Disney Cancelled Star Wars: The Clone Wars Because They Thought It Was Too Graphic

There was a lot of very justified wailing when Disney cancelled Star Wars: The Clone Wars, with the studio claiming that they wanted to “pursue a new direction in animated programming.” After a rocky start, the show developed into an unexpectedly compelling watch with some all-time fan favorite Star Wars characters. Not to mention that it was happy to explore some very strange corners of that galaxy far, far away that you’d never see in a film.

Most had assumed that Disney cancelled it as part of the continuity shake-up that saw the Expanded Universe thrown in the trash and various in progress projects being cancelled. But now, according to Boba Fett’s voice actor Daniel Logan, the studio axed it because of concerns about violence and the increasingly adult tone.

Speaking at the London Comic-Con, Logan said:

“Disney, they cancelled it, I think it was getting a little too graphic — actually, it was getting really graphic. Boba was doing some really, really cool stuff. He started actually becoming a bounty hunter [and] at the time, it was just too graphic, I think, for what Disney was used to. We’d actually recorded seven episodes that didn’t get aired, so there was so many episodes that was coming up, and Boba was just doing some really cool stuff. I don’t cry, but I started tearing up when I saw some of these episodes and what I was doing. So we actually recorded them… yeah, that’s all that’s left. They might come back, you never know.”

It was replaced by the still pretty good, but slightly toned down Star Wars Rebels, which itself has now been superseded by Star Wars Resistance. And, by July 2018, even the most optimistic fans had resigned themselves to never finding out the finale of The Clone Wars saga. Then came the San Diego Comic-Con, where the much-loved show was resurrected and allowed to conclude its story in a 12 episode run. So, who knows, maybe we’ll see those already recorded Boba Fett episodes that Logan was so emotional about being canned?

Said revival is coming with quite a bit of hype. too. It’s one of the first Star Wars shows announced for Disney’s Netflix-bothering streaming service and while it’s not quite as big a deal as The Mandalorian, The Clone Wars will still probably be one of the centerpieces of their launch line-up.