The Clone Wars: Season Seven

"Any opportunity to put the final pieces of the story in place is meaningful as a storyteller. I’m happy for the opportunity to define these things and the end of this part of the Clone War."

- Dave Filoni

The seventh season of the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars television series is a revival run of twelve new episodes that will air on Disney+, the forthcoming streaming service. The revival was announced by the show's supervising director, Dave Filoni, on July 19, 2018 at San Diego Comic-Con, during a panel commemorating the show’s tenth anniversary. The episodes will be a continuation of the series after it was cancelled in 2013, and will include the Siege of Mandalore. Series stars Matt Lanter, Ashley Eckstein, James Arnold Taylor, Dee Bradley Baker, Tom Kane and more have all returned to lend their voices to the series.

Development
"Without getting too much into detail - because I love the fan speculation - but it would be a real shame to have done all this work and not use it. So we are looking at everything and going over all those scripts we had. I think that the biggest thing for me is "how do we make this show better?" And I think that means examining all the work we had done, the work we were planning on doing, and also trying to honor the work of so many people that were in the middle of making stuff."

- Dave Filoni

Star Wars: The Clone Wars ran from October 3, 2008 until its final regular broadcast episode on March 2, 2013, following the show’s cancellation at the end of its fifth season. A half-length season was available on Netflix on March 7, 2014, and some story arcs were released in several different mediums in the following years. The show was succeeded by Star Wars Rebels, which continued the story of Clone Wars era characters like Ahsoka Tano and Clone Captain Rex, but fans continued asking for more episodes of The Clone Wars. A popular hashtag for the campaign was #SaveTheCloneWars.

A continuation of the original series on Disney+, the forthcoming streaming service, was announced at San Diego Comic Con on July 19, 2018, during a panel commemorating the show's 10th anniversary. The announcement came with a trailer for the new season and a poster that contained the hashtag #CloneWarsSaved, referencing the fan campaign. A StarWars.com interview with Dave Filoni, the show's supervising director, confirmed that the new season would contain 12 new episodes. One of the story arcs in the new season will be the Siege of Mandalore, with some scenes about it contained in the trailer. The arc was originally intended as the show's series finale, which takes place before and during the events of Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith, including Order 66. The arc has been referenced in Star Wars Rebels and partly adapted in the young-adult novel Ahsoka. The author E. K. Johnston later revealed that she was asked not to write action scenes for the Siege of Mandalore in the book, as unbeknownst to her Lucasfilm was working on the final season.

Matt Lanter, Ashley Eckstein, James Arnold Taylor and Dee Bradley Baker were confirmed to be reprising their respective roles as Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Captain Rex by the revival trailer. In August 2018, Tom Kane confirmed on his Facebook account that he had recorded lines for five new episodes of the revival, though he did not confirm if he will be reprising his roles as the Narrator, Yoda or Wullf Yularen. As of November 5, 2018, recording is still underway according to Eckstein. Sam Witwer was later confirmed to be reprising his role as Darth Maul. During production, several of the models, including that of Captain Rex, were tweaked and improved upon based on new animation technology.

Release
The Clone Wars revival was the subject of a panel at 2019's Celebration Chicago, which took place on April 14. During the panel, behind-the-scenes images and a trailer were shown. The trailer, besides showing more footage of the Siege of Mandalore, also confirmed that the revival would include a finished version of the "Bad Batch" arc, initially released as an unfinished story reel, with completed animation.