5 'Star Wars' Animation Shows We'd Love To See
Image Source: Wookieepedia, Buzzfeed
Darkness has fallen upon Star Wars animation since the end of The Bad Batch and the release of Tales of the Empire in May 2024.
Well….not exactly. There are still the Young Jedi Adventures, the annual LEGO Star Wars special, and Star Wars: Visions, which will return for a third season later this year.
While Young Jedi Adventures is technically canon, and Nubs is a cute guy, the show is clearly targeted toward a young age group, and probably not something most adult casual Star Wars fans would regularly watch. The LEGO specials, on the other hand, are fun and basically for everyone between 1 and 99, but they are not canon. Although the 18 episodes of Visions included some impressive and creative episodes, they are not canon either. They are probably not everybody's cup of tea, and sometimes, let's face it, they’re just weird.
So yes, Star Wars in animated form faces Dark Times, right?
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In August 2023, Lucasfilm announced that they were closing their animation studio in Singapore, and aside from Visions - Volume 3, the company hasn't announced any new animated shows or feature films they are working on.
But this will change soon. After a job offering for the role of Shot Production Coordinator for Lucasfilm Animation last summer, the company has just announced a dedicated animation panel for the Star Wars Celebration in Japan, including the future of non-live-action Star Wars.
So, what could be Lucasfilm Animation's next big project(s)?
5. The Return Of The "Big Three"
Source: Variety
The sequel trilogy sadly passed on the opportunity to reunite Luke, Han, and Leia in live-action, and with Carrie Fisher's passing, the chance of this ever happening again is gone forever.
Lucasfilm could decide to recast the main characters of the original trilogy (as they have done with Han) or bring them back using CGI (as they have done with Leia and Luke), but an ongoing show for Disney+ using one or both of these options is unlikely to happen.
So, the next best (and probably also a lot cheaper way) to continue the adventures of the Rebel Alliance's heroes would be in animated form.
Marvel Comics has chronicled what happened between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back respectively between Empire and Return of the Jedi in great detail since 2015, so it would make sense to set up a new animated show featuring Luke, Han, and Leia after the Battle of Endor. The roughly three decades between Episodes VI and VII are still very much uncharted territory, leaving plenty of room to answer the "somehow" in "somehow Palpatine returned". Such a show could take place before, around, and after the Battle of Jakku, when there were still enough Imperials left to ensure both lightsaber- and space-action, as well as political maneuvers. Han and Leia would still be happily married, and Luke still far from the grumpy old man of the sequel trilogy.
Moving a few years further down the timeline, such a show could also be set at the time of Luke starting to rebuild his Jedi Order. Naturally, such a show would focus on Luke and his students and their efforts to return a Jedi presence to the galaxy, but there is no reason why Han and Leia could not show up from time to time to request the help of the (future) Jedi. A show like this could run for multiple seasons, as there is plenty of time before Ben Skywalker comes under the influence of Snoke and decides to burn the Jedi Academy to the ground.
4. A Pilot For The Rebel Alliance
Source: CBR
With The Clone Wars and The Bad Batch, Star Wars animation has focused heavily on the events between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of The Sith, and on the aftermath of the formation of the Empire. While some may argue that it's probably time to finally tell stories from other eras of the Star Wars timeline, the finale of The Bad Batch still raised several questions that could be answered in animated form: how did Asajj Ventress survive the events of the Dark Disciple novel? Or, what happened to Omega after she left her comrades to become a pilot for the growing Rebellion?. As a "sequel" to The Bad Batch, such a show could continue to use the look of its predecessor while, at the same time, building a bridge both to Rebels and possibly even to Andor.
3. The Old Republic
Source: Hyperbeast
Although rumors about Lucasfilm working on a project set in the Old Republic have died down in recent months, the vast amount of space and time to cover in such an endeavor would lend itself naturally to be told as an ongoing show rather than a movie or a trilogy. Creating such a show in a live-action format would surely require a massive budget, more than Disney is probably willing to spend in a time of sinking streaming revenue. An animated Old Republic show would be much cheaper to produce, and given the fascination of fans with characters like Revan, Malak, and Bane, and the prospect of massive lightsaber battles between numerous Jedi and Sith, such a show would surely find its audience.
2. Underworld
Source: Screenrant
Speaking of budget, somewhere in the Lucasfilm archives, there are dozens of finished scripts for Underworld, the live-action show that George Lucas had planned to produce after the completion of the prequel trilogy. For months, people like Ron Moore and other writers from around the globe worked on scripts for a show that would take place in the seedy underbelly of Coruscant and focus on criminals and bounty hunters. Lucas eventually decided that the show was simply too expensive to produce at that time, and after the Disney sale, the project was scrapped completely. But the scripts are presumably still there, and could be brought to life in animated form. Again, The Clone Wars already included several episodes that took place in the lower levels of Coruscant, so the creators would not have to start from scratch if they decided to give the show a similar look.
1. Knight Errant
Source: StarWars.com
One of the highlights of the first season of Star Wars: Visions was the episode "The Duel", presenting the clash between a presumably “fallen” Jedi and a Sith. The world of this episode was later expanded into a novel and two comics, and although the stories themselves are not part of Star Wars lore, the idea for an animated series that is based on a lone warrior roaming the galaxy and meeting all kinds of friends, foes, and adventures is fascinating. Another advantage is that a story like this could be set at any region of the galaxy and any point in time in Star Wars history without having to rely on what has come before, or what will happen afterward.
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Source: Screenrant
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