Brothers and Sisters: Filoni Talks About “The Lawless”

Yesterday IGN posted an interview with The Clone Wars supervising director Dave Filoni. If you watched this past week’s episode, the theme of brothers and sisters almost seemed organic. Maybe because this is Episode VII, I mean, Star Wars we’re talking about.

I think it’s something that’s strong in the original Star Wars, where you have a story about a brother and a sister, these twins.

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The loss of Savage for Maul and Satine for Bo-Katan are definitely impactful moments for the characters of the saga. Both characters are in fact pawns in the greater machinations of galactic events. It’s interesting to ponder whether they allowed themselves to be victims. Savage, for all his brute strength, creates a foil to Satine, who seemingly stands by and does nothing. The interesting thing about Satine is that her passivity isn’t out of indecision, but a deliberate choice of conscience.

In visual storytelling, characters like Satine, who bears a lot of similarities to Padmé, are more difficult to relate to the audience. Peeks inside their heads or into their pasts often can strengthen their portrayals. Hopefully Dave Filoni gets a chance to flesh out the Satine and Bo-Katan backstory he has worked out. I’d put my money on the table for it right now.

At this point, I think [Bo-Katan]’s a vastly more interesting character, you understand her motivations for things, and I have a rather lengthy backstory that even explains how she became a Death Watch soldier that goes all the way back to the time she and Satine are six. Because to figure out how she got to that point, and yet Satine is a duchess… I have a whole story about who their father was and what their relationships were and everything with Vizsla, going back for a very long time and how that intersects with Obi-Wan Kenobi. I’d give you more detail except I’d like to tell that story at some point in some form of Star Wars media in the future. I’ve discussed it with a couple people, and we’ve started to architect it into the timeline of Star Wars somewhat, just to see where these things fit.

Over at the Star Wars Blog, Jason Fry offers insight into writing Darth Maul: Shadow Conspiracy, the junior novelization of the four-part arc that ended with the last week’s episode “The Lawless.” And here at FANgirl, Megan Crouse shares her review of the much hyped episode. She writes:

“The Lawless” was a cool, surprising, and emotionally demanding episode. Simply the events alone were fantastically dramatic. I liked the pacing, which made the episode feel long. It has some beautiful action scenes, including the Maul-Savage-Sidious duel that seems ready to go down in history, as well as a brief but exciting aerial wrestling match between Mandalorians. “The Lawless” also had its flaws, including the role of Duchess Satine. Despite the title, the dark side does have laws, and this episode showed the consequences for those who break them.

Click over to read Megan’s full review.

Fangirl

Fangirl

Tricia Barr took her understanding of brand management and marketing, mixed it with a love of genre storytelling, and added a dash of social media flare to create FANgirl Blog, where she discusses Star Wars, fandom, and the intersection of women within Star Wars fandom. She is co-author of Ultimate Star Wars and Star Wars Visual Encyclopedia from DK Publishing, a featured writer for Star Wars Insider magazine with numerous articles on the Hero's Journey. Her FANgirl opinions can be heard on the podcasts Hyperspace Theories and Fangirls Going Rogue. Tricia Barr's novel, Wynde, won the 2014 Independent Publisher Book Award Gold Medal for Best Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror Ebook. She was also part of Silence in the Library's successful all-female creator science fiction and fantasy anthology Athena's Daughters, which is available now. For excerpts and tales of her adventures in creating a fictional universe, hop over to TriciaBarr.com.