The Star Wars Series Disney Will Never Let You See
There are plenty of promising Star Wars projects that have been canceled mid-production that will never see the light of day. A less frequent occurrence is a project getting fully produced and then shuddered before it even has a chance to shine. That’s exactly what happened to Star Wars Detours, the animated, Lucasfilm-sanctioned comedy series that was made but never released.
Although Detours wasn’t nearly as adult as Robot Chicken, it seems like Disney wasn’t really wanting the show to muddy its new creative direction for the franchise.
Star Wars Detours was created by the minds behind the Adult Swim stop-motion animated show Robot Chicken, Seth Green and Matthew Senreich. Apparently, George Lucas was such a fan of the parodies of Star Wars on Robot Chicken that he gave Detours the full green light to be produced. However, the timing couldn’t have been worse.
The Star Wars Detours show premiered at Star Wars Celebration VI in 2012, which just so happened to be right before Disney officially acquired Lucasfilm. Although Detours wasn’t nearly as adult as Robot Chicken, it seems like Disney wasn’t really wanting the show to muddy its new creative direction for the franchise.
The show would have shown humorous scenarios in the everyday lives of galactic citizens in the time period between the prequel trilogy and the original trilogy.
The official premiere of the series was subsequently put on hold in 2013, and the most recent update came from Seth Green himself in 2012, saying that Disney doesn’t really seem interested in releasing the show.
It’s a shame that Star Wars Detours never got a chance because it seems like it could have been something a little different for fans. The show would have shown humorous scenarios in the everyday lives of galactic citizens in the time period between the prequel trilogy and the original trilogy. It would also eventually incorporate characters like Han Solo, Chewbacca, Darth Vader, Princess Leia, and Emperor Palpatine.
The show also had a star-studded voice cast, including Seth Green, Felicia Day, Donald Faison, Abraham Benrubi, Jennifer Hale, Zachary Levi, Joel McHale, Breckin Meyer, Dan Milano, Andy Richter, Cree Summer, Catherine Taber, Grey Delisle, Seth McFarlane, and Weird Al Yankovic.
Perhaps one of the most frustrating things about Star Wars Detours is the fact that there is apparently a whopping 39 episodes that are fully produced and ready to air, with 62 additional completed scripts waiting in the wings.
Several Star Wars actors even reprised their roles from previous projects, including Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian, Anthony Daniels as C-3PO, Ahmed Best as Jar Jar Binks, and Dee Bradley Baker as the clones from the animated series.
Other than the trailer of the series, the only brief glimpse of Star Wars Detours that fans got was in 2020 when an episode titled “Dog Day Afternoon” leaked online before being quickly taken down. The episode followed Zuckuss (Andy Richter) and 4-LOM (Weird Al) as they attempt to rob Dexter’s Diner
Perhaps one of the most frustrating things about Star Wars Detours is the fact that there is apparently a whopping 39 episodes that are fully produced and ready to air, with 62 additional completed scripts waiting in the wings.
It seems a little weird that Disney is content to just allow 39 completed episodes of a potentially popular series to just go unaired and unwatched for eternity. At the very least, it would mix up the typical content that Disney has been releasing for Star Wars with a little something different.
While we may never see Star Wars Detours, Disney and Lucasfilm do have plenty of other projects on the way. You can catch the new Ahsoka series when it premiers on August 23. Disney also has a slate of new Star Wars films in the pipeline.
