Every Star Wars animated project

The 1980s were rife with cartoons based on movies. Star Wars, inevitably, ended up contributing. That being said, the Star Wars excursions into the Saturday morning cartoon realm were largely unsuccessful. Droids is a 1985 prequel to the original film trilogy focused on C-3PO and R2-D2. It only lasted for one 13-episode season.

For a little while, Ewoks was paired with Droids, but the former did slightly better than the latter. The show about the furry freedom fighters from Return of the Jedi at least made it for two seasons and 26 episodes. Also, yes, the Ewoks speak English in this show. Don’t worry.

After many years away from the television world, Star Wars returned with Clone Wars. Genndy Tartakovsky, a beloved creator of animated TV shows and films, was in charge of this Cartoon Network show. It looked quite good, animation-wise, and won an Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program. However, the show was more of a cult classic, as Tartakovsky only produced 25 episodes over three years.

No, we didn’t accidentally include a duplicate. The Clone Wars is a separate show from Clone Wars. This show was also originally aired on Cartoon Network, but it was created by George Lucas, who handed it over to Dave Filoni. After five seasons on Cartoon Network, The Clone Wars had one season on Netflix, followed by a final season on Disney+. This is the most popular and acclaimed of the animated Star Wars series.

Created by Filoni, The Bad Batch is basically The Clone Wars but with the full might of Disney and Disney+ behind it. The Bad Batch clone troopers originated in The Clone Wars, making this show effectively a spinoff. Since the Bad Batch is all clones, they are voiced by the same actor, Dee Bradley Baker. Nice gig for him. A second season is scheduled for 2023.

A decade after Revenge of the Sith, Rebels tells the story of the Empire trying to track down the last of the Jedi, who are beginning to foment a rebellion. Don’t worry, the heroes are the Jedi, not the Empire. Another show from Filoni, the award-winning rebels ran four seasons and 75 episodes.

We probably don’t need to tell you who created this show, which ran for two seasons and 40 episodes on the Disney Channel and Disney XD. The show focused on Kazuda Xiono, a pilot who became a spy for the titular Resistance. Since this show aired from 2018 until 2020, it got guest appearances from the likes of Oscar Isaac as Poe Dameron and Gwendoline Christie as Captain Phasma.

We are now in the realm of Lego Star Wars. Honestly, the Lego galaxy of Star Wars is unexpectedly large. Droid Tales is basically Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by way of Star Wars. The five-episode miniseries told the story of the first six films through the perspective of C-3PO.

This Lego show is a little more substantive than others. Most of the time, you are getting a movie or a quick miniseries. The Freemaker Adventures, though, ran for 26 episodes. Maybe that’s because it focused on the Freemaker family, who were new to the universe and thus had more stories to tell.

If you aren’t a fan of the most recent Star Wars trilogy, the Lego Star Wars world is likely not for you. Many of the stories are set during that time and contain many of those characters. The Resistance Rises is a five-episode prequel to The Force Awakens, but, you know, comedic and done with Lego.

Lego Star Wars started as a video game concept, which has been around for a while. In fact, in 2009, Lego Star Wars celebrated its 10th anniversary. How did they do that? Why, with The Quest for R2-D2, a five-minute, mostly-wordless short.

This is the first Lego Star Wars bit of animation, as near as we can tell. Revenge of the Brick was released on Cartoon Network in 2005 to coincide with the release of Revenge of the Sith. It basically established the look and tone of Lego Star Wars for years to come. Well, more the tone. The look is...a little off.

This is the first time Lego Star Wars actually got a little meaty. The Padawan Menace, which aired on Cartoon Network in 2011, is a 30-minute, full-on TV special with a substantive plot and everything. Previously, we had only gotten brief shorts. When this was released on DVD, it included another five-minute Lego short, Bombad Bounty.

The end of an era, in some ways, as The Empire Strikes Out was made just before Disney bought Lucasfilm. Thus, it debuted on Cartoon Network, the longtime home of Star Wars animation. It’s almost like Star Wars by way of A Hard Day’s Night, as Luke finds himself trying to destroy an Imperial base, all while being chased by devoted fangirls who adore him for destroying the Death Star.

In a way, we would argue this is when Lego Star Wars really arrived. That’s because this is the first special to be made and to debut on Disney+. Disney really has gone all in on making Lego Star Wars specials for seemingly every holiday. This special riffs on the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special that George Lucas would like to see wiped off the face of the earth. You can also see the Disney budget behind it.

Trilogy of Terror, but in a family-friendly way. Poe Dameron and BB-8 find themselves on Mustafar, where there are spooky stories to be told at a haunted castle. Only, you know, not too spooky. All in all, a step down from the "Holiday Special" from Disney+.

OK, so “summer vacation” isn’t so much a holiday, but it was an excuse for a bunch of Star Wars characters to wear summer garb, and that’s pretty fun. Also, we got a new “Weird Al” Yankovic song out of it, which is more than you can say about most TV specials.

This show is basically a spinoff of The Freemaker Adventures. It’s a way for them to tell new stories with somewhat familiar characters, though they were invented for All-Stars. Which, ultimately, makes it kind of odd that the show is called All-Stars. Also, that part of the show runs simultaneously with Solo, which was a lukewarmly received movie.

The stories of The Yoda Chronicles don’t usually have much to do with Yoda. In fact, in the second season (retitled “The New Yoda Chronicles”), Luke Skywalker has a showdown with Darth Vader. If you were inclined, you can catch an alternate ending to the series finale on Disney+.

Alright, let’s leave Lego behind as we wind down this list. Forces of Destiny was released by Disney’s YouTube channel, but nowadays, that’s a valid release platform. The show was made up of a series of shorts, but each short was about a female character from the history of Star Wars. We’re talking about Leia, Jynn Erso, Rey, Ahsoka Tano, and more. All in all, they made 32 episodes.

There have been traditional 2D animated Star Wars, CGI animated shows, and Lego shows, so what else? Well, how about anime? The anthology show Visions gave nine different directors and seven different Japanese animation studios, a chance to tell a story within the Star Wars universe in their style. The show received critical acclaim in 2021, and the second batch of Visions episodes is expected in 2023.