None of This Year’s Star Wars Films & TV Shows Would Exist Without The Clone Wars

February 3, 2026, 11:22am

18 years ago, George Lucas and Dave Filoni introduced Star Wars: The Clone Wars. At the time, it was just seen as yet another extension of the Star Wars galaxy, Lucas’ latest idea to add depth and tone to the franchise. It didn’t take long for viewers to realize it was far more, because the opening story introduced Ahsoka Tano as Anakin Skywalker’s Padawan. The fandom initially split over Ahsoka, with some disliking her and claiming she contradicted canon, but she’s since become a real fan favorite.

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Filoni joined Lucasfilm to helm The Clone Wars under George Lucas’ tutelage, earning himself a reputation as Lucas’ apprentice. Now, 18 years later, Filoni has replaced Kathleen Kennedy as president of Lucasfilm – making his appointment all those years ago one of the most important Lucas ever made. Fittingly, though, 2026 isn’t just the year Filoni ascended to take charge of the studio. It’s also the one year where every single Star Wars movie or TV show owes something to The Clone Wars.

We’re Officially Entering the Clone Wars Supremacy

Let’s start with the big screen. Mandalorians have been part of the Star Wars galaxy since Boba Fett’s debut in the Star Wars Holiday Special, but Lucas didn’t initially flesh them out all that much, leaving them to the old Star Wars Expanded Universe (especially writer Karen Traviss). Crucially, though, Lucas broke Star Wars canon when he introduced the Mandalorians in The Clone Wars, pretty much ignoring everything Traviss had crafted. The Clone Wars introduced the Mandalorians as we know them today, meaning The Mandalorian & Grogu is a logical continuation of this.

We recently saw the new Maul – Shadow Lord trailer, and it too is a homage to The Clone Wars. In fact, it’s best seen as yet another Clone Wars spinoff, running concurrently with Star Wars: The Bad Batch and continuing the adventures of the resurrected Darth Maul – a character Lucas insisted Filoni and his writers bring back from the dead. Without The Clone Wars, Darth Maul would have stayed dead after The Phantom Menace, and there’d be no ongoing story at all.

Later this year, Filoni’s Ahsoka Season 2 will feature the live-action return of Anakin Skywalker’s Padawan. The connection here is pretty obvious; Ahsoka literally wouldn’t exist without The Clone Wars. All the evidence suggests Season 2 will deal with the Mortis Gods, controversial avatars of the Force created by Lucas and challenging our understanding of the Force. It’s no exaggeration to say this is the continuation of the story Filoni has been working on for 18 years.

Finally, this year will also see the release of a miniseries called Star Wars: The Ninth Jedi. Spinning out of Star Wars: Visions, this is the product of Lucasfilm Animation, the branch of Lucasfilm established to make The Clone Wars. This story isn’t canon, so the connection is more tenuous, but the point stands with only this arguable exception: 2026 is the year of the Clone Wars legacy.

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