Dave Filoni has been a central part of the  Star Wars franchise for years now. The director and screenwriter was one of the main creative forces behind the animated  Star Wars  The Clone Wars show during its run before moving on to bigger projects. Those have included high profile Disney+ originals like  The Mandalorian and  The Book of Boba Fett as well as upcoming projects like  Ahsoka. Simply put Filoni has been very busy and hands on when it comes to the television side of the vast  Star Wars universe.







However before Filoni made a mark on the galaxy far far away he did a lot of storyboard work on various animated programs including the highly popular  Avatar The Last Airbender series that aired on Nickelodeon. Even then  though it seems that Filoni was a big fan of  Star Wars and the animator found a clever way to inject some of the propertys aesthetic into the world of  Avatar.


During an episode of the  Avatar Braving the Elements podcast hosts Janet Varney  who portrayed the title character on sequel series  The Legend of Korra and Prince Zuko voice actor Dante Basco discussed the  Avatar  Season 1 episode  Jet  which introduces the eponymous character and his group of rebels called the Freedom Fighters. Interestingly enough they discussed at length how Dave Filoni was the designer of the Freedom Fighters forest which he apparently modeled after the Ewok village from  Star Wars Episode VI  Return of the Jedi. The Ewoks of course end up being something of rebel fighters themselves when they join up with Luke Skywalker  Mark Hamill and company to bring down the evil Empire.


In fact according to Basco and Varney some of the early sketches created by Filoni even name dropped the Ewoks when talking about the Freedom Fighter base of operations. However  its also noted that part of the inspiration came from the 2004 Chinese film  House of Flying Daggers. Of course both of these inspirations can coexist especially for Filoni who clearly pulls ideas from many different sources. Still this is a fun bit of behind the scenes lore for fans of both properties to unveil at their next nerdy dinner party.