Yeah, I perhaps shouldn’t have said never see again, rather that their identities aren’t important to the overall plot. I’m aware there are references like this throughout, and I used to really enjoy them, but I just don’t think they constitute genuine quality, so I think this edit has to be fairly brutal. I do agree that things like Numa’s references add nice texture, but I don’t think they justify retaining an episode which is otherwise an hour and a half that isn’t fun.

That said, I think I’m coming round to the idea that there’s a core here which represents the real great episodes with emotional resonance, and then some way to present the good moments from across the wider clone wars, of which you could argue that that is one.

Which reminds me, I realised earlier that this period of time is a single war! The Clone War! It isn’t Clone Wars at all! The Star Wars are a collection of wars, of which the Clone War is one such war, which contains multiple battles and crises. Like Yoda says at the end of Attack of the Clones, “Begun, the Clone War has.”