There was almost a moment in The Clone Wars that would’ve changed Star Wars canon forever, the return of Darth Revan, one of the most legendary Sith Lords in the galaxy’s history.
It sounds wild, right? But it actually happened. Revan was fully designed, voiced, and even animated for an episode in Season 3’s “Mortis” arc. He was meant to appear as a dark spirit alongside Darth Bane, speaking directly to the Son — a scene that would have finally tied the Old Republic era to the Skywalker Saga.
But before the episode ever aired, the entire sequence was deleted.
Sam Witwer, the voice of Darth Maul and one of George Lucas’s go-to lore experts, revealed why that happened. And according to him, the reason came straight from Lucas himself… and it actually makes perfect sense once you hear it.
Sam Witwer Explains Why George Lucas Said ‘No’ to Darth Revan
When the Clone Wars team first created the Mortis arc, they wanted to show just how powerful and ancient the dark side truly was, so they brought in Darth Revan and Darth Bane as spirits who would whisper to the Son, tempting him deeper into darkness. The scene actually made it all the way through production, fully voiced, animated, and storyboarded.
And in case you’re wondering how that scene was meant to play out, here’s what it looked like.
Witwer explained that Lucas felt Revan and Bane’s inclusion “broke the rules of Star Wars.” The idea of Sith spirits appearing and talking to the living went against what he had already established in the lore, only Jedi could retain their consciousness after death. The Sith, Lucas said, were consumed by rage and power; they didn’t become ghosts, they just ceased to exist.
As Witwer put it “George Lucas cut it because he wanted to make it clear, there are no Sith ghosts. They cannot conceive of anything beyond death”
So rather than rewrite that fundamental rule of the Force, Lucas had the Revan and Bane sequence removed entirely. In the final cut, only the Son’s internal struggle remains, guided by the dark side itself, not by literal Sith spirits whispering in his ear.
Bonus: Dave Filoni on George Lucas’s Reason for Deleting the Revan and Bane Moment
What makes this story even better is that Dave Filoni himself later explained why George Lucas made the call to remove the scene.
Filoni recalled what happened next:
“The implication of it, which is that these Sith Lords could separate themselves from the Force and somehow talk to the Son, that seemed like a big deal. After we had shot it and sent the reel to George, he loved it — it was great. But eventually I got a call from him and he said, ‘You know, I’ve been really thinking about this, and we should take that scene out with the Sith Lords.’”
For Filoni and the team, it was a hard cut to make, but Lucas’s reasoning made perfect sense.
“It would have been cool to have those characters appear in The Clone Wars, but it was absolutely the right thing to do. They just can’t exist in that form — they can’t exist in that way,” Filoni said. “But I think for fans, it’s neat to know that the idea was considered, that we went very far with it, and that in the end George said, ‘It doesn’t jive with my bigger explanation of the Force.’”
That insight from Filoni really drives home what made Lucas’s approach to Star Wars so deliberate — even something as small as a deleted scene had to align perfectly with how the Force worked in his vision.