The Mandalorian has added a lot of great new material to the Star Wars universe in its first two seasons, while also drawing heavily from the events of The Clone Wars. The shows are two of the most lauded additions to the Star Wars franchise in recent years, and they’ve both been big parts of Disney+’s early original programming. As the more recent series of the two, The Mandalorian has taken major cues from The Clone Wars, which so far has worked out incredibly well.
Because Clone Wars creator Dave Filoni was heavily involved in The Mandalorian’s creation, it makes sense that many touches from the animated series would appear in the journeys of Din Djarin and Grogu. Characters like Ahsoka Tano and Bo-Katan Kryze and pieces of lore like the Death Watch and the Darksaber, all introduced in The Clone Wars, are big parts of the overall Mandalorian story. A lot of that is simply because much of the canonical lore surrounding Mandalore was established in The Clone Wars, but there are other reasons as well.
As the first major Star Wars film or TV project after the end of the prequel trilogy, The Clone Wars added a ton of new material to the franchise. The stories of many of Star Wars’ most famous characters had already been told in their entirety, so Filoni and the rest of the team focused on new characters like Ahsoka and the Mandalorians. Because those stories were so popular with fans, it made sense to harken back to them in The Mandalorian. In a way, the two shows – combined with Star Wars: Rebels – comprise their own, separate saga.
Because of when it was originally released, a lot of Star Wars fans never watched The Clone Wars. Bringing back some of its best characters and storylines in The Mandalorian also helped reestablish them for a broader audience, setting up future projects like Ahsoka’s upcoming Disney+ series. And for those who were already familiar with The Clone Wars, the references made in The Mandalorian were fun Easter eggs.
It’s also worth mentioning that The Clone Wars is one of the most widely loved parts of the entire Star Wars franchise. After the sequel trilogy proved to be incredibly divisive, it made sense to ground The Mandalorian in less controversial Star Wars stories, and The Clone Wars was an obvious pick. By blending elements of the original trilogy and Clone Wars with whole new characters and storylines, The Mandalorian has found immense success in its own right.
