been put “on the backburner” as other projects, in particular Simon Kinberg’s new trilogy, have been accelerated. Buried in this report, however, is news that the film will feature characters from The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka, and Skeleton Crew, all Disney+ shows set during the same time period in Star Wars canon that are all executive produced by Dave Filoni. This news isn’t exactly breaking given that Kennedy initially announced a “climactic story event” for the MandoVerse shows during Disney Investor Day 2020. But last week marks the first time that a reputable source has claimed the movie will feature characters from across the various shows.
One of the characters that will feature in the film, as indicated by Deadline, is Grand Admiral Thrawn. Introduced in live-action in 2023’s Ahsoka series, Thrawn is a fan-favorite dating back to the time of Legends / Expanded Universe when Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire novel gifted Star Wars fans with a look at the galaxy post-Return of the Jedi. Deadline reports that the characters from the aformentioned shows will face off against Thrawn, which makes sense given such a crossover movie would need a villain worthy of all off our different heroes uniting.
What else do we know about Filoni’s movie? Well, a post on StarWars.com confirmed that the film would “close out” the stories that started with The Mandalorian, indicating that this would be the last of the movies/shows set in between Episodes VI and VII (at least for now).
In an interview with Empire, Filoni said he wants the movie to “define an era,” the era in question being the space in canon between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens.
In an interview with IGN, Kennedy spoke about how the origins of the project date back prior to 2013, which would have been before The Mandalorian was even a thing. That suggests that Lucasfilm has had a long-standing interest in this kind of movie, which gets us to our next point….
Based on everything we know about Filoni’s movie, we speculate that it will be a loose adaptation of Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire. At minimum, we think the movie will share the title ‘Heir to the Empire,’ words that were even uttered by Ahsoka in her Disney+ series. Why do we think this is the case? Well, Filoni has sprinkled all sorts of elements from Heir to the Empire into canon so far. Of course, there’s Thrawn, first introduced into canon in Season 3 of Star Wars Rebels, but there’s also Rukh from the novel appearing in Rebels and Captain Pelleaon from the novel appearing in The Mandalorian Season 3. More fundamentally, the general plot framework of Heir to the Empire (i.e., a weak New Republic facing threat from a resurgent Imperial remnant led by Thrawn) has already unfolded in these shows and will continue in Ahsoka Season 2, which Filoni described as being an all-out “war.”
We use the term ‘loose’ to describe Filoni’s possible adaptation of Heir to the Empire as there’s no way he could do an entirely faithful recreation of Zahn’s acclaimed novel. But we can already see elements from Heir to the Empire mapping onto a live-action canon movie. Baylen Skoll can step in for Joruus C’baoth. Sabine and Ezra can be the equivalent of Leia and Luke from the novel. Shin Hati (or even Sabine) could be re-worked into Mara Jade. Boba Fett can serve the same role as Talon Karrde (Fett already took over Jabba’s territory just like Talon did). Din Djarin can be the Lando of the story and Bo-Katan can be the Garm Bel Iblis. Even the oppositional politican Hamato Xiono has an Heir to the Empire equivalent in Borsk. All the pieces to the puzzle are there and just waiting to be connected.
Another point of speculation involves the role Abeloth may play in Ahsoka Season 2 and even an Heir to the Empire movie. Obviously, Abeloth did not appear in the Heir to the Empire novel, but she did appear in subsequent Legends works, including Fate of the Jedi. Could Abeloth play a role in Filoni’s movie and be the even bigger bad guy than Thrawn? Possibly. You can read more about that theory here.
Overall, we really hope that Filoni’s crossover movie comes to fruition. The idea that all the Disney+ series set between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens will just peeter out disappoints us – these shows deserve a cinematic finale fitting of the impact they’ve had on fans over the years. Hopefully, as Filoni finds his footing in his new role, his MandoVerse crossover movie kick starts back into development.