Why Star Wars: The Clone Wars' Final Season Will Blow Everyone Away
Forget the Skywalker Saga. The finale to the biggest, most complex Star Wars story has yet to arrive. On February 21, 2020, Star Wars: The Clone Wars returns from a six-year hiatus to wrap up the adventure that began all the way back in 2008, years before Disney was running the show.
That's excellent news. Overseen by George Lucas and Dave Filoni — who also happens to be one of the men behind a little something called The Mandalorian — Star Wars: The Clone Wars is a deep and nuanced exploration of the Jedi, the Sith, and war in a galaxy far, far away. Many fans consider it the best Star Wars story ever told — and yet The Clone Wars was canceled in 2014, robbing the series of a real conclusion.
Disney+ is fixing that mistake, with a 12-episode seventh season that'll give The Clone Wars the finale that it should've gotten years ago. If you haven't seen The Clone Wars before, here are a few reasons why the final season will blow you away. If you have, then you don't need to take our word for it — you already know that it's going to be excellent.
All Ahsoka, all the time
Season seven of The Clone Wars has been in the works for a while. When the show was canceled the first time, the entirety of seasons seven and season eight had already been written. We know what many of those "lost" episodes would've focused on, too, and for the most part, they're all about Ahsoka Tano kicking ass.
Ahsoka, Anakin Skywalker's former apprentice, is an original Clone Wars creation, and has quickly gone on to become one of the most popular characters in the extended Star Wars universe. As Dave Filoni revealed at Star Wars Celebration Europe 2016, she's the focus of the final season of The Clone Wars, too. Filoni says a 12-episode storyline, split into three separate arcs, would've followed Ahsoka after she left the Jedi Order. At least two of those arcs are featured prominently in The Clone Wars' final season trailer, which clearly casts Ahsoka as the revival's main hero.
Ahsoka is a great character, and it's awesome to see her get the leading role in the final season. Besides, if you're sad we won't know what other, non-Ahsoka plots are, don't be. One was adapted into a comic book series, Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir. Another became the novel Dark Disciple. Finally, you can watch "The Crystal Crisis on Utapau" via unfinished story reels (originally, those were available on StarWars.com — you can still find them online, but you might have to do some hunting).
More Mandalorians than you can handle
If you're already sick of waiting for The Mandalorian season two, The Clone Wars' final season might help ease your pain. The biggest storyline confirmed for The Clone Wars season seven is known as "The Siege of Mandalore," and will see Ahsoka and Captain Rex lead a battalion of clones against Darth Maul, who conquered the planet Mandalore in season five, and his puppet government.
Thanks to panel appearances by Filoni, tie-in materials like the novel Ahsoka, and hints dropped on The Clone Wars' sequel series, Star Wars Rebels, we already know quite a bit about what happens during the siege. During an event known as "The Night of a Thousand Tears," gunships rain blaster fire down on Mandalorian recruits, decimating the planet's army. Ahsoka crosses lightsabers with Darth Maul at least twice. Captain Rex and his fellow soldiers paint their helmets to match Ahsoka's facial markings, paying tribute to the former Padawan.
It's a bold, epic story that The Clone Wars has been building to for years, and it should the highlight of the new season. "The Siege of Mandalore" was always slated to be The Clone Wars' series finale. Expect this one to be big.
Before The Mandalorian, there was Underworld
The other big arc coming in The Clone Wars season seven is actually a tie-in to a project that never got off the ground. Back before Disney bought Lucasfilm, George Lucas was working on a television show called Underworld, a live-action series that would've explored life in the Star Wars universe's seedy underbelly.
While around 50 scripts were written, Underworld was eventually put on hiatus due to budget concerns, and was scrapped entirely when Disney took over the franchise. Still, elements from Underworld live on. Some of the stories slated for Underworld appeared in Solo. Rogue One started as a mash-up of different Underworld concepts. A tie-in video game, 1313, was in development at LucasArts, but ended up canceled when the studio shut down.
Most importantly, however, Ahsoka will visit Coruscant's own hive of scum and villainy, level 1313, in the final batch of Clone Wars episodes. We may never get the full Underworld story, but thanks to The Clone Wars, we'll get a little taste of what could've been.
It's always darkest before the Crimson Dawn
In case the all of the footage of Mandalore in the Clone Wars season seven trailer didn't tip you off, Maul is back. While Star Wars Rebels already showed us how Maul's story ended, his tale is full of loose ends.
When Palpatine's former apprentice last appeared on The Clone Wars, he was running the planet Mandalore, which he conquered with his brother Savage Opress. The next time he popped up was in Solo, where he was the head of the Crimson Dawn crime syndicate. Given that a Solo sequel seems unlikely (although we're still holding out hope for a Disney+ spinoff), The Clone Wars might be the last chance we have to learn how Maul made the transition.
Even better, the two actors most associated with Maul are returning for The Clone Wars' final season, too. As he did in The Clone Wars, Rebels, and Solo, Sam Witwer will voice Maul in the revival, while Ray Park, who played Maul in The Phantom Menace, provides motion-capture. "When you see Maul fighting it's going to really be Maul fighting," Filoni says, promising "an epic lightsaber fight" between Maul and Ahsoka. Excited yet? Yeah, we thought so.
The Sith get their revenge (again)
The Star Wars prequel trilogy takes a lot of flak, most of it deserved, but over time the third film in the series, Revenge of the Sith, has become something of a cult classic. Dramatically, it's certainly the most satisfying of Lucas' prequel films, and Ian McDiarmid's scenery-chewing performance as soon-to-be-Emperor Palpatine is one of the best in the entire Star Wars saga.
Judging by the promotional materials, the seventh season of The Clone Wars won't just set up Episode III. It'll overlap with the film almost completely, giving a new perspective on the events we first saw unfold onscreen in 2005. In The Clone Wars' final season trailer, Anakin and a very pregnant Padme Amidala share a moment — something that couldn't happen, canon-wise, until after Revenge of the Sith's opening scenes. Mace Windu utters the line "I sense a plot to destroy the Jedi," which is lifted directly from the film.
Further, we know that the Siege of Mandalore leads directly into Order 66, the top-secret instruction that made the clones turn on the Jedi, paving the way for Emperor Palpatine's rise. While Order 66 is little more than a montage in Revenge of the Sith, expect to see the action go down in more detail in The Clone Wars. Keep your handkerchiefs ready. This could get very heavy.
When one story ends, another begins
The second in-canon Star Wars animated series, Star Wars Rebels, borrowed a lot from The Clone Wars. Both Ahsoka and Clone Captain Rex, who were first introduced in The Clone Wars, became major recurring characters on Rebels. Sabine Wren, a member of the Ghost, was a Mandalorian who had to deal with the fallout from Maul's regime. Speaking of the onetime Darth, Maul served as one of Rebels' major villains and ended up having a big rematch with his arch-nemesis, Obi-Wan Kenobi.
In season seven, The Clone Wars looks to be returning the favor. In addition to returning to Mandalore, where we'll finally see exactly what happened during the aforementioned siege, eagle-eyed Star Wars fans spotted a major Rebels character in The Clone Wars' final trailer. Yes, that's right: Look closely and you'll see Kanan Jarrus, real name Caleb Dume, standing next to master Depa Billaba.
Of course, Billaba died during Order 66, so if Kanan's appearance lasts for more than a few seconds, his arc isn't going to have a happy ending. And if it is a mere cameo? Well, you can always learn more about Kanan's backstory in the comic book miniseries Kanan — The Last Padawan and the novel A New Dawn. Besides, it'll be cool anyway.
Introducing the Bad Batch
We've actually seen one of The Clone Wars season seven's big story arcs before. In 2015, about a year or so after The Clone Wars' sixth (and then-final) season hit Netflix, Lucasfilm released one two of the show's unaired arcs, "The Bad Batch" and "The Crystal Crisis on Utapau," as rough, unfinished "story reels" on StarWars.com.
"The Crystal Crisis on Utapau" remains incomplete, but the final version of "The Bad Batch" is part of The Clone Wars' final season. Without going too far into spoiler territory, "The Bad Batch" focuses on a group of failed clone experiments who band together to form their own strike team, Clone Force 99. Led by Captain Rex, Clone Force 99 must steal "a combat algorithm" from the Separatist army.
Naturally, there's a little more to the episodes than that, including the return of one fan-favorite clone trooper — if you've seen the season three episode "Counterattack," you probably know who we're talking about — as well as some nods to the old Star Wars Legends continuity and plenty of action. Best of all, the storyline was created by George Lucas himself, and has been given a complete visual overhaul for season seven. It might've taken a while to get "The Bad Batch," but when it arrives, it should look great.
Previously on The Mandalorian...
The Star Wars universe has changed quite a bit since the last Clone Wars episode aired. Not only has Lucasfilm released five more Star Wars films in theaters, but the first live-action Star Wars TV show, the Disney+ series The Mandalorian, has taken the world by storm. Mostly, Disney has the unfathomably adorable, meme-friendly Baby Yoda to thank for that, although The Mandalorian's season finale also dropped a major Clone Wars reference in the form of the Darksaber.
It seems pretty likely that The Clone Wars' final season will have some kind of tie-in to Disney+'s other big Star Wars show. Some parts of the Siege of Mandalore, i.e. the Night of a Thousand Tears, have already been mentioned on The Mandalorian. Dave Filoni runs both shows. Heck, the Mandalorian creator even voiced characters on both series: On The Clone Wars, he plays Mandalorian leader Pre Vizsla, while he's the similarly-named Paz Vizla on the live-action show.
The Mandalorian references in The Clone Wars might just be Easter eggs. We may not recognize them until The Mandalorian's second season arrives this fall. Still, given the situation, it would be shocking if the two series didn't crossover somehow. Watch carefully, and keep Wookieepedia handy. Chances are, there are a few surprises in store.