When George Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney for a whopping $4 billion, the initial plan was to use his story outlines for the Star Wars sequel trilogy. Ultimately, the decision was made to head in a different direction, resulting in a series of movies that are nothing if not divisive.
The Star Wars creator is no longer creatively involved with the franchise, but he has been spotted on the set of The Mandalorian on at least a couple of occasions.
In fact, it was during one of those that Lucas gave a name to a fan-favourite helmeted warrior.
Talking to The Holo Files (via SFFGazette.com), Axe Woves actor Simon Kassianides recalled, "My very first time meeting Jon [Favreau] and Dave [Filoni], and being fitted, for Season 2...Jon and Dave looked at each other and asked if I knew how the character got his name. I just said it’s a pretty cool name."
"And they said that the day that George Lucas visited the set, he was sitting there and just suggested that there should be a character called Axe, quite randomly. But from that moment onwards I thought, 'I better get my textbooks out.; I mean humbling, right?"
"I mean, you’re involved in something like that. And you realize that the guy conjured up this really cool name," the actor adds. "You know just that it adds to it all."
Axe is an undeniably badass name, and it's great to know Lucas had some small part in his creation.
At the same time, it's a shame the filmmaker hasn't been convinced to return to this Galaxy in order to perhaps direct an episode of a Disney+ TV series or even develop a new film. However, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy is calling the shots these days and having a hard enough time keeping directors around as it is.
Kassianides recently revealed that Axe Woves was meant to die during The Mandalorian's second season. You can learn more about that by clicking here.