The Best Star Wars Series Had Zero Creative Input From New Lucasfilm Head Dave Filoni

When news broke in early 2025 that Kathleen Kennedy would be stepping down as President of Lucasfilm by the end of the year, speculation ran rampant over who would succeed her. Though her 14-year tenure was hardly perfect, she did oversee the massively successful sequel trilogy as well as the launch of multiple streaming series for Disney+. Along with her decades-long track record as a producer, which includes such blockbuster classics as "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial," "Jurassic Park," and "The Sixth Sense," Kennedy would be a tough act to follow.

Throughout 2025, I heard rumors about some industry heavy-hitters being approached to take the Lucasfilm reins. But there was trepidation about stepping into a leadership role coveted by the deeply entrenched Dave Filoni. He was hand-picked by "Star Wars" creator George Lucas to develop the company's animated offerings prior to the Disney sale, and he's a fiercely committed fan of the franchise. He could also, allegedly, be a thorn in Kennedy's side. Ultimately, it seemed best to give Filoni creative oversight of the galaxy far, far away.

Now that Filoni is officially the President and Chief Creative Officer of Lucasfilm (with Lynwen Brennan minding the business end of things as Co-President), filmmakers and showrunners are watching closely to see how he will run the shop. The feature films "The Mandalorian and Grogu" and "Star Wars: Starfighter" are due for release in 2026 and 2027, respectively, but what comes after that? Filoni's penchant for loading his works with obscure "Star Wars" Easter eggs is well known and too cutesy by half. Meanwhile, the franchise's best streaming series, "Andor," was devoid of such wink-wink annoyances, primarily because Filoni had no creative input into its production. For a certain segment of fans, this makes the future of "Star Wars" seem awfully dicey.

It's a miracle that "Andor" exists at all. It's a prequel to "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story," which was itself a prequel to "Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope." Though Gareth Edwards is the credited director of "Rogue One," the film was saved by a significant rewrite from Tony Gilroy. According to Gilroy, the movie was mired in a "swamp" and all he could do was "improve their position." The A-list screenwriter worked his magic and eventually found his way onto "Andor" (which was also a mess before he came onboard).

Gilroy was the ideal showrunner for "Andor" in that he's never been a "Star Wars" fan. His lack of reverence and disinterest in sticking to canonical events allowed him to improve on what had come before. This included rewriting certain parts of Filoni's "Star Wars Rebels," most notably Mon Mothma's escape from Coruscant. His brother, Dan Gilroy, who also wrote on the show, was appalled by the prospect of having to basically copy-paste dialogue from Filoni's series. Unsurprisingly, Gilroy's version was much better.

According to The Wrap's Drew Taylor, this evidently didn't sit well with Filoni, which is troubling because he's never come within a parsec of creating anything nearly as good as "Andor." Now that he's calling the shots at Lucasfilm, it's probably safe to assume that we'll never get a movie or series that's unburdened by canonical events ever again. Worse, we'll likely get inundated with references to the deluge of "Star Wars" books and comics that the majority of the populace has never read. "Star Wars" is already in danger of turning into a niche franchise. If Filoni doubles down on the fan service, it may cease to be an active franchise altogether.