Star Wars fans know Revenge of the Sith begins with the end of the Clone Wars. So, most people assumed The Clone Wars TV show would end before that, or at least right at that moment. But if there’s one thing you should never do in the world of Star Wars producer Dave Filoni, it’s assume anything.
Last month when a new trailer for the final season of The Clone Wars was released, one scene, in particular, stood out like a purple lightsaber. It was Mace Windu delivering the line “I sense a plot to destroy the Jedi.” That’s the same line he delivers in Revenge of the Sith, right before he sends Anakin Skywalker to check on Chancellor Palpatine. And we all know how that turns out.
So when io9 spoke to Clone Wars co-creator Dave Filoni this week about the show’s return, we had to have him set the record straight: Will The Clone Wars bleed into Revenge of the Sith?
“Yeah, I won’t say a lot about [that],” Filoni began. “I definitely will say that I don’t think Mace is a person [who] repeats himself.”
Coming from Filoni, that’s about as close to a confirmation as you can get. If Mace doesn’t repeat himself, the trailer is showing the moment from the film. He went on to discuss the difficulties in lining the two things up.
“I’ve always, always been interested in a crossover point with the films when it got right down to it at the very end,” he said. “I was always interested in trying to make the audience aware of where Ahsoka was, where Captain Rex was, during sometimes critical moments that we all know from the movies. And yet maintaining the integrity of the films.”
“Maintaining the integrity of the films” means that, in this final season of The Clone Wars, three main characters may not exactly have a lot to do.
“There were certain choices to make in this because, well, I wanted to represent the major characters of the film—in Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Padmé—[and] I didn’t want to do anything in these last episodes that would interrupt or contradict what happens with them in [Revenge of the Sith],” Filoni said. “So I tried to touch upon those characters and show how they relate more to the characters I’m dealing with in Ahsoka and Rex and tell their story that way, and then give you some idea of where they may or may not be during certain events. So we’ll see. We’ll see if it works out.”
Whether it works out or not, it seems like a certainty that The Clone Wars will show events from Revenge of the Sith...from a certain point of view. We wonder though, just how far will it go? Will we see the animated version of Order 66 kill the Jedi?
We’ll find out soon because Star Wars: The Clone Wars is back on Disney+. New episodes will be released each week and you can check out our premiere recap right here.
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