The Star Wars Story That Made The Prequels Worth It

4. Why Disney Were Wrong To Cancel The Clone Wars

Star Wars The Clone Wars Season 7
Lucasfilm

In the end, The Clone Wars lasted for around five or so years, with Season 6 airing on Netflix, but failing to provide the closure some fans were in search of. It was a major shame, and though its replacement, Star Wars Rebels, did foster an audience of its own, it lacked the impetus it predecessor had possessed.

Yes, Rebels was a fine show and included a compelling cast of characters, but it didn't feel as necessary as the Clone Wars did. Whether that was because the gap between Episodes III and IV had already been well traversed previously, or because there were still Clone Wars stories left to tell doesn't really matter - the point is that it was a mistake to cancel the series in order to distance the franchise away from its ostensibly unpalatable elements.

By the time the last few episodes aired on Netflix in 2014, The Clone Wars had already proven its point. There was still plenty of untapped potential left in exploring the Rebublic before the dark times, and in further expanding upon the concepts broached by the Prequels, but that were never explored to a particularly edifying conclusion.

Consequently, the burden then fell to different mediums to keep the Clone Wars going. Dark Horse Comics' last Star Wars book adapted the unaired Son of Darthomir arc from the series, while various other storylines made their way online through storyboards, animatics, and early footage. However, only one became a fully-fledged novel - Dark Disciple, which was adapted from the incomplete and unaired eight-episode arc of the same name.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.