Lucasfilm’s leader confirmed what everyone already knows: Star Wars fandom isn’t one big, happy family. Dave Filoni was promoted to president and chief creative officer in January, taking the reins from Kathleen Kennedy as Star Wars is stuck in an awkward spot. The Mandalorian and Grogu gave the franchise its first theatrical return in seven years this May, but the film didn’t connect with audiences and is the lowest-grossing Star Wars movie of the Disney era. With Ahsoka Season 2 not set to debut until January 20, 2027, Star Wars fandom is in an active holding pattern.
While speaking on Disney Worldbuilders – Live From D23, available to stream on Disney+, Star Wars President Dave Filoni was asked about Star Wars’ presence at the Disney Parks. Galaxy’s Edge, up and running at Disneyland and Disney World, is the premium Star Wars theme park experience so far. Set on the planet Batuu, the land was designed to fit within the Star Wars canon, where sequel trilogy characters like Kylo Ren, Rey, and BB-8 had all visited. Disney started adapting this approach, especially by including Disney+ stars like Din Djarin and Grogu, but a major shift began this year.
In April, Disneyland’s Galaxy’s Edge rewound the timeline, introducing iconic classic-era characters like Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, as the original trilogy characters are still the most recognizable, despite A New Hope having been released nearly 50 years ago.
More directly, Filoni answered a question about what’s important for Galaxy’s Edge to preserve as Disney Parks continue to evolve. He harkened back to his time working with Star Wars creator George Lucas on “a hundred episodes of Clone Wars,” highlighting how there was more to just Star Wars movie storytelling:
“Well, I’m always excited about the future of Star Wars. I’ve told so many stories. George and I made over, I think, a hundred episodes of Clone Wars alone, and he showed how you could tell almost any kind of story in Star Wars, not just what he’d done in the films.”
He praised his old boss, describing how Lucas used to always push the limits of creativity, even if it seemed impossible:
“He was always experimenting and pushing the limits and saying, ‘What about this? What about this?’ He’s never afraid to experiment and to attempt to do things. And a lot of things where you’re like, ‘We can’t possibly do that.’ And he’s like, ‘Right, but let’s just see if we can.'”
Filoni then made an apt comparison between Lucas and Walt Disney himself, “I wonder how much that influenced George:”
“And that attitude, you recognize when you see Walt Disney, you know? And I wonder how much that influenced George and the way he thinks, when he saw how much an imagination can overcome any obstacles.”
Just like any Disney theme park, Filoni confirmed, “Star Wars land should evolve” and then transitioned into the “different generations of Star Wars fans:”
“So, the park is something that should evolve and Star Wars land should evolve like that as well when you see what people are interested in. We have several different generations of Star Wars fans, right?”
Filoni declared the five types of Star Wars fans in 2026, each pointing back to different generations over the past half-century.
The 5 Types of Star Wars Fans
Original Trilogy
This is why Star Wars matters: the epic story of Luke Skywalker, a nobody, eventually rising up to take down the evil Empire, and his dad just so happens to be the red lightsaber-wielding evil Sith.
At the end of the day, the original trilogy (A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi) is why Star Wars became the franchise it is, and a lot of fans still have these three movies near the top of their movie rankings.
This is the most vast, OG group of fans Filoni could mention. If you’re not a fan of these movies, you’re not a fan of Star Wars.
Prequel Trilogy
Since the kids born in the 1990s and early 2000s have grown up and had a voice, the fandom around the prequel trilogy has risen dramatically.
While these movies get a lot of flak for the green screens, overuse of CGI, the acting, and the overly political storytelling, there’s a massive sect of Star Wars fandom that loves them.
Episode III: Revenge of the Sith holds a lot of love in the fandom, with some younger fans even naming it their favorite Star Wars film ever.
Sequel Trilogy
This is a more complex and divisive set of fans. Sure, a lot of people enjoyed the sequel trilogy on the surface. Together, The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker grossed over $4.4 billion across the three movies released from 2015 to 2019.
That said, after Star Wars played it safe with The Force Awakens, Rian Johnson split the fanbase deeply with The Last Jedi, and then most people despised The Rise of Skywalker. Only time will tell how this trilogy ages with a younger generation over the next 20 years.
Clone Wars
Based on the animated series The Clone Wars, set between live-action Episodes II andIII, this is possibly the group Dave Filoni is most proud of. The series grew so many viewers’ fandom so deeply over its 130-plus episodes. If you are a huge Clone Wars fan, you know Star Wars.
Flashbacks to this era were brought into live action in Ahsoka Season 1, and they’ll be back again in Season 2.
Expanded Universe
Gone, but not forgotten. The Star Wars Expanded Universe (EU) was a massive collection of officially licensed novels, comics, video games, and other media that fleshed out the galaxy’s history well beyond the original three movies.
Rebranded as “Legends” following Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm, this set of stories and characters was designated non-canonical in 2014.
This was unified into a more focused timeline, but many Expanded Universe fans were upset when this happened in 2014. Most importantly, the EU introduced iconic characters like Grand Admiral Thrawn and Darth Revan.
The Future of Star Wars Fandom
With the five Star Wars fan groupings laid out by Dave Filoni, he elaborated on how they differ and how he can “bring them all together” through Disney parks:
“They all have different interests, and I always look at, ‘How are we going to serve all these different interests?’ And most importantly, how do we bring them all together?’ Because they have this common love of Star Wars and I think that the park is a great place to do that.”
From there, Filoni got specific about what that actually looks like behind the scenes,“we’ll update things,”and added shared his excitement:
“And so, we’ll update things, we bring new characters in, we make rides different. I go on them and I like to think, ‘Well, I would like this to happen.’ And now, that’ll happen, which is, selfishly, really amazing…”
He talked about the effect that the parks can have on fans, making their dreams come true, which Filoni described as “very surreal:”
“You draw something and then you show up at the park and then it’s there. And it just is there. It walks up and talks to you. And it’s very surreal. Even though I have that experience on set, when it’s here, and again, you’re surrounded by people that are just getting to experience that ’cause they aren’t on movie sets, it’s very special.”
Zooming out, Filoni admitted he’s still “nostalgic for Star Wars” himself, leading him to praise George Lucas once again and explain how he tells his team, “All the clues we need to know, everything we need to study to be a Jedi are in his films:”
“And so, I think we have to be thinking of… I’m nostalgic for Star Wars. How do we maintain its past, but how do we move it forward? No one was better at that than George himself, if you look at the original trilogy and the prequels. And I tell my whole team, ‘All the clues we need to know, everything we need to study to be a Jedi are in his films. We just need to pay attention. And that’s what I’m doing and trying to help people understand.”
A few potential Star Wars fan groups that Filoni didn’t mention are Disney+ Star Wars fans and, however one would categorize them, the people who have Rogue One and Andor as their top two projects ever.
