What Could Have Been: Dave Filoni Reveals the Potential Storylines of Star Wars: The Clone Wars

One of the things that pains Star Wars fans the most about the Disney takeover of LucasFilm is the fact that it ushered in the cancellation of the beloved Star Wars: The Clone Wars. For 5 seasons, The Clone Wars had captivated audiences by exploring the volatile period between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. With that in mind, it's no surprise that with two of the people who made The Clone Wars possible appearing at Star Wars Celebration, thousands turned out to hear what Dave Filoni and Pablo Hidalgo had to say about where the show could have gone if it was given time to continue.



Filoni starts by reinforcing what we all already knew....Though Star Wars: The Clone Wars has ended, there is still a lot of material hanging around in an unfinished state. This is something that is evidenced by the fact that we have already seen Legacy Content on StarWars.com, Darth Maul Son of Dathomir, and the Lost missions released since the show's official end. Filoni and Hidalgo reveal that they still talk about Clone Wars almost every day, if not purely because it remains extremely relevant to LucasFilm's new animated show, Star Wars Rebels. But depsite this new era of Star Wars storytelling, Filoni says that he wants to give something back to all of those # SaveTheCloneWars people that the show's creators love so much.



That gift comes in the form of concept art and never before seen proxy animation footage, that still litter LucasFilm's archives. So, as painful as it may be to read, here are a few of the things we learnt that could have happened had Star Wars: The Clone Wars never been cancelled.



Boba Fett Teams Up With Cad Bane

To the joy of the crowd, Filoni and Hidalgo that Boba Fett, Cad Bane and Aura Singh were going to come back in a big way. Boba and Cad Bane were going to team up thanks to Bane's previous links to Boba's father, Jango . This team-up came in the form of a mission on Tatooine in which they look to take on an outpost of Tuskan Raiders. had plans to bring in a Tuskan Raider Shamen on Tatooine (wearing a baby Krayt Dragon's skull, looks bad-ass). They couldn't animate cloth very easily, so they modelled a lot of the characters on the old Kenner toys, as they figurine makers had exactly the same issues with materials. We see Cad Bane and Boba plotting a mission against the raiders, taking out a raiding party so Boba can get captured and infiltrate their camp.



The Bad Batch

George Lucas wanted to explore the idea of clones having special, unique traits, similar to the Clone 99 arc. The Kaminoans exposed these special soldiers to further genetic mutations in order to create what were essentially, supersoldiers. There was going to be another arc where the bad-batch go to Kashykk. Very raw footage with temp voices show Wookies and the Bad Batch under attack from a swarm of net-casters, which we see in Knights of the Old Republic . One of the most-noticeable things about the footage was that each of the Bad Batch clones has their own unique armor, which adds to the sense of individuality. Before we saw this, there were art pieces showing e motional scenes with Tarfur asking permission of the forest to burn trees in order to help the clones gain a tactical advantage against the clones. You'll be able to see 4 whole episodes of a Bad Batch arc at Star Wars Celebration, tomorrow.



Asajj Ventress and Quinlan Vos

We also learnt that there were big plans for Asajj Ventress. Filoni reveals there was going to be a huge cross over story arc between Ventress and Quinlan Vos. Concepts had been drawn up for Ventress's ship, which was modelled on a droid gunship and Filoni says he liked it so much that fans can expect to see it show up at some point in Season 2 of Star Wars Rebels. One of George Lucas's favorite characters from the comics was Quinlan Vos, and as such, Filoni and Hidalgo had big plans to increase his visibility in the series. The same goes for Ventress, and in more unfinished footage we see a punk-haired Asajj in pursuit of an u nnamed target on the planet Pantora (yes, they finally went there!), but Quinlan Vos is also on the prowl and the pair's paths cross when Vos tackles the target before receiving a swift blow to the head from an irritable Ventress. Contained within this footage was a clear indication of the way that the show was going to build a relationship between the duo, with Vos's loose-cannon attitude clearly not sitting well with the solitary Ventress.



Dark Disciple

We then see footage of what looked like it would have been a huge stand-off between Dooku and a squad of Bounty Hunters. Filoni teases that the backstory for this scene come in Christie Golden's upcoming novel, Star Wars: Dark Disciple, which is actually put together from various excerpts of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. As Filoni points out, the publication of Dark Disciple is a prime example of how the new storytelling team are all working in synchrony to find new areas to explore. Side note: Star Wars: Dark Disciple hits shelves this July.



Ahsoka Tano and the Way the Show Would Have Ended

Much of the anger towards the cancellation of The Clone Wars stems from the lack of closure we received with the Ahsoka Tano story. As you can imagine, it wasn't intended to be that way. Filoni reveals that the final episodes of the The Clone Wars would have given us that closure by explaining where all the key characters were during the closing stages of Revenge of the Sith. We would have seen how Ahsoka survived Order 66 and as such, The Clone Wars would have flowed directly into the events of Star Wars Rebels. I'm not sure if knowing this makes losing the show more painful or not. In some ways it's comforting to know that these characters would have received a proper ending, but knowing that we'll never see that ending is still painfully hard to swallow.



The big takeaway from all of this is that it's not just fans who feel that Star Wars: The Clone Wars never got a suitable ending, it's the people who made the show too. In response to a fan question, Filoni said that he would have loved to have finished the show, but added that he isn't dwelling on it the disappointment too much. Filoni argues that the core team he had working on The Clone Wars are in place on Rebels, and that, that's the core of what made the former so great. Whether Rebels can go on to match the greatness of The Clone Wars remains to be seen, but with the way the show's first season ended, the future is at least looking slightly less gloomy than it was a year ago.



Finally we'll leave you on these bombshell that, had The Clone Wars been able to continue, the Yuuzhan Vong were going to make an appearance!