Bryce Dallas Howard deserves her own Star Wars project

If it wasn’t obvious before, I think The Book of Boba Fett Chapter 5 eliminated any doubt: it’s time for Bryce Dallas Howard to get her own Star Wars project.

In season one of The Mandalorian, Howard was part of the team of directors who brought Star Wars to a live-action series for the first time ever. She directed “Chapter 4: Sanctuary,” which managed to capture a lot of the Western themes of Star Wars in a smaller, more intimate story than the rest of the season was doing. Howard returned for season two, directing “Chapter 11: The Heiress,” in which she brought Bo-Katan Kryze to live-action for the first time with a thrilling episode. And now, she’s made it three-for-three working on a live-action Star Wars series, directing “Chapter 5: Return of the Mandalorian” for The Book of Boba Fett, putting together an episode that will stand out among the very best – if not the best – hour of live-action Star Wars television to date, regardless of series.

Howard has proven herself as a director, and she’s proven to have a keen awareness of Star Wars and its thematic elements. Perhaps that shouldn’t be a surprise, given her father, Ron Howard, and his connection to George Lucas (directing Willow in 1988) and to Star Wars (directing Solo: A Star Wars Story in 2018), but that certainly isn’t to suggest that the reason Howard is deserving is because of her father. No, the reason she’s deserving is because she herself has proven to be a dynamic and excellent Star Wars director. And she deserves a chance to do more with that.

These shows have proven to be a testing grounds of sorts for future Star Wars filmmakers and showrunners. Deborah Chow, who directed two great episodes in The Mandalorian‘s first season, was tapped to be the showrunner on the highly-anticipated Obi-Wan Kenobi series – an incredibly good and well-deserved choice. Another director on the show’s first season, Taika Waititi, was then tasked with developing an upcoming Star Wars film, which he will write and direct. And then a director on season two of the show, Robert Rodriguez, is the showrunner of The Book of Boba Fett, also directing several episodes. Considering two of the other directors, Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, are basically serving as the showrunners for this entire inter-connected era of Star Wars storytelling, it actually means that more directors than not from the first two seasons of The Mandalorian have gone on to lead other Star Wars projects.

Additionally, there are only two people to have directed an episode in both seasons of The Mandalorian as well as The Book of Boba Fett: Star Wars legend Dave Filoni, and Bryce Dallas Howard. Filoni is the Executive Creative Director at Lucasfilm; Howard can surely get her own project, right?

I don’t know what that would be. I’m just saying that I think she’s proven to be totally deserving, so whether it’s a film or a series, I’d be totally for Howard getting the chance to helm a Star Wars project of her own. Considering the most recent episode she directed is one of the most cinematically-stellar pieces of Star Wars media we’ve seen in years, I think it’s safe to say that project would be in great hands.