Star Wars will continue the Star Wars: The Clone Wars story with the upcoming Disney+ Maul: Shadow Lord series, but the star-faring franchise needs to say goodbye to one key thing for the 2026 animated sequel to maximize success. Since its debut in 2008, Dave Filoni's Clone Wars series has become a foundational text of the Star Wars canon.
This (at the time of its debut) fairly simple Star Wars cartoon has spawned some of the franchise's most beloved stories over the last 20 years and has gone on to produce multiple sequels, both on- and off-screen. The next title to pick up the Clone Wars torch will be 2026's Maul: Shadow Lord.
The franchise's latest planet-hopping adventure will center on Sam Witwer's dual-sabered Dathomirian as he navigates the new frontier of an Empire-led galaxy. Everything said or shown about the series so far indicates it will maintain the same high level of quality set by The Clone Wars; however, that could be both a blessing and a curse.
Maul: Shadow Lord Needs To Change One Key Element of The Clone Wars Series
While Star Wars: The Clone Wars remains one of the most beloved Star Wars titles of all time (currently sitting at a stellar 93% on Rotten Tomatoes), it is by no means perfect. One of the biggest complaints fans have had about Clone Wars since the day it first hit TV screens has been its lackluster arc structure.
As it progressed, Clone Wars would eventually feature an increasingly overarching story from season to season, but even so, it remained broken down into small three- or four-episode arcs that could be hit or miss for fans.
Seeing as Maul: Shadow Lord has been branded the next chapter in the Clone Wars story, fans have been worried that the 2026 series may continue this concerning trend, perhaps kneecapping the series' potential before it is even released.
As an example of how this arc structure can go wrong, all fans need to look at is the acclaimed seventh (and final) season of Clone Wars. While, for the most part, audiences heralded Clone Wars Season 7 as one of the best seasons of Star Wars TV ever, its leaning on this arc-style of storytelling is also its biggest weakness.
When most people talk about Clone Wars Season 7, they are referring to the opening arc and the closing arc; however, there is a middle bit in there, a third arc, that many forget. This set of episodes, colloquially known as the Martez Twins arc, is easily the weakest of the bunch and ultimately takes away from what could have been a near-perfect season of television.
Other infamous arcs sit as marks against the Clone Wars series, including the Jar Jar arc in Season 6 and the "Droids in the Void" arc from Season 5.
This arc structure is not just something that plagued the Clone Wars series, either. Its lackluster results were also evident in the Clone Wars sequel, Star Wars: The Bad Batch. Like Clone Wars, The Bad Batch thrived when it was navigating its great overarching story, but was marred by slow-moving, off-the-beaten-path story arcs that filled out each season's episode order.
How the Maul TV Show Can Avoid Clone Wars' Biggest Mistake
Both Clone Wars and The Bad Batch were at their best when the world and characters were driving toward a larger narrative goal rather than being broken up into bite-sized three-episode adventures.
If Maul: Shadow Lord can focus on that specifically, it can leave the weaker parts of its animated predecessors by the wayside and be a more distilled narrative experience. It could be all of the good, with none of the bad, essentially.
This could be especially effective given Shadow Lord's more mature-leaning story. All signs point to the upcoming 2026 Clone Wars sequel show being one of the darkest and most grown-up animated projects in franchise history.
Maul voice actor Sam Witwer previously teased the show's 'shades of grey' narrative, as his character asks himself post-Order 66, "'Is this better? I'm not sure this is better:"
"You have a guy who comes from the time of magic, but times have changed. And then he was born and raised to destroy the Jedi, but now they're gone, and he's seeing the alternative and going, 'Is this better? I'm not sure this is better. And also, boy, how do I feel now that I'm the Joker and Batman's dead? What does that feel like?'"
This sounds like the kind of story best served by a lean, directed narrative, without any of the waywardness that these arc structures can spawn. Combine these ideas with the trailer revealing a character who appears to be the new canon's version of Darth Talon and Maul: Shadow Lord appears set to tell a focused story across its ten episodes.
If Lucasfilm can lean into that effort, then Disney+'s Maul: Shadow Lord could be something special.
