Dave Filoni to Oversee Lucasfilm Animation Department; Justin Ridge Takes Over as Supervising Director of Star Wars Rebels.

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Not too long ago, it was indirectly confirmed that Lucasfilm were already putting another new animated series into active development – and as such, their next show would need a supervisor. It seems as though Dave Filoni took up that job at the expense of stepping back a bit with his role on Star Wars Rebels, but he selected someone else to take up his old position – fellow Avatar: The Last Airbender alumni Justin Ridge.

 

From Star Wars Underworld:

It seems there has been a shakeup behind the scenes at Lucasfilm animation. Big Shiny Robot is reporting that, as of the Season Three premiere of Star Wars Rebels, Dave Filoni is no longer the Supervising Director of the series. That’s not to say he’s no longer working on the series, he remains an executive producer and has been actively involved in the promotion of the new season. Filoni has held the title of supervising director on two animated Star Wars series now. He served in that role from 2008-2013 on Star War: The Clone Wars before taking on the role again (as well as the title of executive producer) on Star Wars Rebels in 2014.

The new supervising director is Justin Ridge, who’s previously worked as an episodic director on The Clone Wars and Rebels. Ridge was one of the first people brought on board on Rebels, directing the Sabine and Zeb prelude shorts “Art Attack” and “Entaglement”, which were released in the lead up to Season One. He also directed the penultimate episode of the first season “Rebel Resolve”, as well as the Clone Wars episodes “Rookies” and “Holocron Heist”.

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We should note that this shake-up with the Rebels development series does not mean that Filoni has been fired from Rebels in any way – he’s just moving up on the echelon of the Lucasfilm ladder to oversee all animated projects (Rebels included). His work will now be based around the big picture as opposed to the day-to-day work that Ridge will now handle. An official statement from a Lucasfilm representative about Filoni’s involvement (courtesy of Big Shiny Robot) is as follows:

Dave is still just as involved as ever – overseeing all aspects of Star Wars Rebels production as Executive Producer and occasionally directing episodes. In many ways, mentoring Justin and moving him into the role as Supervising Director has made it possible for Dave to be even more immersed in the writing and story structure of the show as well as creatively overseeing future animation development. Justin started with Lucasfilm Animation on the first season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and worked with Dave before that on Avatar: The Last Airbender, so they’ve been working together for quite some time.

Lucasfilm Story Group guru Pablo Hidalgo also pitched in with further clarification, noting that Ridge will still be consulting with Filoni on a regular basis.

 

 

 

Obviously, Hidalgo won’t say anything about development of future Lucasfilm projects until the time is right to do so, but it certainly sounds as though Filoni’s expertise with Star Wars cartoons would be better served for a future project rather than a show that has already hit its stride. In any case, Ridge’s first episode as series supervisor will be tonight’s double-length episode, “Steps Into Shadow” – stay tuned for our coverage of that episode and more as Rebels continues.

 

 

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Grant has been a fan of Star Wars for as long as he can remember, having seen every movie on the big screen. When he’s not hard at work with his college studies, he keeps himself busy by reporting on all kinds of Star Wars news for SWNN and general movie news on the sister site, Movie News Net. He served as a frequent commentator on SWNN’s The Resistance Broadcast.

Grant Davis (Pomojema)

Grant has been a fan of Star Wars for as long as he can remember, having seen every movie on the big screen. When he’s not hard at work with his college studies, he keeps himself busy by reporting on all kinds of Star Wars news for SWNN and general movie news on the sister site, Movie News Net. He served as a frequent commentator on SWNN’s The Resistance Broadcast.

52 thoughts on “Dave Filoni to Oversee Lucasfilm Animation Department; Justin Ridge Takes Over as Supervising Director of Star Wars Rebels.

  • September 24, 2016 at 10:53 pm
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    Can we hope Mr Filoni is starting work on a Knights of Ren origin series? I’m sure whatever he does next will be brilliant.

    • September 25, 2016 at 10:09 am
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      I don’t think that we’ll ever get a show with an inherently dark premise from Dave Filoni – that’s just not how he operates. Making a show that goes to dark places, sure, but not something villain-centric. I just don’t think “the adventures of a Jedi-killer” would sell with younger audiences.

      Don’t get me wrong, though. Disney will market the pants off of the Knights Of Ren when the time comes. But an animated series might not be the best place to do that. An animated direct-to-video movie, on the other hand…

      – Pomojema

      • September 26, 2016 at 2:19 pm
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        It’s one of my most eagerly anticipated parts of the Star Wars jigsaw!

  • September 24, 2016 at 10:58 pm
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    Everyone thought of Filoni as the man in charge of Lucasfilm animation anyway. Now that there’s more than one series in development, they had to change his title to match.

    Any juicy rumors as to where/when the next series is to take place?

    • September 24, 2016 at 11:19 pm
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      Indiana Jones: The Animated Adventures

      • September 25, 2016 at 12:37 am
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        If it’s 2D-animated, I would be SOOOOOO on board.

      • September 25, 2016 at 10:03 am
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        I wouldn’t expect anything like that until after Indiana Jones 5 comes out… But Star Wars would overshadow it in terms of development, because that’s just how the cash cow is milked.

        – Pomojema

    • September 25, 2016 at 10:05 am
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      The timing – releasing the last season of Rebels around the time Episode IX arrives – suggests that whatever they’re going to make next will be set in the Sequel Trilogy era. There were occasional rumors that they had plans for the era, but nothing solid. This would make the most sense, considering that they’ll probably want to wait a few years before getting into Episodes X, XI, and XII.

      – Pomojema

  • September 24, 2016 at 11:01 pm
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    rebels is already working on season four with only another season or two max after that so it makes all the sense that filoni is now working on development and pre-production of the next series(if that is indeed in the cards).

    • September 24, 2016 at 11:20 pm
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      Then there’s his comments along the lines of ‘sure season 3 is coming out, but we’re looking at much longer term story telling’ in that other article about him on the front page now. In the interview, it reads as if he’s talking about Rebels, but I was thinking ‘how long term can he be talking – they seem to run these shows about 4-5 seasons max’.

      • September 25, 2016 at 12:09 am
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        rebels has definite cap on how far it can go… unless they decided to really string it out.

        • September 25, 2016 at 2:20 am
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          The Clone Wars had an end… and yet…

          • September 25, 2016 at 2:48 am
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            Very true… Though Clone wars was a bit different setup wise. Galaxy spanning with a wider cast and uninterested in a clear timeline. Rebels seems like the exact opposite.

    • September 25, 2016 at 10:02 am
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      The official statement that FPJ was going with was six seasons and as many as eight depending on what Lucasfilm has planned. It’s looking like that will translate to five or six seasons in total depending on how long they want to focus on this specific era. (Six seasons would work better in the sense that the show would end right around the time Episode IX hits theaters.)

      – Pomojema

      • September 26, 2016 at 2:25 pm
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        I wonder if they would take “Rebels” beyond “Rogue One” & beyond the start of ANH, showing what the Rebel Alliance was up to while our heroes were coming together on Tatooine, rescuing princesses on the Death Star & climaxing with their arrival on Yavin 4, a parallel back story perhaps?

        • September 26, 2016 at 10:31 pm
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          Based on the way the show’s chronology has been paced at, it wouldn’t surprise me. They covered roughly 2.5 years in 37 episodes (the first two seasons).

          – Pomojema

  • September 24, 2016 at 11:09 pm
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    Just gonna put it out there that I think the 2020 ‘A Star Wars Story’ is going to be an animated film with cutting edge technology. Only because it appears the third film was the film josh trank was attached to and when he left I am sure they mentioned they had swapped the release dates of the anthology films around saying the tech wasn’t quite ready for what they wanted to do….plus the announcement of a writer being attached it sounds like the could be gearing up production on the 2020 film. Might be some photo realistic animation set in the classic era after ROTJ so they can use the voices of the Harrison, Mark and carrie

    • September 25, 2016 at 9:59 am
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      Given that the Anthology movies are meant to be separate from the Skywalker Saga as a whole, I doubt it. But I do think that there’s room to do a trilogy between trilogies… It just probably wouldn’t involve the original cast, but younger counterparts (IE: Alden Ehrenreich in a little over half a decade).

      – Pomojema

      • September 25, 2016 at 10:23 am
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        Yes the episodes are the Skywalker Saga but that may not stop them with a kind of ‘The adventures of Luke Skywalker’ sort of thing. Plus when the original schedule was released after the takeover was one of the films called Red 5? Although that could have been a codename for Rogue One due to Red 5s history with the original Death Star

  • September 24, 2016 at 11:33 pm
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    I just hope its a serious animation and not more stupidity like the lego cartoons. god forbid we’d get a traditionally animated/ CGI cell-shaded series.

    • September 25, 2016 at 1:44 am
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      Honestly that’s what I would have said a few months ago, but I’ve watched the lego freemakers and droid tales and they’re not that bad. Obviously meant for kids, but a lot of the jokes and names reference old canon things kids wouldn’t even pick up on which makes it enjoyable for me.

  • September 25, 2016 at 12:07 am
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    The only thing more disastrous than this could be if this thing had reshoots.

    • September 25, 2016 at 12:10 am
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      sarcasm?

      • September 25, 2016 at 12:15 am
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        Yes.

        • September 25, 2016 at 12:16 am
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          k. i was 99% sure, but you never know. 😉

  • September 25, 2016 at 12:14 am
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    Hopefully this means were getting a new animated show about banthas. Congratulations Dave and Justin!

    • September 25, 2016 at 12:19 am
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      they should do like faux nature documentary on banthas and rancors and the like. that would be amusing. 😉

      • September 25, 2016 at 4:34 am
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        “Watch as the mother rancor slaughters the entire bantha herd to provide for her young.”

  • September 25, 2016 at 12:21 am
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    I’d like to see an Anthology series with 3,4,5 episode story arcs so we can see:

    – Knights of the Old Republic Era stories
    – Young Yoda Jedi Night before the Sith threat disappeared
    – the 1st Jedi & 1st Sith story
    – a Maz Kanata story
    – Max Von Sydow’s Lor San Tekkaa story
    – a couple of adventures from the main cast of Luke, Leia & Han from the OT
    – a Boba Fett or other Bounty Hunter stories like what happened to Cad Bane
    – a few of the Clone Wars animated stories they didn’t get to like Ventress & Vos’ story
    – and the era between RotJ and TFA

    • September 25, 2016 at 6:09 am
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      Fake script leaks asside, I’m pretty sure the story of the 1st Jedi & Sith will almost certainly be in episodes 8 or 9 or at least one of the movies. I feel like that is far too critical to star wars lore to leave as a 3 episodes of a TV series (though If it was as well done as it was in the avatar universe I’d be down) But those other ideas seem like perfect ideas for continuing stories

      • September 26, 2016 at 5:19 am
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        I don’t think the first Jedi and Sith are critical at all.

  • September 25, 2016 at 1:46 am
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    It’s really interesting that they’re doing another series and I’m glad feloni is behind it. I wonder what time period it’ll take place in.

    • September 25, 2016 at 4:03 am
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      Sure, we need more felony.

  • September 25, 2016 at 2:18 am
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    I wouldn’t mind seeing Ben fall to the dark side… might be a little heavy for a cartoon but they’ve proven to me it can work.

    • September 25, 2016 at 5:55 am
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      They could lead up to it. Show Luke training new Jedi and a younger Ben solo for a season or two then get to the seduction and fall. Kinda like what rebels has done with kanan and Ezra.

  • September 25, 2016 at 2:36 am
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    I hope that’s because he will be director of 3rd stand-alone movie,so he needs more time to focus on that

    • September 25, 2016 at 9:57 am
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      He’s not going to be. He’s strictly going to be tied to the animation department, and I don’t think that they’re going to make an animated Star Wars movie for a little while after they’ve cleared the slate of every live-action movie they have planned between now and 2020.

      – Pomojema

      • September 25, 2016 at 9:10 pm
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        They could be making straight to Blu-Ray or streaming animated feature length films similar to how DC makes their animated Batman films.

        • September 26, 2016 at 1:27 am
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          I feel like they will eventually. They’ve recently put more emphasis on making new direct-to-video Marvel movies after doing so little with that format.

          – Pomojema

    • September 26, 2016 at 5:19 am
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      That’s unlikely.

  • September 25, 2016 at 3:17 am
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    Hopefully something in the post ROTJ time line.

    • September 25, 2016 at 4:49 am
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      That’s almost certainly what they’re doing – the timing would put the series out just around the time that Episode IX hits, meaning it would be the perfect opportunity to tell the continuing adventures of Rey, Finn, and Poe without immediately having to commit to another trilogy of films. Or, alternately, to help fill the gap between ROTJ and TFA.

      – Pomojema

      • September 25, 2016 at 7:46 am
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        That is what I like to hear.

      • September 26, 2016 at 5:19 am
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        “Almost certainly” is pretty strong.

      • September 26, 2016 at 7:22 am
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        I’m assuming it would be between Episodes VI and VIII. They’d ant to save the continuing adventures of Rey and Finnpoe for The Sequel Sequel trilogy, I presume.

  • September 25, 2016 at 4:02 am
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    I hope that they are wiser after Rebels. It took two Seasons, to have watchable climax episode on par with Clone Wars. Otherwise, we are in for next Disney XD exclusive, Star Wars: Adventures of Gargleblaster family. Stapler lightsabers and dumbo Empire ”I will get you next week, Skywalkeeeeer!!!”

    • September 25, 2016 at 1:28 pm
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      The early seasons of clone wars were pretty subpar aswell…

      • September 26, 2016 at 7:21 am
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        Ahsoka was an annoying little shit.

    • September 26, 2016 at 5:18 am
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      A lot of shows take a bit to get going.

  • September 25, 2016 at 5:34 am
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    Fall of Ben Solo Please! I like Star Wars Rebels but it doesn’t have the weight of the Clone Wars without a Skywalker in it.

    • September 26, 2016 at 8:05 pm
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      Definitely like to see a Luke/Ben show where it shows their adventures and the darkness inside of him.

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