Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season 7 On Disney+ Release Date, Episodes And Rumors

Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the long running computer animated series set between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, ran for six seasons before coming to an abrupt end in 2014. The show centered on a young Anakin Skywalker as he navigated working with the Jedi Order, and it spent as much time focused on political intrigue as it did on the battlefield. The Clone Wars introduced dozens of new characters to the Star Wars universe, and it resurrected several others. One of its greatest contributions to the canon is that it gave much-needed depth to an era of the saga that, by many accounts, greatly lacked it. And it made Anakin's ultimate decision to move to the Dark Side infinitely more tragic.

When Disney bought Lucasfilm in 2012, the company made the decision to move in a new direction — one that focused on the continuing Skywalker saga and the adventures of a ragtag group of heroes post-Revenge of the Sith. But The Clone Wars was never forgotten, and in 2018 it was announced that the much beloved series would be returning for a seventh and final season to tie up its many loose ends. Here's everything we know about season 7.

During a tenth anniversary panel at San Diego Comic-Con in 2018, Star Wars: The Clone Wars' supervising director Dave Filoni made the announcement that the series would be returning to the small screen, set to debut on Disney+ on February 21, 2020. According to the show's IMDb page, the seventh season of The Clone Wars will be comprised of just 12 episodes, one less than its sixth season, which bowed out (seemingly forever) in March 2014. Prior seasons have run between 20 and 22 episodes, typically premiering in the fall and running through the spring season. So for Clone Wars fans, this abridged seventh season is somewhat bittersweet.

The shortened season doesn't mean the story will suffer, however. The Clone Wars' 13-episode sixth season — released on Netflix under the subtitle "The Lost Missions" — managed to delve into Order 66, as well as a good portion of Yoda's backstory. There's plenty that can be done in 12 episodes, and with Filoni (whose writing and directing background includes The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels, and The Mandalorian) at the show's helm, it's certainly in capable hands.

There may not be an official cast list for Star Wars: The Clone Wars season 7 yet, but based on its first full trailer, many of the show's original cast will indeed be returning. Ashley Eckstein, who voiced fan favorite Ahsoka Tano on both The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels, which ran from 2014 to 2018, has not only been confirmed, but she told CBR in 2018 that Dave Filoni had "done his best to bring back a lot of the key people that were a part of the show, pretty much all the cast members and then also some of the main crew members." Joining Eckstein are Matt Lanter as Anakin Skywalker, James Arnold Taylor as Obi-Wan Kenobi, Dee Bradley Baker as Rex, and Katee Sackhoff as Bo-Katan.

During the Star Wars: The Clone Wars panel at the Star Wars Celebration, a second trailer was released, and Sam Witwer, who voices the resurrected Darth Maul, was confirmed for the new season. It's also expected that both Tom Kane (Yoda) and Matthew Wood (General Grievous) will return. Then there's the question of who will play Palpatine — Tim Curry took over in 2012, following the death of original voice actor Ian Abercrombie, but big-screen Palpatine Ian McDiarmid picked up the role for Rebels in 2015, so there's no telling who will wind up actually taking it.

Canonically, Star Wars: The Clone Wars series takes place during the three years between the films Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. It focuses primarily on the Republic's clone army and the Separatists, led by Count Dooku. Although a good portion of the series deals with individual battles, where The Clone Wars truly triumphs is in its exploration of political intrigue. The series delved into not only the inner workings of the Republic and Separatists, but those of several individual races as well, including the Mandalorians.

So far, we've seen the effects of events depicted in The Clone Wars on Star Wars Rebels, particularly when it comes to Ahsoka's future endeavors. When Disney+ premiered The Mandalorian in 2019, the show made several callbacks to prior films and series, including the appearance of a Mandalorian by the name of Paz Vizla — a name which bears a striking resemblance to Pre Vizsla, the leader of the extremist group Death Watch.

The revival of Star Wars: The Clone Wars after such a long hiatus may not at first have seemed like the logical next move for the franchise, but it's kind of on par with the show's past. After its initial five-season run on Cartoon Network, The Clone Wars got a cancellation notice, with several episodes still in development. Those episodes eventually made their way to Netflix in the form of the series' sixth season, subtitled "The Lost Missions," but fans have long since begged for more.

In 2014, series writer Brent Friedman tweeted that not only had all of season 7 been written, but so too had season 8. Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy told the Los Angeles Times in December 2019 that the company actually does listen to its fans (even when those fans are especially vocal about the franchise's creative decisions). "It does matter what they say and what they care about," she explained when discussing The Clone Wars. "All of those things play a role in our decision making." For supervising director Dave Filoni, the show's seventh season will officially conclude the project he began with George Lucas so many years ago. "There could be stories after that that take place with a lot of those characters," he told Entertainment Weekly. "But especially for me directing Clone Wars, being that hands on, I wrote and directed the final four episodes. It's the end of something I feel really good about."

When Star Wars: The Clone Wars ended in 2014, several storylines remained unfinished. Following the series' initial cancellation, at least a couple of these were addressed in supplemental works. In Star Wars: Dark Disciple, author Christie Golden explores the gray area of the Force in a story focused on former Sith acolyte Asajj Ventress and Jedi Knight Quinlan Vos. Likewise, the comic series Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir gets into Maul's history and sets the stage for his reappearance in Solo: A Star Wars Story. But there are still other stories from The Clone Wars that have yet to find their conclusion.

The 2019 Star Wars Celebration Clone Wars panel discussed three arcs that would form the basis of the show's seventh season: "The Bad Batch," "Ahsoka's Walkabout," and "The Siege of Mandalore." In the new season premiere, according to the seventh season's IMDb page, "Obi-Wan and Anakin investigate a mysterious death of a Jedi Master on Utapau, and uncover a secret Separatist weapons deal the likes of which they have never seen before."

When season 6 of Star Wars: The Clone Wars ended, many fans were left wondering one thing: what happened to Ahsoka Tano? Anakin's former Padawan walked away from the Jedi Order after she was framed for the bombing of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. She was seen again in Star Wars Rebels, at first using the codename Fulcrum. But what about the time in between?

Two big Ahsoka things happened in 2016, beginning with Star Wars Celebration Europe. During a panel dedicated to the character, it was revealed that following her exit from the Jedi Order, Ahsoka headed to Coruscant's seedy level 1313 and joined forces with Nyx Okami, a smuggler who would become her romantic partner for a time. The panel also speculated as to how Ahsoka was able to escape Order 66 (it involved a bunch of wolves).

Author E.K. Johnston further delved into things with her novel Ahsoka, which pretty well bridges the gap between the character's time in The Clone Wars and Rebels. According to the novel, it was former Clone Trooper Rex who saved her, and after staging their deaths, Ahsoka set out on a path that would ultimately lead her to Bail Organa and the Rebellion, as well as a new set of lightsabers.

The biggest unfinished storyline from Star Wars: The Clone Wars, is that of the Siege of Mandalore. At the end of the sixths season, Darth Maul and the Shadow Collective have taken control of the planet. In a delayed response, the Republic sends the 501st clone battalion, led by Ahsoka, Obi-Wan, and Anakin, to face off against Maul and his Collective. As the events of Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith begin, Obi-Wan and Anakin are forced to bail on the Siege in order to rescue Chancellor Palpatine from General Grievous' forces.

As for Ahsoka and the 501st. they do battle with Maul, and Ahsoka faces off against him one on one. Maul is able to escape, however, when Ahsoka has to choose between ending his life and saving Rex's. The Republic is successful, but not without cost — Mandalore comes under the rule of the new Galactic Empire and turned into a training hub for new cadets. The planet's mercenary practices are outlawed, and both its history and its citizens are nearly wiped out. At the 2019 Star Wars Celebration, voice actor Sam Witwer said that he "was shocked" when he saw the completed storyline, which leaves little doubt that The Clone Wars will go out with a bang.

The first trailer for the seventh season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars was released at the 2018 San Diego Comic-Con, and although there wasn't an incredible amount of new footage included — "I only had four shots," Dave Filoni explained, "so I couldn't make much of a trailer" — it did accomplish two things. The first, obviously, is that it confirmed that Star Wars fans could do pretty much anything they set their minds (and social media accounts) to with the hashtag #clonewarssaved. The second is it signaled the emotional reunion between Ahsoka Tano and her former Jedi master, Anakin Skywalker.

The trailer released at the 2019 Star Wars celebration had more footage — "I have more shots now" — and an even greater dose of emotion. In it, we get a glimpse of Ahsoka's time in Coruscant's underbelly, along with an introduction to her new allies. Clone Force 99 (the "Bad Batch") gets an official reveal, Ahsoka lays her hands on some new and improved lightsabers, and her epic battle with Maul is set up.

After months without any new footage from Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Disney+ geared up for the premiere of the show's seventh season by finally releasing a full trailer for the series' final run. At least one thing is very certain: The Clone Wars will not be going out quietly. As previously predicted, Ahsoka Tano's storyline will be front and center this season, as she struggles with her decision to walk away from the Jedi Order. The former padawan and Mandalorian leader Bo-Katan are confirmed as allies early on, and the Siege of Mandalore comes further into focus — as does the inevitable lightsaber duel between Ahsoka and Darth Maul.

As the gap closes between the events of Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, it's clear the clone troopers (and Captain Rex in particular) have mixed feelings about the war and their place within it. "Without it, we wouldn't exist," he says. But everything seems to be building up to the catastrophic Order 66. Maul boasts assuredly, "Soon the galaxy will be remade. The Jedi and the Republic will die," while Mace Windu warns of "a plot to destroy the Jedi." And judging by Anakin's overwhelming aggression toward some battle droids, it looks like this season will delve further into his descent into the Dark Side as well.