The Star Wars fandom can be a formidable force, and Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy credits the fans for bringing The Clone Wars back to screens in 2020 with new material for the first time in six years. The sudden cancellation of the series went down when there were still episodes already in development, and the fact that Clone Wars hadn't yet bridged the gap between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith meant there was still time in-universe. Thanks to fans, the Clone Wars crew gets to fill in the blanks.
Speaking with the LA Times, Kathleen Kennedy stated that the long-running fan campaign to revive The Clone Wars was what paid off, then said this:
It does matter what they say and what they care about. All of those things play a role in our decision making.
Well, there's no denying that the Clone Wars fandom was tireless in chasing new episodes of the series. For years following the end of the series in 2014, it was all but impossible to look into the comments beneath articles and videos (not to mention social media reactions) without finding #SaveTheCloneWars.
The premiere of Star Wars Rebels in 2014 (which would go on to feature Clone Wars' Ahsoka in a key way) restarted the Clone Wars conversation, but I was convinced the revival would never happen... up until I heard the announcement of the revival at the Star Wars: The Clone Wars 10-Year Anniversary panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2018. Even if I had never seen an episode of Clone Wars and had no idea of the passion many Star Wars fans felt for the series, the roar of a reaction to the news would have convinced me.
Unfortunately for all the fans, not a whole has been released about the Clone Wars revival other than that it will launch in February 2020 on Disney+. It will mark the second batch of original Star Wars TV content for the streamer, thanks to the fall 2019 premiere of The Mandalorian, but not the last.
Two more live-action series are already in the works, continuing to bridge the gap between film trilogies already tackled by Star Wars Rebels. Both the Obi-Wan Kenobi-centric series starring Ewan McGregor and the Rogue One prequel starring Diego Luna will debut on Disney+ as well, although no narrowed premiere window has been named for those projects just yet.
Perhaps the biggest question about the future of Star Wars animation is whether the Clone Wars story will be satisfactorily wrapped up at the conclusion of its seventh season. There have been no announcements that the series could continue beyond Season 7. The timeline is rapidly approaching the events of Revenge of the Sith, and most of the major characters of Clone Wars are either dead or accounted for following Revenge of the Sith.
Maybe Clone Wars fans who went on to become Star Wars Rebels fans will have an easier time dealing with a permanent ending after how Rebels pretty definitively ended the stories of the Ghost crew by the end of its series finale. (One quite a bit more definitively than the others.)
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Before any of us start mourning Clone Wars all over again, however, we can look forward to the 12 new episodes of the series that will begin releasing in February 2020. Ahsoka looks ready to go in the image revealing the February premiere, and Disney+ subscribers can always watch (or rewatch) the original run of The Clone Wars streaming now.
