”Star Wars" fans argue so much about the successes of the franchise, it's easy to let the true
failures slip your mind. The Kinect game? The 3D re-releases? "Detours"? Those and more ahead.
If you thought Star Wars didn't enter the world of animated television until the 21st century, you'd
be wrong — but you wouldn't be alone, either. After all, Lucasfilm has largely buried the
company's first foray into this particular genre, one that occurred as far back as the 1980s. That's
when Star Wars: Droids attempted to make waves in the world of Saturday morning programming.
However, the show struggled for a number of reasons.
For one, it had a pretty hefty price tag, with each episode running between $500,000
and $600,000. And while C-3PO and R2-D2 are always a hit with the fans,
none of the side characters were really clicking. Artist Brian Lemay later told SyFy Wire:
"The secondary characters that [the droids] were involved with were not really strong characters.
They were just these characters that were thrown in to carry them through an adventure of sorts."
Worse still, this intensely family-friendly show lacked any sort of edge. Future Star
Wars cartoons wouldn't be afraid to spice things up a little, but Droids was allowed
no such flourishes. The man behind C-3PO, Anthony Daniels, even once complained:
"You can't put a custard pie in my face because of what they call 'imitative behavior.' They
don't want children saying, 'Oh, we saw it on the cartoon, we thought it was okay.'"
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Droids didn't last more than a single season.
While The Clone Wars was on the air, plans got underway for the show to spin off into another
animated show. A series of Clone Wars episodes, focusing on a collection of young Padawans,
aired during the series' fifth season in early 2012. This arc was supposed to establish a new
group of characters who would later star in their own show. The episodes that introduced
these figures centered on the younglings trying to build their own lightsabers,
with the help of Ahsoka Tano and a wise droid voiced by David Tennant.
"So let us begin. There is much more work to be done."
There was enough confidence in this premise that the episodes
were even planned to air as a single TV movie before leading into a TV show,
mirroring the way in which Clone Wars itself was introduced to the world.
However, for reasons unknown, this storyline was relegated to a string of traditional episodes
while the spinoff was put on the backburner. This was in spite of the new program being
something of a passion project for George Lucas himself. The production fell further into the
rearview once Disney bought Lucasfilm and set up its own slate of kid-oriented Star Wars cartoons.
With the creation of Xbox's Kinect, a new world of video game possibilities
suddenly opened up. Gaming that relied on your body movements rather than a controller was a
prospect that seemed so exciting at the time, and it wasn't long before thoughts turned to
how the Star Wars universe could utilize this idea. After all, Star Wars and video
games have been a lucrative pairing for decades now — so why not embrace this new technology?
Unfortunately, rather than using the Kinect controllers to make a new action-adventure title,
LucasArts produced Kinect Star Wars, a grab bag of different play modes, ranging from Padawan
training to… dance-offs. Inevitably, Kinect Star Wars failed to connect with the general public,
and critics were less than impressed. Some praise was offered for certain aspects of the gameplay,
but the project just didn't come together like it was supposed to.
As it stands, the only part of Kinect Star Wars to have had
any lasting impact is one of its dance-off tunes,
titled "I'm Han Solo." This parody of "Ridin' Solo" became infamous, with The A.V. Club calling
it, quote, "one of the worst pieces of Star Wars licensing ever." Not great, as far as legacies go.
For a moment, it looked like The Force Unleashed was the next big step for the Star Wars franchise.
The beloved 2008 video game followed the tale of Starkiller, the hidden apprentice
of Darth Vader. And it really seemed like this premise might inspire all kinds of compelling
storytelling for years to come. Sadly, much of that potential was sucked away by its sequel,
The Force Unleashed II. This 2010 title received mixed marks from critics, with much of the
criticism being directed at the writing and its awkward attempt at a cliffhanger ending.
Still, many Star Wars properties have come up short critically before going on to spawn
further sequels and spinoffs. The real kiss of death for The Force Unleashed II was its
sales numbers, which proved to be incredibly underwhelming. With all these factors at play,
the continuing importance of The Force Unleashed franchise began to diminish. Eventually,
this once-promising new avenue for Star Wars storytelling sputtered out completely,
as the Disney purchase of Lucasfilm led to the prioritization of newer projects.
Even without that merger, though, it's doubtful that The Force Unleashed
II could ever have generated enough of a positive response to keep the series going.
Initially, the second Star Wars spinoff movie after Rogue One wasn't going to be Han Solo's
origin story. Instead, it was supposed to be a Boba Fett feature. The controversial director
Josh Trank was once set to helm the production, but the project was put
on the backburner once Trank stepped away. The filmmaker opened up in May 2020, explaining:
"I quit because I knew I was going to be fired if I didn't quit."
Still, this wasn't the end of the story for Fett's solo movie. For a brief moment in May 2018, a
rumor that Logan director James Mangold stepped in to take over from Trank, renewed public interest
in the project. But this interest was short-lived. In the wake of Solo coming up short at the box
office, spinoff Star Wars movies were put on hold in favor of expanding the franchise through event
TV shows on Disney+. This meant that the Boba Fett movie was once again kicked to the curb.
Eventually, Fett would make his way into Disney's Star Wars galaxy in the second
season of The Mandalorian and his own series, The Book of Boba Fett.
"I'm a simple man making his way through the galaxy, like my father before me.”
At the start of the 2010s, it looked like
theatrical 3D re-releases of classic movies were about to become a big thing.
With the original Lion King becoming a surprise hit when it was released in 3D in September 2011,
the stage seemed set for a series of subsequent 3D re-releases to make a similar killing at the box
office. These included The Phantom Menace 3D, which was planned as the start of an
ambitious push to re-release all six original Star Wars movies in a whole new dimension.
Sadly, The Phantom Menace 3D didn't exactly blow the doors off the box office. Sure,
its worldwide gross was enough to push the movie's lifetime haul past the $1 billion threshold,
but that was its only accomplishment. After a decent opening weekend, the movie made
just less than half of what The Lion King 3D had accumulated at the domestic box office.
Autumn 2013 release dates were set for 3D re-releases of the other two Star Wars
prequel films, but they were eventually pulled after Disney bought Lucasfilm. As a result,
the studio's ambitious plans have been left unrealized.
Today, Star Wars: The Clone Wars is known as a TV show that took major risks by focusing on
unsung supporting characters in the franchise, and even exploring some outright esoteric concepts.
But you have to walk before you can run, and most animated programs begin their runs with more
awkward episodes. Rarely, though, do these more imperfect episodes play out on the
big screen. But such was the case for the theatrical film Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
Released in 2008, The Clone Wars was meant to serve as a feature-length pilot for the series.
However, the film's animation style could never hope to compete with the kind of
visuals seen in its big-budget competitors. Worse, this movie utilized a more juvenile
sense of humor and dialogue that later seasons of The Clone Wars would jettison.
All in all, the whole project was quite poorly thought-out, and it didn't even bring in much
money for the studio, cementing the project as an underwhelming beginning to a beloved TV series.
George Lucas got along so well with the team behind the trio of Robot Chicken Star Wars
specials that he assembled the same group in the late 2000s for a new sci-fi project.
"As the creator of Mara Jade…"
"Wait?! I am not the creator of Mara Jade.”
“And I want you to get out of this office right now!"
This was Star Wars: Detours, an animated TV show that would take a satirical spin
on many of the series' beloved characters. Clips of the program were shown at Star
Wars Celebration in 2012, and included such antics as Obi-Wan Kenobi becoming a comedian
and Admiral Ackbar failing to think of the word 'trap.'
Just two months after the world discovered Detours, however,
Disney bought Lucasfilm, and the whole landscape of Star Wars entertainment changed forever.
Disney had its own plans for the franchise, of course, and none of them revolved around
Detours. Even though around 40 episodes of the show had been completed,
the program was shelved. Seth Green later confirmed that Lucasfilm's new management
just didn't see the show fitting in with their more serious-minded plans for the franchise.
Rumors continue to persist that Detours will eventually drop on Disney+ in the near future,
but otherwise, this particular project seems to have totally fizzled out.
"Ted, I got your voucher."
[slapping]
"Out!"
“There”
"I'm sorry about that. I'm so sorry."
LEGO and Star Wars have turned out to be a match made in heaven. The two pop culture properties
have been working together for decades now, on everything from toys to video games to movies.
So, why shouldn't there eventually be plans to turn LEGO Star Wars into an ongoing TV show?
Well, such a creative endeavor once emerged through The Freemaker Adventures,
which followed a trio of siblings who get swept
up in the greater battle between the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire.
To date, this show is the only instance of a LEGO Star Wars property scoring an ongoing TV program
in a traditional seasonal format, with most other televised LEGO Star Wars properties emerging
as either TV specials or miniseries. And given that The Freemaker Adventures didn't set the
world on fire, that's not surprising, either. The show wasn't exactly a massive flop, but it
was nowhere near as impactful as Lucasfilm's other animated shows, and it didn't attract the kind of
fanbase that the LEGO Star Wars video games have. In the end, the show lasted only two seasons.
Originally, the next step for the Star Wars franchise after Revenge of the Sith wasn't
a sequel trilogy, but a foray into the world of television. The Clone Wars was to begin airing in
2008, and then a live-action Star Wars TV show, later named Star Wars: Underworld, would debut
shortly thereafter. The program was set to explore all kinds of nooks and crannies of the galaxy far,
far away. It would cover everything from how Han and Chewie met to the origin story of Palpatine.
The series had grand ambitions indeed, and was personally overseen by George Lucas.
But Underworld never got off the ground, for one simple reason: money. The financial strain
required to pull off a production of this scale on a network TV budget proved too massive to
overcome. Lucasfilm executive Pablo Hidalgo later noted that George Lucas was unable to expand his
Grady Ranch property to accommodate soundstages, which also forced the show's production to ground
to a halt. Nowadays, shows such as The Mandalorian have made Star Wars television practically
commonplace. In that sense, perhaps Star Wars: Underworld was simply a project ahead of its time.
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