Thirty-nine finished episodes of a Star Wars comedy have been sitting in a vault since 2013. Sixty-two more scripts were ready to go. Nobody outside Lucasfilm has watched them.
That changes next month, in a museum.
On September 22, 2026, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art opens in LA, founded by George Lucas and his wife, Mellody Hobson. The museum is built to celebrate visual storytelling in all its forms, from paintings to comics to movies, TV and everything in between. It will also host public screenings of select Star Wars Detours episodes, as Seth Green confirmed at a panel during this year’s San Diego Comic-Con.
What Detours actually is
Star Wars Detours is one of the last official Star Wars projects created by George Lucas, produced by Lucasfilm Animation with Robot Chicken‘s Seth Green and Matthew Senreich. Non-canon. A parody, likened to The Simpsons, set roughly between Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith and the original Star Wars movie, later retitled A New Hope.
Footage first surfaced at Star Wars Celebration 2012. Then Lucasfilm put the series on indefinite hold in 2013, and that was that for 13 years.
The cast is the part that stings. Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Jar Jar Binks all appear, voiced by a roster that includes Seth Green, Star Wars voice acting legend Dee Bradley Baker, Ahmed Best, Billy Dee Williams and Seth MacFarlane as Palpatine.
The timing was terrible
In October 2012, a few months after that Celebration panel, Disney finalized its purchase of Lucasfilm for $4 billion. Development on a new trilogy began almost immediately, along with a cleanup of Star Wars canon: the Expanded Universe was rebranded as Star Wars Legends, leaving only Lucas’ six movies and the Star Wars: The Clone Wars saga inside Disney’s new continuity.
A show whose whole job was making fun of Star Wars didn’t fit that plan. In a statement on StarWars.com dated March 11, 2013, the studio explained:
“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.”
Detours wasn’t the only thing that got run over. The Clone Wars was canceled after season 6 in 2014, then revived for one final season in 2020, on Disney+, which tells you something. Disney is also still sitting on 60 Lucas-approved scripts for Star Wars: Underworld, a live-action series aimed at adults about the galaxy’s criminal underbelly after Revenge of the Sith.
Why the museum screenings matter
There are no known plans to release Detours more widely. But screenings generate press, press generates curiosity, and curiosity has revived stranger things in this franchise.
The obvious home is a “Star Wars Vintage” drop on Disney+, next to Droids, Ewoks and Genndy Tartakovsky’s Star Wars: Clone Wars. Disney+ has been unusually good for this brand precisely because it let Star Wars try different genres, tones and narrative styles, from The Mandalorian and Andor on the live-action side to Star Wars Rebels, Star Wars: The Bad Batch and, more recently, Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord. A parody series fits that tradition without much strain.
Green himself sounded pessimistic in 2021, saying Detours was unlikely to reach Disney+ because updating it to the standard the franchise now holds itself to would take too many resources. That was before anyone had a date for the museum.
The 2027 window
Star Wars turns 50 in 2027, and the celebrations already include a wide release of Lucas’ unaltered 1977 theatrical cut, something that looked impossible a few short years ago. If that can happen, a shelved comedy can happen.
Director Todd Grimes and everyone who spent years on those 39 episodes have waited long enough. The doors open Tuesday, September 22.
