The acquisition of LucasFilm by Disney spelled out pretty clearly the fate of licensed Star Wars stories on television and in comics. Disney has its own television distribution method and with its ownership of Marvel Comics its also got its own established sequential art production house. And while it took a while before we heard for certain that Dark Horse would be losing its Star Wars licenses, the announcement came swiftly in the case of Cartoon Network’s Star Wars: The Clone Wars, confirming that the current and fifth season would be its last to air under the CN banner.
But the full fate of the show, and Lucasfilm’s animation division got an update today that’s equal parts “status quo” and interesting details.
First, while Lucasfilm Animations announcement does say that the end of Clone Wars is in sight, it also maintains that there’s plenty of things to do before they get there, but it doesn’t seem like those things will be another season:
After five highly successful and critically acclaimed seasons of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, we feel the time has come to wind down the series. While the studio is no longer producing new episodes for Cartoon Network, we’re continuing production on new Clone Wars story arcs that promise to be some of the most thrilling adventures ever seen. Stay tuned for more information on where fans can soon find this bonus content.
“Bonus content” would seem to indicate that we’ll be seeing this in some nontraditional form, as shorts, webisodes, or even something else; but not as more seasons of the show. I’m sure there are a lot of Clone Wars fans out there who’d like more info.
The announcement also gives some information on Star Wars Detours, the animated comedy series from the creators of Robot Chicken announced at Star Wars Celebration last year, which has, due to the Disney merger, been indefinitely postponed lest it conflict tonally with the new trilogy. That’s all the hard news in the announcement, except for a video with supervising director Dave Filoni, which includes a clip of this “bonus content” that hints a future storylines, and in which he says “There’s more Star Wars happening here than at any time I’ve ever been with the company… I look around the halls and Episode VII of Star Wars is actually being made every day at LucasFilm.”
Likely Filoni is being a little hyperbolic, but still, imagining that there might already be concept art for a new Star Wars is a pretty cool feeling. You can watch the video below, and read LucasFilm Animation’s announcement here.
