One of the best things about the upcoming Disney+ revival of The Clone Wars is finally seeing unproduced content Dave Filoni and Pablo Hidalgo have been teasing over the past few years come to life on the screen: Anakin granting Ahsoka her own battalion; Ahsoka adjusting to life without the Jedi Order and down in the Coruscant underworld; more of Clone Force 99; and of course the Siege of Mandalore. While it’ll only be 12 episodes, the trailer above sure makes it look like it’ll be 12 episodes of pure TCW adrenaline. You can find the trailer at the 52:18 mark in the video above, while below I go over what we learned about some of this content at prior conventions.
Ahsoka living in the Coruscant underworld was first revealed at Celebration Anaheim 2015, which included a unproduced clip of her having speeder trouble as she descended into the lower levels. This year’s panel revealed the same clip, now fully animated, with a very curious difference: there’s a female mechanic who is on the platform she crashes on instead of a male character. The female character is one of the two sisters, Trace and Rafa Martez, that Ahsoka will be seen spending time with in the underworld. At Celebration Europe 2016, it was revealed there was to be three arcs about her time away from the Jedi, the first being starting her journey, which is the arc with the sisters, another dealt with her almost going back to the Jedi, while a third dealt with her having a brief fling with a young man named Nix. There was even another arc about her working with Yoda and the Jedi, investigating a Sith Temple deep below the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, with her basically battling Darth Sidious without knowing it. It seems like we’ll only get the one arc, but anything is better than nothing at this point!
Clone Force 99 aka the Bad Batch came to life in some rather excellent episodes, despite being unproduced, released online back in 2015. They were a fun take on 80’s action heroes and easily my favorite batch of clones, while their mission revealed a long teased secret: clone trooper Echo had survived! Seeing them in full animation is a blast, check here for an awesome clip from the upcoming season, and I can’t wait for a few more great laughs with Wrecker.
The Ahsoka Loyalist Troopers Anakin gives to Ahsoka before the Siege of Mandalore, as well as two new lightsabers, was first revealed in SWCA 2015 and expounded on at SWCE 2016, while SWCC 2019 has a unproduced clip of Anakin giving her the troopers, though you can see it in full animation in the trailer. I feel like the trajectory of these episodes will lead straight to the Siege, which we got snippets of in the novel Ahsoka, but now we’ll finally see Ahsoka and Maul’s battle there before Order 66 flips the switch on everyone, including Captain Rex. The most intriguing reveal about Ahsoka and Maul’s battle is Ray Park, Maul’s live-action actor, was brought in to do motion capture! Voice actor Sam Witwer considers the Siege episodes as the best thing they’ve ever done with the character. I’m just curious how much beyond the Siege we’ll get, because it was basically the end of the show besides a few episodes clearing up some of the fates of certain characters, though Ahsoka and Rex’s returns in Star Wars Rebels has explained a little.
No firm date yet when The Clone Wars‘ new episodes will join Disney+.
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website @MynockManor.
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