Jon Favreau has hinted at bringing back Legends stories and characters into future Star Wars movies and making them canon again.
In a galaxy far, far away, there are two Star Wars executive producers that are ready to fill in the gaps left by the original trilogy. Jon Favreau and David Filoni seemed to be determined to expand the universe in new and exciting ways.
The Star Wars franchise is no stranger to movies that help expand characters’ actions or backstories. However, most of those movies follow the Skywalker era and all of the characters associated with the original films. It’s only been a recent trend to breakaway from that era to shine the spotlight on other characters that were seemingly forgotten about. And now Favreau and Filoni want to take it a step further.
So, let’s dive into everything we know about Jon Favreau’s hints about bringing Legends stories and characters into future Star Wars movies.
What are Star Wars Legends stories and characters?
Legends refers to old Star Wars expanded universe content that was previously removed from the canon.
After Return of the Jedi premiered in 1983, there were no Star Wars movies until the prequel trilogy began in 1999. Though there were plenty of comic books, games, and novels that introduced new characters and deepened the Star Wars lore being produced in that 16 year gap, mainstream audiences were given no new films until the early 2000s.
So, when Disney bought Lucasfilms in 2012 and announced that The Force Awakens would be in production two years later, Disney decided that they needed to remove almost all of the old stories and characters from the canon so that the new wave of creatives in charge of the movies and TV shows could have more flexibility.
From then on, any story or character conceived from the time in between films and before the Disney buyout were considered as Legends.
Favreau wants to expand the Star Wars universe using Legends stories and characters
During an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Favreau explained his vision for bringing the Legends stories and characters into his new Star Wars universe saying, “When Episode VII was set so many years later, when I was a kid, I never would’ve thought it would’ve been that much later, but it made sense. It created an opening where you go, ‘Wow so a lot of the things that we knew before are probably in there. How do we excavate that?'”
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Favreau went on to elaborate that, while he does want to bring some elements from the Legends to the bring screen the “story has to drive what characters are.” Filoni echoed Favreau’s vision in the same interview stating, “We are definitely in the right space. I think it’s going to be a clamoring of characters saying, ‘How do I get in this picture?’ And that’s what Jon and I have been figuring out.”
The higher ups at Lucasfilms seem to be 100% on board with Favreau and Filoni’s plight to bring old characters and stories back as Kathleen Kennedy, Lucasfilms’ chief, told Entertainment Weekly that Favreau has “a lot of sources he’s drawing from to see where we’re going [in the universe].”
Favreau has brought forgotten Star Wars characters into the spotlight before
Favreau created and executively produced The Mandalorian for Disney+, which just wrapped up its third season. Filoni assisted on the show as a co-excutive producer. While the Mandalorians, a group of people from the planet Mandalore, did appear in the Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, and Attack of the clones, the character who leads the TV series first appeared in a 2015 mobile role-playing game titled Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes. With the aid of Favreau and Filoni, The Mandalorian, aka Din Djarin, became a household name due to the show’s rich storytelling and fantastic acting as Pedro Pascal plays the lead role.
The Mandalorian then helped to resurrect Boba Fett, a bounty hunter who appeared in the original trilogies and prequels. While Boba Fett isn’t exactly a forgotten character as he has a bit of cult following despite his limited appearances in the films, the character was seemingly killed in Return of the Jedi after he appeared to fall into the mouth of a dangerous, carnivorous creature known as the sarlacc. However, the show retconned his death and brought him back to life, leading him to get his own spin-off shown titled The Book of Boba Fett, which was a limited series.
Both The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett saw the live-action appearance of Ahoska (played by Rosario Dawson), another forgotten Star Wars character. Ahoska was first introduced in the animated movie Star Wars: The Clone Wars in 2008 as Anakin Skywalker’s Jedi Padawan. From there, she went on to star in the TV series of the same name until 2014 before moving on to two other animated series, Star Wars Rebels and Tales of the Jedi. Ashoska is known as a forgotten character as most mainstream Star Wars fans don’t regularly tune into the animated shows and movies. It wasn’t until Season 2 of the The Mandalorian that most fans were introduced to her now. And now, with unwavering fan support, she will star in her own limited series, Ashoka, slated for release in August 2023.
Favreau is a Jedi master when it comes to bringing forgotten Star Wars characters into the mainstream. He gives them such rich stories to help flesh out their personalities and become as relevant as fan favorites Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. If anyone can do justice to the Star Wars Legends canon, it’s him, with the help of Filoni of course.
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