As Star Wars embarks on a new chapter of its unfolding saga, animation is a medium the franchise needs to lean on now more than ever.
SUMMARY
- Star Wars started as a titan of cinema, but as the original trilogy and prequels closed, it gained new traction in animation.
- Through animation, Star Wars evolved into something totally new as it filled in the gaps that the movies couldn't explore, from The Clone Wars to the rise of the Rebel Alliance.
- As a new era of Star Wars is born, animation has to be a crucial component to help expand on ideas already introduced in previous projects.
As the Star Wars universe continues to expand in every direction possible, there is one medium the franchise needs to rely on now more than ever: animation. Animated series have long been a part of Star Wars, starting initially with 2D animated series in the mid-80s like Droids and Ewoks.
While these series have garnered cult followings of their own, it would be decades before animation truly revolutionized the Star Wars brand. It wasn't until George Lucas reached out to a young Dave Filoni and proposed a 3D-animated series detailing the legendary Clone Wars that the saga found its footing in the medium, off the heels of Genndy Tartakovsky's 2D Clone Wars series in 2003.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008-2020) spawned an entirely new sect of the Star Wars fandom, reigniting a spark long dormant and showcasing the limitless potential of the animated medium. Since then, shows like Star Wars Rebels, Star Wars: The Bad Batch, and Star Wars:
Tales of the Jedi have continued this legacy, reinforcing animation's central role in maintaining the power of the franchise's overarching narratives. But as Lucasfilm and Disney set their sights on what's the next best step for Star Wars, they need not look far. Animation provides the footing the franchise needs to flourish and continue to be the cultural juggernaut it has been.
How The Clone Wars Reignited the Star Wars Fandom
The Star Wars prequel trilogy reached its explosive conclusion in 2005 with Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith completing the trilogy's exploration of Anakin Skywalker's fall to the dark side and the Galactic Republic's swift overtaking and reconstruction into the Galactic Empire.
George Lucas had finally told what he claimed to be the entire core story of the franchise, but the worlds and characters of the saga demanded to stay afloat. The next obvious step, beyond the books and comics that were still finding near-unanimous success in the fandom, was television. This would take the form of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, a uniquely animated account of the Clone Wars that had been shrouded in mystery since their first mention in 1977.
The Clone Wars told its stories through grand, overlapping arcs, prioritizing character and world-building on levels previously unheard of. While many fans had latched on to the prequel trilogy, the world at large wasn't quite as fond of Lucas' second trilogy.
The most vocal critics argued that the films lacked proper depth and relied too heavily on the new and promising world of CGI. Although these criticisms have since been debunked, and the prequels have found a resurgence in popularity that paints a more accurate picture of the public's real opinion of them, The Clone Wars provided an answer to these nitpicks.
Because of its animated nature, the worlds of Star Wars had never looked brighter, and the also-animated characters didn't clash with the worlds they were inhabiting. In a more serialized format, the characters of this era were able to be written with new layers of depth. Most notably, Anakin Skywalker got the chance to shine as the series planted the seeds of his fall early on and made his transition from naive Jedi to Darth Vader more believable.
In addition to the expansion of characters and storylines pre-established in the prequel trilogy, The Clone Wars was the first Star Wars project outside the films to introduce characters that would later go on to play much larger roles in the franchise. The biggest example of this was the introduction of Ahsoka Tano, Anakin's snippy apprentice who would end up becoming one of the most influential characters in the entire saga.
The series was instantly beloved by fans, maintaining Star Wars' popularity in between Revenge of the Sith and Disney's eventual purchase of Lucasfilm. While one of its biggest claims to fame was convincing previously upset fans that the prequel era had redeeming qualities, perhaps the biggest impact of The Clone Wars was the new era of fans it brought in, providing a serialized, colorful avenue for younger fans to start their Star Wars journey with.
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After Disney purchased Lucasfilm in 2012, The Clone Wars was quickly canned in favor of starting in a fresh, new canon landscape for the next era of the franchise.
While this was a huge letdown for fans of the series, it was promised that The Clone Wars was still canon and could very well affect future stories and projects. The most glaring example of Clone Wars-inspired content wouldn't take long to appear when, in 2014, Star Wars Rebels premiered.
While the series mostly focused on new characters upon its initial premiere, it was a clear successor to The Clone Wars, borrowing motifs and narrative throughlines and strengthening them within the context of the Galactic Civil War. Both series shared real-world similarities, too, acting as transitional material in between theatrical Star Wars stories.
Star Wars Rebels offered a much different structure than that of The Clone Wars, which relied heavily on individual arcs and sporadic subject matters that displayed the full range of potential in the Star Wars galaxy.
Instead, Rebels was a much more serialized series, choosing to focus solely on one group of characters and their journey from humble beginnings to eventually joining the Rebel Alliance at large and becoming a much more prominent group in the grand scheme of things.
The series would eventually come to honor its roots, bringing in characters like Ahsoka from The Clone Wars and tying the knots sewed by the chronological gap in between series. More than anything, Star Wars Rebels stood as proof that animation provided a landscape for more serialized stories in the same way that The Clone Wars offered a variety of tales.
The limits of the medium seemed inexistent, spanning multiple eras now and hundreds of characters and important plot points reflected in the theatrical films themselves. As Disney continued expanding this new canon, books, games, and comics would all begin intertwining in ways even rivaling the pre-Disney era, and this fed into Star Wars Rebels on occasion.
Rebels would reach its end in 2018 with a fitting series finale that beautifully concluded the tale of the Ghost Crew while also hinting at their future in the franchise -- a cliffhanger that would take years to resolve until finally being explored in 2023's Ahsoka live-action series. But the future of Star Wars animation would grow beyond Rebels and even beyond the 2020 Clone Wars revival season.
The Unlimited Potential of Star Wars Animation
Now, the saga's relationship with animation has only grown in scope and scale. Series like Star Wars Visions and Tales of the Jedi have pushed the envelope of what a Star Wars animated series can look like, while The Bad Batch continues to honor the aesthetic and narrative style of previous Filoni animated projects.
But beyond the next season of The Bad Batch, little is known about what the future of Star Wars animation will hold. If Lucasfilm is intentional about it, a reliance on this medium could be exactly what the saga needs.
Historically, Star Wars animation has thrived in transitional periods for the franchise. Now, as the sequel trilogy has concluded and the next slew of theatrical films remains distant, the franchise has found its footing in the realm of live-action television.
While this satisfies some types of fans and has offered incredible series like Andor, there needs to be a healthy amount of animation in Star Wars' DNA for it to maintain the stability it has for decades now. In animation, as in the Star Wars galaxy, the possibilities are truly limitless. They're a match made in heaven.
