The upcoming seventh season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars will be its very definite final one, and showrunner Dave Filoni has teased that it will bring the series to a full and satisfying conclusion.
The show was originally cancelled in 2013 after five seasons as a casualty of Lucasfilm’s sale to Disney, and was briefly revived with a sixth that felt more like an afterthought than a true ending. Now that the opportunity to end it properly has come about, Filoni has stated his desire to make sure he does so.
“I tried to do things that honored what we had been doing on this series when I was working with George [Lucas]. At the same time, I knew this had to have a sense of completion.”
He specified the continuing development of Ahsoka, Anakin’s former padawan and one of the best characters in the entire saga. She gradually grew from a precocious and slightly irritating teenage girl to a powerful and confident young woman who often acted as the show’s heart and moral compass, to the extent that she was last seen walking away from the Jedi Order after becoming disillusioned with what it stands for. Of her growth, Filoni went on to say this:
“It’s really the backbone [of the Star Wars saga]. It’s that personal journey. [We saw that] with Luke Skywalker, and we’ve seen Rey going on this journey. But for me now with Ahsoka, she’s been the student Jedi the whole time, and she’s finally being challenged by what she will do with her knowledge and her training and her abilities when faced with the ultimate test, which is what you’ll see at the end of Clone Wars here.”
One issue that always silently hung over the whole of the series was the story of Revenge of the Sith, as viewers remain well aware that at the film’s climax comes the execution of Order 66, the destruction of the Jedi and rise of the Galactic Empire. Filoni is conscious of the narrative implications though and seems to be ready for them.
“We always knew that it ends with the third film. There’s no escaping that. It’s this inevitability. We know what happens, [but] you don’t know precisely how it happens.”
Providing any kind of positive conclusion to Star Wars: The Clone Wars will certainly be a difficult challenge to meet. However, if Filoni and his team have proved anything over the last decade and change, it’s that if anyone can pull it off, it’s them.