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The Clone Wars Cancelled Due to Being too Graphic for Kids

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

When Star Wars: The Clone Wars was canceled back in 2012, fans of the much loved series were beside themselves. Rebel Force Radio’s Jimmy “Mac” McInerney, got wind of the cancellation, and championed a movement to keep the series going. In the end, with his help the series saw the release of a few final episodes on Netflix, but didn’t receive the satisfying ending it deserved.

Flash forward a few years, and the series is finally getting it much deserved final season, supposedly tying it into the events leading right up to Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith.

The series was considered a success, so why was it canceled anyway? When
announcing the cancellation of The Clone Wars in 2013, Lucasfilm said a decision was made to “pursue a new direction in animated programming.”

Now a recent chat with Daniel Logan at London Comic-Con might have revealed the real reason behind the cancellation. “Disney, they cancelled it, I think it was getting a little too graphic — actually, it was getting really graphic,” Logan said at London Comic Con. “Boba was doing some really, really cool stuff. He started actually becoming a bounty hunter.”

“We’d actually recorded seven episodes that didn’t get aired,” Logan said, pointing to an unfinished episode that would have pit Fett against Cad Bane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDoYwPQeqyw

“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,” he said. “So we actually recorded them… yeah, that’s all that’s left. They might come back, you never know.”

Now we have a little more information as to the “real” reason the series was canceled, in favor of a more kid friendly version of Star Wars in the form of Star Wars Rebels. Ironically, Rebels was getting more graphic before it ended as well…

Star Wars: The Clone Wars’ 2019 revival will premiere exclusively on Disney’s streaming service.

About Star Wars: The Clone Wars:

Star Wars: The Clone Wars will be returning with 12 all-new episodes on Disney’s direct-to-consumer streaming service. Created by George Lucas, the show first aired in 2008 and became an entry point into Star Wars for an entire generation, following fan-favorites like Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Padmé Amidala, while introducing major new characters like Jedi Padawan Ahsoka Tano and Captain Rex. Its stories were complex, its heroes and villains were perfectly imperfect, and its look was captivatingly beautiful. It became a multi-Emmy winner and is now regarded as essential Star Wars.

The Wookiee Speaks

Dragon Con 2017

I’ve been to my share of cons, but I’ve got nothing on Peter Mayhew. The man who has been Chewbacca for four decades is a regular on the con and Star Wars fan circuit, meeting and communing year after year with the people who love him—and whom he clearly loves as well.

Case in point: When asked by a fan at Dragon Con 2017 “An Hour with a Wookiee and a Bounty Hunter” panel to make the Chewbacca sound (a request that got a collective audience groan), Mayhew replied with a very emphatic “NO.”

And then he did it anyway.

This was my first time seeing Mayhew in a panel. From the start, you can’t help but be impressed with the man’s dedication to Star Wars and its fans—just the act of walking is not an easy task for him these days, but he gets to the chair no matter what.

He was joined by Daniel Logan, the actor who played Boba Fett in Attack of the Clones, and the relationship between these two men was striking. They never shared screen time or even behind-the-scenes screen time, but their work together at cons over many years has forged a deep friendship—even described by Logan as approaching a father-son relationship, to which Mayhew agreed.

After that tender moment, Mayhew gave the crowd a treat by forcing Logan to give him a fist-bump across the panel table, allowing us a glimpse of the size disparity between their two fists—think a robin’s egg vs. a grapefruit—and getting a rueful laugh from Logan.

Mayhew got all the typical fan questions—what was your favorite scene? (Answer: the chess game in A New Hope) Who was the biggest prankster? What do you think “makes Chewie Chewie?” He took them all in stride, offering long answers and many anecdotes about the shooting process in London.

Perhaps most interesting was Mayhew’s response to a fan’s question about what he thought of the newer Star Wars films; Mayhew grumbled a bit and said he “better not respond, “perhaps the biggest surprise of the panel. He also echoed J.J. Abram’s own stated regrets about the lack of a Chewie-Leia scene at the end of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which many felt robbed the bereft Wookiee (or audience) of a much needed mourning scene.

I left the panel quite happy with the experience. I was even inspired to read up about Mayhew a bit more and was delighted to discover that his first film role was as the Minotaur in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, a Ray Harryhausen tour-de-force and one of my childhood favorites.

I hope Mayhew returns for Dragon Con 2018, and considering the thunderous applause that ended the panel, I know I’m not the only one.