Speaking of the influence of Japanese / samurai cinema on Star Wars, something mildly interesting is how the creators of the FX show Shogun have cited Star Wars as a resource. It’s fun how a modern samurai show has wrapped back around to taking influence from Star Wars. A big one is the font used to translate the Japanese:

To the point that I’m pretty sure The Mandalorian uses the same one.

They’ve also cited Obi-Wan’s ANH look as the influence for Toranaga’s look (as a send up to Toshiro Mifune being Lucas’ first choice for Obi-Wan), and took inspiration from Lando’s betrayal at Cloud City for [SPOILER BELOW]

Saeki’s betrayal in episode 7.

RE: “Good talent”, I’ve been thinking about how transparently the process of finding creatives has been to this point.

Russian Doll becomes a hit, Headland has a show announced the following year.
Benioff and Weiss were offered a Star Wars before Game of Thrones ended. (doesn’t go anywhere)
Jon Watts gets Skeleton Crew as he concludes his tenure with the MCU Spider-Mans

NOT that I want Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo of Shogun to be saddled to Star Wars, but I think there’s no way their names haven’t been floated now re: potential helmers of something in the future. Shogun got great reception for FX/Disney - they’re clearly fans of Star Wars - and I think there’s a path forward there if after Andor, LFL wants to continue pursuing a prestige TV audience. Still, I am interested in the second season of Shogun (even if they’ve run through the source material) and would prefer they stick with what they’re doing.

(Counterpart is another really great show Marks did. I think Andor fans would really like it, it’s also a kinda sci-fi spy thriller.)

I just think “good talent” is hard to quantify, let alone for execs that only follow the money and recent successes. Obviously you can have someone with Tony Gilroy’s prestige and cache as a sure bet (not to mention that writer’s room and all its weight), but would other esteemed industry veterans really want to do it? That in itself was already such an odd serendipity.