Even then, they already introduced some ideas people weren’t expecting, most importantly the clones being the good guys and the Republic falling from within.
I completely expected the latter.
The EU writers didn’t, though. All of the descriptions of the Clone Wars in the spinoff material described it as a war between the Jedi of the Old Republic and the evil clones of Palpatine’s Empire. That’s mainly what I was referring to when I talked about people’s expectations.
I’m familiar with that material. I interpreted their recollection of the Clone Wars a different way.