I just don’t understand why fans really want cloning to be brought back into the franchise. The cloning stories that the old expanded universe told involving Palpatine, Luke and Starkiller were just so ridiculous and I would go as far to say they were awful. It just felt like fan service at a ridiculous new height and power. I do believe that J.J. Abrams, Kathleen Kennedy and everyone else at Lucasfilm are way too smart to think of and include an idea of Rey fighting a Dark Side clone of herself. I honestly don’t know why fans would want to see something as bonkers and nonsensical as this idea sounds to me.
Why would cloning be so weird? There was a galaxy-spanning clone war, so why is it so silly that a Sith obsessed with eternal life would dabble in cloning. That’s not to say I think Rey should be a clone (I think that would be unnecessary), but I don’t get why its inclusion in the EU is often perceived so negatively.
It’s because the ideas and usages of cloning became so far fetched and crazy to the point where writers were using it because they may have thought it would’ve been cool. Almost like something a kid would do when playing with their toys. To me, the usages of cloning that was done in the old expanded universe was really silly and didn’t feel like Star Wars.
As for the Clone Wars, it made sense for that considering how Palpatine was in control of the facility and the war. Plus, there’s a reason why it was called the Clone Wars. But I do think that involving Jango and Boba Fett within the cloning in the Prequels was quite unnecessary, but that’s a whole other discussion.
TBH I don’t really care if people like the old cloning stories or not, it’s just that I never get a clear reason as to why exactly it “didn’t feel like Star Wars”. Overused, cliched, gimmicky, fine, I don’t see it that way, but I understand those arguments. But how it’s not Star Wars-y is just weird to me especially when an entire era in SW is based on cloning. And how is cloning a whole army OK, but Palpatine having a few backups is suddenly “far fetched”. A cop-out, maybe, a convenient excuse to bring him back, sure, but why is this so crazy compared to the other things we’ve seen/read in SW? If anything its a rather mundane Sci-Fi trope compared to the magic and mysticism that we’ve grown accustomed to in the franchise.
The reason why it began not feeling like Star Wars was because the story was going into outrageous directions that felt like the writers of the stories were not understanding what made Star Wars the special franchise it is. It’s simular as to what happened with Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Jack Thorne, the playwright of the Cursed Child, was going into far fetched directions that made people feel like he didn’t have a good grip, understanding, and knowledge of what made the series so great and how J.K. Rowling made it worked. The same goes here. I’m not saying that George Lucas is the only person who understands the franchise and everyone else doesn’t, (even though I sometimes get the feeling George doesn’t understand his series based on some of the questionable decisions he made with the Special Editions and the Prequels) but the writers of those mentioned Legends stories were going into paths that you could see a kid playing with toys or Star Wars games would’ve made the choice to do because they thought it would be “cool.” Let’s not forget that there was a comic series about zombie Gungans and that the droid who’s motivator blew up in A New Hope had the Force in old Legends comics.
Also, on a side note, while Star Wars has many Sci-Fi elements found within the Galaxy, I would classify the franchise as being more along the lines of fantasy due to its storytelling, characters and mythology.