There’s a Star Wars TV Show You’ll Never See Thanks to Disney

Many modern assessments of the history of Star Wars view all pre-Disney Lucasfilm material as sacrosanct, while the era of Kathleen Kennedy produced material in the galaxy far, far away as cynical cashgrabs. In reality, Star Wars has always been a kid-oriented franchise full of obvious ploys for generating profit. Today, Skeleton Crew tries to wring Amblin nostalgia out of modern viewers while various Jon Favreau/Dave Filoni TV show lean on familiarity with the Clone Wars/Rebels programs. Meanwhile, in pre-2012 Star Wars media, there was the equally cynical Hyperspace Hooplah show at the Disney theme parks, the Ewok TV movies in the 80s, or The Star Wars Holiday Special.

One pre-2012 attempt to blend Star Wars with “hip” comedy and more modern pop culture sensibilities, though, never got off the ground despite having lots of high-profile talent behind it. That would be the now infamous animated program Star Wars Detours, which tried to depict a skewered vision of this universe at the worst possible time.

What Was Star Wars Detours?

George Lucas was not above making fun of Star Wars. While the Prequel Trilogy avoided self-referential quips and dialogue, Lucas was very fond of and even encouraged parodies of the saga from animated shows like Family Guy and Robot Chicken. The latter program, hailing from creators Seth Green and Matthew Senreich, developed such a good professional rapport with Lucas that it produced a new Lucasfilm Animation program. Now that the Star Wars saga was “finished,” Lucas was ready to play with the characters and worlds he’d concocted. This was the impetus for Star Wars Detours, which would follow zany new visions of the Star Wars characters navigating more grounded scenarios like struggling to get money, relationship squabbles, hostage situations, and more.

The gist of the show seemed to be doing a more “official” and family-friendly version of the Robot Chicken Star Wars specials. This was reflected not only in Robot Chicken mastermind Green and Senreich spearheading the show (Green would also do voicework for various characters), but also in bringing back Seth MacFarlane to reprise his acclaimed Robot Chicken take on Emperor Palpatine. This program would’ve also expanded the Lucasfilm Animation empire beyond The Clone Wars, with the then-gestating animated film Strange Magic also planning on bolstering what audiences could expect from this label.

[RELATED: George Lucas’ Plan If Star Wars Had Failed Delivered a Very Different Sequel]

The first rumblings of Detours came about in 2010, with Green and Senreich cryptically talking to major outlets about the then-untitled program and their excitement over it. They also noted that, like The Clone Wars, Detours was being produced independently on Lucas’ own money and that a network would later be chosen to air the production. August 2012’s Star Wars Celebration VI would provide the world with the first glimpse of Star Wars Detours, with various clips of certain Detours sketches appearing online afterward. These didn’t get the best reception from internet geeks, with many shrugging it off as yet another odd piece of Star Wars media like Kinect Star Wars.

Why Detours Was Shelved

Two months after the first Detours footage was shown publicly, Disney bought Lucasfilm for billions of dollars. The Mouse House now owned all things Star Wars and the show’s biggest cheerleader (George Lucas) was gone. A few months after this purchase, The Clone Wars was canceled, a clear signal that Disney was looking to overhaul the small-screen ambitions of Star Wars. By March 2013, Disney officially confirmed Detours was “postponed”.

While 39 episodes of Star Wars Detours were finished, Lucasfilm brass wanted to rework the Star Wars franchise into a more serious direction and especially get a new generation of kids excited about getting invested in this universe. Silly jokes about Jar-Jar Binks and Admiral Ackbar puns weren’t going to initially fit into this plan. More than a decade after the show’s demise, Green noted that, with each passing year, it becomes less likely that Detours could get released since it would require tweaking to be relevant to modern Disney+ subscribers. Without tremendous fan interest in the property, Star Wars Detours lies on a hard drive somewhere, not unlike the Death Star plans.

Still, Green has publicly talked about having no ill feelings about the show going nowhere since he got to work with Lucas for years and years. Those positive memories of conjuring up silly Star Wars sketches with his hero entirely justified the Detours experience for Green. Plus, the animated show now occupies a rare mythical space in Star Wars lore (as an unreleased yet finished property) that so few projects can lay claim to. Certainly none of those Ewok TV movies secured such a notable accomplishment.

“I am consoled by the insane and unlikely experience that I got to have with one of my greatest influences,” Green told us earlier this year. “There’s so many things you create that never get made, there’s so many things that you make that never get seen, it is a painful reality of being in this business. I look at all the people that I know, the work I got to do, this insane experience I got to have … I’ve learned so much just from getting to do it, about everything. Getting to spend that time in tutelage by Kathleen Kennedy, it’s an honor.”

Star Wars: The Clone Wars is now streaming on Disney+.