South African viewers will start to see the 5th season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars from 1 April at 19:55 on The Cartoon Network (DStv 304) which is suddenly burning through the 5th season's 20 episodes as fast as possible with brand-new episodes which will be shown every weekday from April.
The 5th season finale of Star Wars The Clone Wars is cataclysmically amazing and shocking and shockingly great television.
"As we enter into an exciting new era focused on the next Star Wars trilogy, Lucasfilm has decided to pursue a new direction in animated programming. We are exploring a whole new Star Wars series set in a time period previously untouched in Star Wars films or television programming. You can expect more details in the months to come," says Lucasfilm on its website.
"As part of this shift, we have also made some key decisions affecting Star Wars: The Clone Wars. After five highly successful and critically acclaimed seasons of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, we feel the time has come to wind down the series."
"While the studio is no longer producing new episodes for The Cartoon Network, we're continuing production on new Clone Wars story arcs that promise to be some of the most thrilling adventures ever seen."
Lucafilm says this "bonus content" of Star Wars: The Clone Wars will be released elsewhere but does not yet specify details (it definitely won't be on Turner Broadcasting System's The Cartoon Network).
The planned new animation Star Wars show, Star Wars Detours is now also being shelved and postponed, because the decision to launch that new show was made before George Lucas decided to go ahead with a new film trilogy.
"Detours was conceived and produced before we decided to move forward with the new Star Wars trilogy, and in the wake of that decision, Lucasfilm has reconsidered whether launching an animated comedy prior to the launch of Episode VII makes sense. As a result, we've decided to postpone the release of Detours until a later date."
In an online video on the site, Dave Filoni, the supervising director of Star Wars: The Clone Wars teases with an amazing as-yet-unseen clip from the show.
"It's not over yet. In fact, the best is yet to come," says Dave Filoni in the clip. "We have some of the most exciting, some of the most important story arcs still coming your way. Now what could there be left to tell? Well, as die-hard fans of the series, you know there is still some gaps in there - things that are really crucial to the overall story arc of the Star Wars universe that we need to finish off and tell you."
"They are the best episodes that my crew has ever committed to screen," says Dave Filoni.and then fans can start to see a sneak peek of new (and thrilling!) Star Wars: The Clone Wars material.
