Dave Filoni and Kathleen Kennedy are seen on a "Star Wars" stage. (Photo by Christopher Jue/Getty Images for Disney)
Sporting a trademark cowboy hat, Dave Filoni definitely gives off a vibe that says “creative,” not “suit.” Yet as the person who invigorated “Star Wars” through animation takes the baton from Kathleen Kennedy at Lucasfilm along with co-president Lynwen Brennan, they’ll have to navigate a thicket of second guessing and political trolling as treacherous as any asteroid field.
Filoni isn’t doing interviews now, but he seemed to see the future when the animated “Star Wars Rebels” concluded in 2017, telling me about possibilities for new storytelling, “It’s almost limitless,” while admitting that appraisal was “self-serving” given his desire to keep exploring the galaxy.
File that, perhaps, under “Be careful what you wish for.” Because as cliches go, Lucasfilm’s new team will need more than just The Force being with them to guide “Star Wars” past restless purists, nitpickers and trolls…
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Peter Claffey and Dexter Sol Ansell in “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.” (Photo by Steffan Hill/HBO)
HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’ Lite: With “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” “Game of Thrones” enters its “Tales of the Walking Dead” phase, where the assumption is a core of viewers are so enamored with the world of Westeros they’ll watch anything remotely connected to it.
Set a century before the original series, everything about this “Knight” feels smaller-boned—starting with the fact most episodes run 30-some-odd minutes—except for the protagonist: Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey), an orphaned squire floundering to carve out a path for himself as a knight.
There’s some irony in the smallness, since Duncan’s principal attribute is that he’s a veritable giant…
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