George Lucas has taken a much more hands-off role with Star Wars in the years since selling up to Disney and making himself $4 billion richer in the process, but he currently finds himself more involved in the franchise than he’s been at any point since he let go of the reins.
While the constant rumors that he was the white knight poised to ride to the rescue and save The Rise of Skywalker were wide of the mark, not to mention the wild and unfounded conspiracy theories that he’s assembled his own cut of the movie that’s been withheld from the public, the noted plaid enthusiast has nonetheless been spending a lot of time on the set of The Mandalorian.
The 76 year-old has been hanging around in an advisory capacity and offering his thoughts and feedback to the latest generation of filmmakers to tell stories in the universe that he created, and no matter how much Star Wars minutiae Dave Filoni can recite at the drop of a hat, the Clone Wars creator’s encyclopedic knowledge of a galaxy far, far away has got nothing on George Lucas.
In fact, in a recent interview, showrunner and executive producer Jon Favreau revealed that Lucas was giving his protege a hard time when Filoni was directing his episodes of the upcoming second season. Lucas is known for being very economical behind the camera, with his instructions famously boiling down to ‘faster’ and ‘more intense,’ so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he was on Filoni’s back for shooting too many setups.
“He would be giving Dave a hard time about how many setups he was getting and how fast he was shooting and urging him to go faster. He was like a boxer’s corner man coaching him, but always with a twinkle in his eye.”
Dave Filoni did a solid job on the first season of The Mandalorian in what marked his live-action directorial debut, and with some coaching from George Lucas, his input on the second run will no doubt be vastly improved as a result.