Canceled Star Wars Series Coming Back For Another Season?
Star Wars: The Clone Wars actors Dee Bradley Baker and James Arnold Taylor mentioned at a convention that voice work was done for the show before it was canceled, meaning that Season 8 audio is out there.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars has come back for a final season before, but is it possible that Disney could bring it back one more time for an eighth season? The Direct reported on a panel where Clone Wars actors Dee Bradley Baker and James Arnold Taylor said they were already recording dialogue for Season 8 when the show was canceled. Taylor said, “There was a lot that was recorded,” adding, “George Lucas originally said he wanted to do 300 episodes of The Clone Wars.”
Taylor and Baker went on to talk about the cut episodes from Star Wars: The Clone Wars that they would have liked to see released. Baker mentioned an episode that featured Clone Force 99, aka The Bad Batch, while Taylor talked about an episode that featured actor James Hong. The episode would have dealt with Anakin Skywalker’s feelings about his padawan Ahsoka Tano leaving the Jedi Order and Obi-Wan helping him understand Ahsoka’s decision.
While it may be disappointing that we might never see those episodes come to fruition, fans undoubtedly feel lucky that we even got another season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars back in 2020. The series originally ran for five seasons and ended in 2013, with an abridged sixth season called The Lost Missions being added to Netflix in 2014. Eventually, Disney would announce one last season and release it on Disney+ in 2020.
The final season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars also managed to be one of the best seasons, as it introduced the Bad Batch, wrapped up the Siege of Mandalore arc, and showed Ahsoka‘s experience with Order 66. The Bad Batch would set up the spin-off series Star Wars: The Bad Batch, which is currently airing new episodes of its second season on Disney+. The season would see Matt Lanter, Ashley Eckstein, James Arnold Taylor, Dee Bradley Baker, Tom Kane, Sam Witwer, and Katee Sackhoff all return to reprise their roles.
It is a shame that they have dialogue recorded for episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars that we’ll never see. Of course, the work that goes into animating that dialogue is probably more than Disney is willing to put in, especially as the company is making cuts on content. Maybe the House of Mouse will decide to pull it out of the vault one day, but it seems unlikely for now.
Fortunately, Disney still makes plenty of great animated Star Wars content outside Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The aforementioned Star Wars: The Bad Batch uses the same animation style and continues some of the storylines post-Order 66. Last year, Disney also released Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi, which gave us two different story arcs that followed Ahsoka Tano and Count Dooku, respectively.
Of course, there is also the anthology series Star Wars: Visions which calls upon animation studios worldwide to make unique episodes set in the Star Wars universe in different animation styles. The second season was recently announced and is set to hit Disney+ on May 4, aka Star Wars day. Until then, you can stream every season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars on Disney+.
