Star Wars: The Clone Wars Obi-Wan Kenobi star revealed what fans almost saw in Season 8 and which storylines were recycled.
Set between the events of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, The Clone Wars animated series debuted in 2008 but was canceled in 2013 during its sixth season.
Prior to the show's initial demise, a seventh and eighth season of The Clone Wars was relatively far along with early animation and voice work completed. These plans would ultimately be scrapped once the show was canceled, though some elements were brought back for Disney+'s revival of the show's final season.
What Became of Star Wars: The Clone Wars's Cancelled Season 8
In promoting The King of Kings at WonderCon, James Arnold Taylor, the voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi, addressed Lucasfilm's original plans for The Clone Wars Season 8 prior to the show's cancellation.
When asked how the show's scrapped seasons differed from The Clone Wars Season 7 that ultimately released on Disney+, James Arnold Taylor told The Direct's Russ Milheim that Star Wars Rebels contained "a lot of the stories we would have seen" from the original plans:
"So Dave Filoni really kind of had to master these stories, because we had 'Rebels' that came out right after 'Clone Wars.' And a lot of the stories that we would have seen in 'Clone Wars', I think, kinda ended up... You know, Ahsoka's storyline, Vader's storyline... Those scenes kinda ended up in 'Rebels' to a degree."
Star Wars Rebels, which takes place 14 years after Revenge of the Sith and before A New Hope, ran from 2014 to 2018 and featured familiar characters from The Clone Wars, including Ahsoka Tano, Darth Vader, and even Arnold's Obi-Wan Kenobi via Holocron.
According to the voice actor, showrunner Dave Filoni had envisioned The Clone Wars' finale that overlapped with Revenge of the Sith way "back in Season 2" and possibly earlier, saying:
"So then how do you take that and craft it and bring it back around and make it make sense in a seventh season? But he [Filoni] did an amazing job. Everybody did an amazing job doing that. I remember back in Season 2 having a... This sounds very Hollywood, 'We were at the ranch. I was at Skywalker Ranch and I was hanging out with Dave Filoni.' And he was telling Dee Bradley Baker, whose the voice of all the clones, and myself, the story of what he hoped to do someday. Kinda bringing Vader back in and wrapping Episode 3 in. And he did it masterfully."
Since The Clone Wars, James Arnold Taylor has continued to voice Obi-Wan Kenobi in animated Star Wars projects, including Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi and several Star Wars LEGO titles.
Check out how close the original Season 8 of Star Wars: The Clone Wars was to actually happening here!
Is Disney+'s Ahsoka Another Scrapped Clone Wars Storyline?
Not only did Season 7 of Star Wars: The Clone Wars expand the events of Revenge of the Sith while also wrapping up Ahsoka, Rex, Anakin, and the clones' arcs, but it also explained certain events from Star Wars Rebels which concluded two years prior in 2018.
So not only did Dave Filoni finally get to tell his Ahsoka and Vader story, but he did so across two animated shows instead of one.
Still, as series like Tales of Jedi, Tales of the Empire, and The Bad Batch for Disney+ have shown, that doesn't mean he's ready to close the book on all of his Clone Wars ideas.
In 2023, Ahsoka on Disney+ brought many of Filoni's animated heroes (and a fan-favorite villain) into live-action while also revisiting Ahsoka's relationship with Anakin/Darth Vader and The Clone Wars' Mortis gods storyline.
With Ahsoka Season 2 allegedly "kicking off" soon, the question is how much of that animated prequel series will return in this MandoVerse series and if Star Wars fans are seeing more of The Clone Wars scrapped seasons than previously thought.
Check out everything we know about Natalie Portman's rumored return for Ahsoka Season 2.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars is streaming on Disney+.
