Why the final season of The Clone Wars should drop in 2020

Lucasfilm hasn’t announced a release date for the final season of The Clone Wars. With a heavily packed fall schedule, fans may have to wait until 2020 to see their favorite Star Wars animated heroes return to their television.

When Disney revealed the lineup for its upcoming D23 Expo in Anaheim, they announced a new look at The Mandalorian and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. The Clone Wars, however, has been noticeably absent from the discussion. If we’re not getting a sneak preview of the upcoming 12-episode season at D23 in August, what does this imply for the show’s release date?

The answer: don’t expect it in 2019. Fans have been waiting a long time for the hit animated series to return, and they’ll have to wait a little longer.

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Although we got a full Clone Wars panel at Star Wars Celebration Chicago this April—packed with cast members, never-before-seen clips, and a trailer that led to a deafening reaction from the crowd—it’s been almost a full year since the announcement, and we’re still left waiting with anxious excitement over when it’s actually happening.

The reality is The Clone Wars is likely coming in 2020.

Lucasfilm is heavily focused on its live-action projects, and it doesn’t make sense from a marketing perspective to cram a new show into an already crowded fall lineup. The Mandalorian is launching with Disney+ on November 12, and The Rise of Skywalker hits theaters December 20, leaving no wiggle room for our prequel-era heroes such as Ahsoka and Captain Rex.

A 2019 release doesn’t make sense from a financial standpoint, either. Subscriber longevity is going to be what keeps the Disney+ heart pumping for many months and many years. The streaming model only works when you trickle out content over time and keep customers buying into the $6.99 monthly price tag. If you’re just a Star Wars fan and The Clone Wars and The Mandalorian are released around the same time, what’s the point of sticking around once you’re done?

The Mandalorian will have eight episodes, but it’s unknown if the first season will drop all at once or follow the traditional weekly model. Assuming the latter, eight weeks puts us at December 31. Add in a few weeks to give fans some breathing room, and you can expect the The Clone Wars to drop in late January or early February to keep the Star Wars conversation alive.

This wouldn’t be entirely surprising, considering that the The Lost Missions hit Netflix on March 7. It’s still entirely possible we could get a look at The Clone Wars at Friday’s Disney+ panel, but it seems odd to not explicitly mention both shows on the schedule if that’s the case.

Pre Visla – Star Wars: The Clone Wars; Lucasfilm

What originally premiered as a film in 2008, The Clone Wars ended up on the cutting room floor in 2013, a year after Disney acquired Lucasfilm. Creator Dave Filoni announced one more season, titled The Lost Missions, which took scripts and designs that had already been worked on and made them into a 13-episode arc released on Netflix in 2014. If you binged it all in a single day like I did, you felt that gut-wrenching feeling from not getting a true ending.

Four years later, at the show’s 10th anniversary panel at San Diego Comic Con, Filoni dropped the bombshell that the show would return for one more season—it ignited the fan base, who spread #CloneWarsSaved, and gave Filoni a chance to finish the show on his own terms.

From what we’ve heard from the cast and crew, Filoni will end the show in jaw-dropping fashion.

So what do you think? Sound off in the comments below on when you think we’ll be getting season seven of The Clone Wars.