Dave Filoni

Cowboy Filoni

David Filoni, also known by his stage name C1-10P "Chopper", or just Dave, is an American director, producer, writer and creator of all things Star Wars. Known for his work in all but three of the animated Star Wars projects, Filoni first joined the Jedi Order when he created the character of Ahsoka Tano for the 2008 show Star Wars: The Clone Wars, a remake replacement for the 2003 Star Wars: Clone Wars. After two more animated series (Star Wars Rebels and Star Wars Resistance), Filoni was promoted to the live-action department — in hopes that he would learn how to use a colon in titles there.

Before Star Wars

Filoni giving the Imperial salute.

Filoni was a nobody. He came from nothing. He had nothing. He did nothing. He had no place in this story. There was something about an Avatar, but not those Avatars. Kim was also possible, but she wasn't king of the hill. But then, on a dark and stormy night, Dave looked up to the stars...and saw a war. It was here that Grand Master George Lucas of the Sci-Fi reached out, by writing a message in the night sky using yellow News Gothic bold on a tilt — over the course of six nights with a 30-year gap between the third and fourth, or the sixth and first, depending on who you ask.

Star Wars

Animated

Filoni first started work on the Star Wars: The Clone Wars movie in 2007, and before it had even started to be animated, Lucasfilm ordered seven seasons of a show based on it, even though nobody knew if it was good or not at this point. In 2008, the film was released and they found out it was not. However, by this point, season one of The Clone Wars was done and to try and cover up the box office disaster, the series premiered also — but to an improved positive reception. And this acclaim increased, year after year, season after season, of pure animated Star Wars greatness, each episode achieving a power greater than the last...that was, until 2012. Disney stepped in and was like "Hey this Star Wars is pretty good, can we have it?", to which George Lucas jokingly replied "Yeah, for four billion dollars." Lucas sold his soul to the Mouse and retired.

But Dave didn't. He was still working on seasons six, seven, and all the way up to one-hundred. But Disney had other plans. They let Filoni finish half of season six, release that for a bit of extra pocket money, before making him start work on a new animated show — but more like a cartoon this time. Fast forwarding into the timeline, Star Wars Rebels takes place before A New Hope, in order to capture the nostalgia Disney was hoping to capitalize off. Rebels lasted for four seasons between 2014 and 2018, with its finale not set to be paid off until 2023 in a different medium.

Dave didn't even have five minutes to relax after sending Thrawn and Ezra to the Shadow Realm, as right after airing, Disney made him write the first two episodes to a new animated show, but even more cartoonish this time. This one, however, was to be set in the new "Disney Era", but more so because after the Bantha stain of The Last Jedi by Ruin Johnson, Disney needed someone to fix their story that should never have existed in the first place. Star Wars Resistance only lasted two seasons (2018–20), as Disney finally caught on that live-action Star Wars was where the money's at.

Live-action

"You were so much hotter in animation."

In 2019, Dave joined forces with Jon Favreau to bring an unnamed Mandalorian to the small-screen, titled The Mandalorian. This first season was a huge success, and so for its second season, Filoni managed to bring all of his fan-favorite animated characters to live-action to help defeat the Chicken Man from Breaking Bad. These two seasons already cemented the fact that live-action Star Wars television was the greatest thing since sliced bread, but Dave and Jon had to go one step further — making the best spin-off, which, dare I say, was better than the original. This was, of course, The Book of Boba Fett. The original Mandalorian bounty hunter, the O.G., the GOAT, the Green Bandit...you get the point. Despite its objective fact as being the best, most reviews claimed the contrary. Which resulted in The Mandalorian season three leaving a bad taste in most people's Disney+ accounts. But hey, Jack Black!

Despite this, Dave was given the green light, well it was actually just a thumbs up, to start work on a live-action series on his orangest creation, Ahsoka Tano. In 2023, Ahsoka was released, finally tying up that banger of an ending from Star Wars Rebels five years prior.

Back to animation

After dipping his hat in the world of real life, Filoni returned to the computer desk and finished off The Clone Wars season seven, in which 8 of the 12 episodes were hailed as a return to great Star Wars animation. After this, he created three seasons of Star Wars: The Bad Batch, which followed directly after season seven and Revenge of the Sith. He also dabbled in an anthology series set throughout the timeline, Tales of the Jedi, which resulted in losing track of continuity from a book.

As of 2024, Filoni is still employed at Lucasfilm, pumping out Star Wars content left, right and centre — with no sight of stopping any time soon in the near future.

Filmography

Filoni's non-Star Wars projects are not listed as they are, frankly, unimportant.

Title	Year	Credited as				Role	Notes
		Director	Writer	Executive Producer	Art department
Star Wars: The Clone Wars	2008	Yes	No	No	Yes		First movie, first flop
Star Wars: The Clone Wars	2008–2014, 2020	Supervising	Yes	Yes	Yes	Embo / Various	Cemented his place as the 'Star Wars God'
Star Wars Rebels	2014–2018	Supervising	Yes	Yes	Yes	Chopper / Various	Co-creator and casual Grand Admiral Thrawn enjoyer
Star Wars: The Force Awakens	2015	No	No	No	Yes	Screaming Jakku villager	Not trusted to direct yet
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story	2016	No	No	No	No	Chopper	Special thanks
Star Wars Forces of Destiny	2017–2018	Additional	Additional	Yes	Yes	Chopper / Stormtrooper	Only male involved as they needed someone who actually knew what they were doing
Star Wars Resistance	2018–2020	No	Story	Yes	No	Bo Keevil / Various	Also creator and his second flop
The Mandalorian	2019–present	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Trapper Wolf	Fan-service insertor
Star Wars: The Bad Batch	2021–2024	No	Yes	Yes	No	Chopper	Also creator and a return to God-hood
The Book of Boba Fett	2021	Yes	Yes	Yes	No		Fan-service insertor
Obi-Wan Kenobi	2022	No	No	No	No		Executive Creative Counsel (but the show still sucked)
Tales of the Jedi	2022–present	Supervising	Yes	Yes	No		Creator and took "fill-in-the-gaps" too literally
Star Wars: Visions	2023	No	No	No	No		Got a Special Thanks for no reason
Ahsoka	2023	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Chopper	Also creator, and everything else
Skeleton Crew	2024	No	No	Yes	TBA	TBA