TV Talk: Mt. Lebanon native charts course for ‘Book of Boba Fett,’ ‘Mandalorian'

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week.

Mt. Lebanon native Dave Filoni has been living his childhood dream of playing “Star Wars” for two decades, trading his childhood action figures for writing scripts and directing costumed actors and massive “Star Wars” props on a Hollywood soundstage.

The 1992 Mt. Lebanon High School grad, who studied media arts and animation at northwestern Pennsylvania’s Edinboro University, got his start in the “Star Wars” universe when George Lucas hired him to direct the animated series “Clone Wars.” Filoni then oversaw multiple seasons of “Star Wars: Rebels,” revisited “Clone Wars” in 2020 following Disney’s 2012 purchase of Lucasfilm and with writer/director Jon Favreau launched Disney+ pop culture juggernaut series “The Mandalorian” in 2019.

Working with Favreau and director Robert Rodriguez, Filoni has been instrumental in making the latest “Star Wars” saga, “The Book of Boba Fett,” which will begin streaming on Disney+ Dec. 29. It’s a “Mandalorian” spin-off that follows the famed bounty hunter and his new sidekick, Fennec Shand (fellow Mt. Lebanon High School alum Ming-Na Wen), after bounty hunter Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) ascended to Jabba the Hutt’s throne on Tatooine at the end of “The Mandalorian” season two finale.

That scene was not envisioned from the start of “The Mandalorian,” which is filming its third season. Wen was originally hired to play a villain-of-the-week for a single season-one episode and at the end of it her character appeared to have been killed off. But a confluence of realizations led to Fennec’s revival.

“I was talking to Ming-Na [on set] and came to understand what a huge ‘Star Wars’ fan she was and I was like, ‘Gosh, this is a person that we were lucky to have involved with ‘Star Wars.’ She loves it so much,’” Filoni recalled.

Then the pair discovered their shared Mt. Lebanon roots.

“I was like, ‘Man, I have to figure out a way to save you. I can’t take out a [fellow] alumnus,’” Felloni said in a phone interview earlier this month. “So that’s kind of a joke she and I have about it. … Thank goodness we found a way to [keep Fennec around] because she’s proven to be an important piece of the story.”

What that story is in “Book of Boba Fett” is under wraps. A trailer for the seven-episode series uses scenes only from the first half of the first episode to avoid giving away plot twists.

Just as “The Mandalorian” gets its vibe from spaghetti Westerns, “The Book of Boba Fett” pulls inspiration from mafia movies.

“There’s definitely an underworld feeling, kind of the criminal underworld of the ‘Star Wars’ galaxy,” Filoni said, crediting Rodriguez for setting the tone for “Book of Boba Fett” when he directed the action-packed “Mandalorian” episode “The Tragedy,” where Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) kidnapped Grogu, AKA “Baby Yoda.” “[Robert] brings an intensity to this show, combined with John’s writing, and whatever it is I think I bring to ‘Star Wars’ — sometimes I pinch myself I’m so glad to be there and involved — but having Robert involved gives it a different type of edge than what John and I did with ‘Mando’ without him, so that’s been a perfect addition to our process.”

Filoni, who directed at least one “Book of Boba Fett” episode and was heavily involved in plotting and writing the season, also praised the contributions of Wen in the new series.

“Obviously you saw at the end of ‘The Mandalorian’ (season two, Fennec is a) strong ally of Boba Fett and we’re gonna understand why that is,” Filoni said.

“There are still a lot of blanks that need to be filled in by Dave and Jon Favreau,” Wen told me in July when discussing voicing Fennec in the animated “Star Wars” Disney+ series “The Bad Batch.” “I pick their brains constantly or I make suggestions, like, ‘Maybe she’s a Jedi in the future. She might have those powers.’ I always like to throw that in just to make them roll their eyes. As a kid, all I wanted to be was a Jedi but I’m very happy to be a bounty hunter. I love that they are exploring the bounty hunters because they were very important characters, but still very peripheral and mysterious. Given that they’re the bad guys, it’s very gratifying to see this human side of them.”

Filoni promises viewers will see more sides to Fennec in “Book of Boba Fett.”

“She’s a skilled assassin in her own right. Things change, lives change, characters evolve and you need someone like Ming that can deliver not just the action, but the subtlety and the depths that a character like Fennec needs in a series,” Filoni said. “Temura and her have incredible chemistry. We’re just a few short days away now from unwrapping this present and we’re so glad we could give it to the fans.”

Filoni, a huge Pittsburgh sports fan — he’s especially devoted to the Penguins — tries to work subtle local references into his “Star Wars” creations, from the “Clone Wars’” astromech droid R3-S6 (for Jerome Bettis’ No. 36) to the black-and-gold color scheme of Darth Maul’s brother, Savage Opress, to the elongated skull logo on the spaceship Ghost in “Rebels,” inspired by the goalie mask of ’80s-era Penguins goalie Michel Dion.

In “The Mandalorian” season two episode “The Passenger,” Filoni played an X-Wing pilot whose astromech droid has a small golden triangle above one “eye” in one shot (you can see it in the episode at 34:19). In the scene, Filoni also wears a helmet with black and gold accents.

“I do little things like that,” Filoni said. “I haven’t put, like, a Lt. Crosby (for Penguins great Sidney Crosby) or anything like that in. Although that would actually play and no one would be the wiser. I think I could get away with that one. Who knows, maybe we came up with a new ‘Star Wars’ character.”