As I noted in my initial review of the last season of “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” the biggest downside to seeing the show return was that most of the stories had already made their way out to the public in the years since the show was first canceled back in 2013. At the time of cancellation, there were over 60 episodes in different stages of development, while the final season that debuted on Disney+ was only 12 episodes long.
In an interview with Nerdist, show creator Dave Filoni spoke about choosing the story arcs to include in the final season, and the ones that didn’t make the cut. “It’s really a combination of several things at play there. One of them was definitely that some of the episodes you saw were very far along in the pipeline,” Filoni said. “So, for example, the Bad Batch pipeline was just about ready to go into animation. It wasn’t animated when we shut down before, but it was right there.” Filoni also thought it necessary to use these clone-centric episodes as an introduction to the world of “The Clone Wars” for new audiences.
The second arc followed Ahsoka through the underworld of Coruscant. This middle-chapter was slower, and was critics and audiences noted that it felt like a downgrade from the excitement of the first episodes. Filoni argues it was necessary to show this story, “That story arc was important because you have to frame Ahsoka’s story and her ultimate ending with what the world is like outside the one she knows,” the creator said. “How is this Clone War affecting regular people? What’s the impact on that? And she needs that perspective in order to even consider going back into the world of the Jedi and the combat and the fighting because she has to understand what she’s fighting for and what she represents.”
Then, of course, the last four episodes were dedicated to the Siege of Mandalore, which is among the best stories ever told in the “Star Wars” franchise. One particular story that Filoni says almost made the cut involved Darth Maul and how he escaped Darth Sidious’ grasp and returned to Mandalore.
“I felt that that was going to be important, but I couldn’t fit it into the arcs and I didn’t want to jam it in there. And we had done it as a comic book release, and I was really appreciative of Dark Horse for doing that. So I thought, ‘Well, the information is out there for people that want to do that deep dive.’ I just have to tell the story in a way that explains who he is and that he’s loose.”