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Detours: There's 39 finished episodes of a 'Star Wars' TV show, but here's why we'll probably never see them

By Nivea Serrao
Star Wars Leia

Disney+ may be home to all kinds of new Star Wars content, from the space western stylings of The Mandalorian to the animated escapades of The Bad Batch, but don't expect long-shelved animated series Star Wars Detours to be joining the lineup any time soon. 

As series creator Seth Green (Robot Chicken) tells Entertainment Weekly, despite Star Wars creator George Lucas' involvement in the project and the completion of 39 finished broadcast-ready episodes, it has been shelved indefinitely. (Green voiced Todo 360, a techno-service droid Todo, on a recent episode of The Bad Batch.)

"We finished [the episodes] almost 10 years ago, and so there would have to be a bit of reconfiguring of the existing stuff to make it something that Disney+ would release as a Lucasfilm offering," explains Green. "And the way it's been explained to me is that there hasn't been enough interest high enough up to go through what it would take to put it out and that there isn't an interest in releasing this content on Disney+ from Lucasfilm."

Star Wars Detours was announced back in 2012 at Star Wars Celebration VI, and would have been another partnership between Lucasfilm Animation and Robot Chicken's Matt Senreich and Green, following the studio's three Star Wars specials, each of which lovingly lampooning the franchise. Episodes were roughly six minutes in length, and 62 more episodes were written and awaiting animation. Unfortunately, before they could make it to air, Disney bought Lucasfilm and decided to go in a different direction tonally, focusing on the sequel trilogy as well as more tonally-serious animated series designed to expand and build out the universe further rather than continue to poke fun at it. 

"I don't really have an emotional position because I got to spend four straight years making something with George Lucas," explains Green. "And my partner and I, and all of the people that got to work on it — the artists and actors and directors and animators — we all got to make something Star Wars with the guy who created it. And so I know over those four years that he was having fun, and that's really all I care about. I got a priceless experience with one of my truest heroes, and got to see him laugh and enjoy all of the things that he had created, in a time before he agreed to sell them to somebody else."

Green also goes on to say, "It's not that I don't care if people never see it, it's just that it ultimately doesn't matter if nobody ever sees it, because nobody can take any of that from any of us. And that kind of thing would never happen again, and I recognize that." 

Lucas wasn't the only big name working on the project. Green says Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian), Anthony Daniels (C3PO), and Ahmed Best (JarJar Binks) also leant their voices to the project. They were joined by some other big names including Zachary Levi (Shazam! Fury of the Gods), "Weird Al" Yankovic, Seth McFarlane (Ted), Donald Faison (Powerpuff Girls), and Felicia Day (Supernatural).