Star Wars has been a worldwide phenomenon ever since the original film, Episode IV – A New Hope, hit theaters nearly 50 years ago in May 1977. In the time since Disney purchased Lucasfilm nearly a decade ago, the amount of Star Wars content being produced has skyrocketed. Under Disney’s ownership, Lucasfilm has produced five feature films for the franchise, but they’ve also adopted a new focus on the television side of things.
While shows such as Dave Filoni’s animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars existed in the years prior to Disney; there has been a myriad of new television projects set in the galaxy far, far away that have been produced for Disney+ over the last few years. The Clone Wars was even revived briefly for a conclusive final season. Though Lucasfilm has obviously enjoyed massive success in the theatrical film landscape, Star Wars has also found exciting new avenues on the small screen. As a result of shows like The Mandalorian and Obi-Wan Kenobi, the franchise is currently in arguably the best place it has been since the Disney acquisition.
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All of this raises a question that once would’ve been unthinkable. Is the Star Wars universe better fitted for television? Here’s why the answer could be a yes.
Expanding the Universe
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The Star Wars universe is one of the most expansive that has ever been put to screen. However, as most of the feature films have been focused on the Skywalker family and various other characters connected with their story, most of the canonical universe building has come from Star Wars television. The biggest and earliest example of this comes from the aforementioned animated series The Clone Wars, which fills in the three-year gap between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. While this series was broadly focused on telling the story of the Clone Wars and the various heroes and villains of that era, Filoni capitalized on the show’s potential by exploring as many new corners of the universe as possible in that show.
Not only does The Clone Wars more thoroughly develop the likes of Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi into three-dimensional characters with their individual strengths and flaws; it also introduces an endless amount of new characters and worlds to populate the overall universe. It features the first on-screen canonical examples of how the story of the Star Wars universe expands much further beyond that of the Skywalker Saga. Whether it be in the complicated political turmoil of Mandalore, the developing dynamics and personalities of the Republic’s cloned soldiers, or the various adventures of other Jedi such as Kit Fisto, Shaak Ti, Plo Koon and Quinlan Vos, The Clone Wars wasn’t afraid to push the boundaries of what fans have gotten from Star Wars before.
After The Clone Wars, shows such as Star Wars Rebels and The Mandalorian have done an excellent job of continuing what that series started. The television side of Star Wars is much more willing and able to play with new characters and ideas in the universe. If it wasn’t for that willingness to take risks, fan-favorite characters such as Ahsoka Tano, Din Djarin and Captain Rex may have never existed, while others like Darth Maul and Boba Fett would’ve been left to their minor appearances and underwhelming ends.
On top of all that, Lucasfilm is gearing up to explore new eras of the Star Wars universe through Disney+. This will be seen most imminently through Tales of the Jedi, which will hit the streaming service later this year. The show is animated in the same style as The Clone Wars and The Bad Batch, and it will detail the lives of various Jedi throughout the canon. Two confirmed storylines will focus on Ahsoka and a young Count Dooku. Through telling the stories of Ahsoka’s parents as well as Dooku’s time as a young Jedi, Star Wars will be delving into a time period prior to The Phantom Menace. Chronologically, this will be the earliest Star Wars has gone in its timeline on-screen. The same will be done for the upcoming live-action show The Acolyte, which will be a story of dark side users set a hundred years before The Phantom Menace. While these time periods may have been explored in comics and novels, seeing them on-screen will make them feel more intertwined with the overall Star Wars franchise.
Connective Tissue Between Stories
As any fan of The Clone Wars will tell you, that series immensely elevates how enjoyable the prequels are to watch. This is because the show fills in many of the gaps that were left by the films themselves. The show resolves some hanging plot threads from The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones while also setting up many of the events of Revenge of the Sith. It introduces characters such as General Grievous and Saw Gerrera and readies them for their future film appearances, while also further developing known characters such as Anakin, Obi-Wan, Yoda, Dooku and more.
The Clone Wars series drastically improved the way many fans viewed the prequels, and it did so by making the overall story connect more cohesively between the films and to the larger series as a whole. Through television series such as The Bad Batch, Rebels, Obi-Wan Kenobi and The Mandalorian, Lucasfilm has thoroughly shown that they have a desire to connect all its Star Wars content into one cohesive story and universe. In addition to telling new stories of their own, the various Star Wars TV shows have also done a lot of work to fill in many of the holes left by the movies. They’ve picked up the pieces and managed to make sense of a lot of things that didn’t work as well in the films.
As of now, the only part of the Star Wars canon that seems fairly separate from everything is the sequel trilogy of The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker. While those films were financially successful, they also intensely divided the core Star Wars fanbase. With that, it seems that Lucasfilm is currently focused on other eras in an attempt to win back their fans. So far, they’ve done a good job of doing that, as The Mandalorian and Obi-Wan Kenobi have been massive hits. That doesn’t mean the sequel trilogy will be left to rot though, as it is likely only a matter of time before Lucasfilm revisits that era and begins piecing it together in the same way they have done to the prequels. A major step in this direction has recently been taken with the new novel Star Wars: Shadow of the Sith, which expands upon the backstory of Rey’s parents.
Different Styles and Creative Voices
When it comes to the Star Wars films, Lucasfilm seems to have a fairly narrow view of what can be released theatrically. In terms of story and tone, most of the franchise’s films have roughly the same perspectives and creative ideas behind them. The same goes for the visual medium used in the films, as there has only been one Star Wars movie that wasn’t live-action (the 2008 tie-in to The Clone Wars) and that didn’t fare particularly well at the box office. That’s not to blame Lucasfilm for that decision, as mainstream audiences are usually much more receptive to live-action filmmaking and general viewers understandably have specific expectations for what a Star Wars movie will be.
However, on television Star Wars does not have the same restrictions as it does on film. Generally speaking, viewers are much more open to new creative ideas and outlets on the small screen. The stakes don’t feel as high on television, because the audience isn’t having to make an entire evening out of going to the theater to experience the story. Television feels more casual, and therefore new directions for the franchise can be more easily tested and explored.
This has certainly been the approach Lucasfilm has taken over the last few years. In addition to animated shows like Rebels, The Clone Wars and The Bad Batch, there has been a lot more experimentation with visual style in Star Wars on Disney+. Most notably is the anthology series Star Wars: Visions. The first season of the show consists of nine standalone stories that were brought to life by seven different Japanese animation studios. The result is a visual and tonal exploration of Star Wars that is unlike anything fans have gotten before.
As a show, Visions is new, exciting, and certainly something that would’ve never happened in an official manner if not for television. Considering a second season of the show is also slated to premiere early next year, it seems that this kind of creative exploration is something Lucasfilm is keen to continue doing. The boundaries of what Star Wars is, have been continually pushed through television, thereby keeping the franchise fresh and exciting with each new entry. That’s not to say that Star Wars movies are pointless, as there’s a level of spectacle that comes with the theatrical experience that just cannot be replicated on TV. However, when it comes to building and developing the universe as a whole, it might be time for Star Wars to focus more on the small screen stories.
