Disney's Lucasfilm cancels 'Clone Wars,' postpones 'Detours' indefinitely

When Disney purchased Lucasfilm for a cool $4Billion USD, we all knew that it could mean good news for the potential of new feature films... but the fate of existing 'Star Wars' properties like 'Star Wars: The Clone Wars' and the ongoing comic book properties produced by Dark Horse remained uncertain.

Lucasfilm brought some certainty into that viewpoint earlier today: the intent is to wipe the slate clean.

Lucasfilm announced via press release that production on 'Star Wars: The Clone Wars' would be halted immediately. The highly popular and critically-acclaimed animated series has been running for five seasons on The Cartoon Network. Along with the axe, news came that the re-release of 'Star Wars' episodes II and III would be delayed and that the release of the upcoming animated parody 'Star Wars: Detours' would be postponed indefinitely. Bad news for fans of the prequel series as well as fans of 'Robot Chicken,' the people behind 'Detours.'

Supervising director of 'Star Wars: The Clone Wars' Dave Filoni noted that his team would continue working on certain 'Clone Wars' story arcs which would be released as "bonus content." While it doesn't seem as though a series or a revival fits into the new Disney version of Lucasfilm's vision, at least certain storylines would be able to be wrapped up via this bonus content.

'Star Wars: Detours' was a strange project from its onset. Given the massive popularity of the 'Family Guy' spoof versions of the original trilogy of 'Star Wars' feature films, Lucasfilm decided to cash in with a licensed spoof version all its own. Set between episodes III ('Revenge of the Sith') and IV ('A New Hope'), 'Detours' is an animated parody intended to become a series. It would seem that this fate is unlikely to befall the series, as Lucasfilm is now headed in another direction.

Is all of this done in effort to clear the path for a bold new vision for the upcoming feature Episode VII? Check out clips from the unfinished and unreleased 'Star Wars: Detours' below.