The announcement that the Clone Wars is back in production – and is set to make a return to our lives – was naturally greeted with ripples of enthusiasm throughout Star Wars fandom.

Above is the official promo poster that was released. Here’s the official link.

And why not be excited? For those of us who love not just Star Wars in general, but the prequel era , the Clone Wars was, is and will now still be a crucial facet of our fandom: and of our understanding of the Star Wars mythology.

Also, in this current era of Star Wars, it’s going to be good to have something from the prequel era still going on.

As good as I think Star Wars: Rebels has been at times, I’ve just never quite been able to connect with it the same way I did with Clone Wars.

Just a few days ago, when I was watching The Phantom Menace for the 70th time, it was freshly occuring to me how much I miss seeing Anakin or Obi-Wan, Yoda or the Jedi Council – heck, even Palpatine, or even just those old Battle Droids – in some form or another on-screen.

Sure, comic-book material is great: but there’s something about the screen that we also pine for. I’ve been literally re-running the LEGO Yoda Chronicles, Droid Tales and Freemaker Adventures series – just to maintain my prequel-era fix of content and storytelling and to keep that era alive for myself.

The return of the Clone Wars is about as welcome an announcement as anything I can think of at this point.

Though I do wonder what kind of stories a return to the series will be comprised of – as well as wondering where exactly in the timeline these new stories will be set.

I recently rewatched all of the original Clone Wars series (the Tartokovsky series that preceded the later Clone Wars adaptation by a number of years) and it made me start wondering again what the later Clone Wars incarnation would’ve done with that Tartokovsky series’ ending – literally General Grievous’s attack on Coruscant and the kidnapping of Chancellor Palpatine (leading directly into the beginning of Revenge of the Sith).

I’ve often wondered what that story would look like reinterpreted again – everything from Shak Ti’s battle with Grievous to the Jedis’ desperate scramble to protect Palpatine.

In any case, we’ll soon find out what the new Clone Wars stories will look like and be about. Here’s hoping for more Ahsoka… and lots of Ki-Adi Mundi.

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