Thoughts On The Future of Star Wars Detours

Some of you might have read the headline and scratched your heads wondering, “What in tarnation is Star Wars Detours?” That’s OK. Some of you might have read the headline and said, “Good. It looked awful.” That’s OK too. And some of you might have read the headline and said, “Of all the news out there, THIS is what Steve decided to write about?” The answer to that is yes. 

To catch everyone up, check out the trailer/clips for Star Wars Detours.

OK. Star Wars Detours was first announced back in 2012. Co-created by the Robot Chicken team of Seth Green and Matthew Senreich, Star Wars Detours got the greenlight and was an officially licensed Star Wars animated comedy that George Lucas himself approved and consulted on. Things were looking good and fans (mostly) were eagerly awaiting its debut. 

Then Disney came along. Once Disney purchased Lucasfilm Detours was shelved. This is the part where I should mention they had 39 completed episodes in the can. Finished. All done. Paid for. Now collecting dust. 

In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Green gave an update on Detours and things don’t look good. “The most recent conversations I’ve had with anybody who would be in a position to say [Detours could be released] say that it’s not soon,” Green said.

Green goes on to say that all of Disney’s new Star Wars content in the decade since Detours was made has dated certain aspects of the show. “Well, there are 39 episodes that were finished for broadcast,” Green said, as well as 62 unproduced scripts. “But we finished them 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. 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.”

While the clips we see are on the silly side, I think we need a little levity to a fandom that takes their Star Wars seriously. So what if it needs some updating? Show it as is, which shouldn’t be an issue as Disney+ has non-canon shows like Droids and the two Ewok movies on there. 

Don’t feel bad for Green though. “I don’t really have an emotional position because I got to spend four straight years making something with George Lucas,” Green said to EW. “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.” 

I’m convinced. Email or call your local Star Wars representative today and demand Detours gets released! Or go on social media and complain about it. Or not. 

Is Detours something you’d like to see?