Am i the only one that has a fundamental issue with Clones' Inhibitor Chips?

Both from the perspective of them being (coincidentally speaking) easily discoverable, but most importantly, how the whole story plays out in the Clone Wars.

I already have my issues with how the republic (and the Jedi) accepts the Clone Army without doing any sort of investigation while also being forced to use it to repel the Separatist attacks.
At such point they already knew:
A) That Kamino was erased from the Jedi Archives
B) That the army was ordered by a Jedi who died prior to the commission
C) That they were clones of the Bounty Hunter sent to assassinate Padmé.
D) That Dooku told Obi-Wan (although considered a lie back then) Darth Sidious was controlling the senate.

I know these are AotC’s faults more than TCW, however, showing that Rex AND Anakin were told about the plot (and it would have been bad enough that every jedi knew about what Tops did and how suspiciously elusive and borderline confrontational the Kaminoans were during the initial investigation) honestly feels like overexplaining themselves into a dead end, while self-indulgently wanting dissect every single detail about the Order 66 origins.
In my opinion it would have been simply better to leave it as mental conditioning (Manchurian Candidate-style), with unspecified genetic modifications as mentioned in AotC without introducing biochips, tumors and whatnot, and DEFINITELY NOT prior accidents related to it.

I usually hate the “less is more” motto, but i guess there are times when it just is undeniably true, like this one.
Well, i guess this and Prometheus, but we’re not here to talk about Alien lore, are we? : P

Spartacus01 said:

No, you’re not the only one. I totally agree with you. It was stupid. In the Clone Wars Multimedia Project there wasn’t any chip, and it was done Better.

Unfortunately by living in Italy we had limited access to more niche SW literature, by the time TCW’s movie/series arrived they started catching up, but before it was a mess, i bought some republic commando and yuuzhan vong saga novels out of desperation one summer in 2006 when i went to the UK for vacation.
How did they put it in the multimedia project?

Spartacus01 said:

I’m Italian too and I understand you perfectly, in our country It’s very difficult to find Star Wars books, because publishers are lazy and never translate anything. Anyway, in the Multimedia Project the Clones were genetically engineered to obey every order without question, just as it’s established in Attack of the Clones, therefore 99.9% of regular Clones obeyed Order 66. However, Clones of higher rank such as Commandos and ARC troopers were more independent than regular Clones, and had the ability to disobey orders. It was necessary to make them more independent than regular Clones, because the kind of missions they were designed to participate in required more independence and free thinking. In fact, most of these Clones obeyed Order 66, but there were also many cases of desertion.

I remember Bly’s story, which actually formed a deep bond with Aayla Secura, after having executed the Order i remember he killed himself once he realized what he had done, was it grim? Sure, but i mean, so is Order 66 and the transition from republic to empire, i don’t expect a boatload of Clones to disobey it, otherwise it would mess up the continuity as far as i’m concerned, but at least show that a good portion of them actually feels remorse for their involuntary actions (if you’re engineered that way and then brainwashed as well with a set of keywords, then that’s what they are in the end), or as shown in the Bad Batch, they might go rogue later, once the empire starts “retiring” clones, i absolutely despise Omega as a character (and consequently them for sucking up to everything she says or asks), but i will concede that the political/world building stuff is surprisingly excellent.

NeverarGreat said:

Giving the clones a chip instantly robs them of any agency they could have had as individuals. Truly one of the worst things to come out of The Clone Wars show.

It’s also quite bizarre from a motivation angle, since there are so many ways in which the clones could have turned against the Jedi. For example, Palpatine could reveal that Yoda and the Jedi are inherently mistrustful of the clones and will intend to take over their peacekeeping duties once the war is over, relegating the clones to ignoble retirement or outright termination once their purpose has been fulfilled. Then the impetus of the clones to destroy the Jedi at the end of the war could grow organically from within their ranks, nurtured by the machinations of Palpatine.

It’s an interesting idea, although extremely hard to pull off imho, the Jedi would just find out at some point, as they should have with this stupid arc, the prequels trilogy (and Clone Wars) already have enough internal logic issues, adding to them would probably break everything to a point of no return, and it is debatable already if such point has been reached (no i’m not counting the disney content, that doesn’t exist at all in my book)

AhsokatheChosenOne said:

Yeah, I agree. I liked it better when I thought they were just that bent on following orders. The chips seem like lazy writing. What’s funny, though, is that in the Bad Batch, they seem like they’re trying to backtrack on it. What with some clones acting like people instead of microchipped zombies inexplicably? I liked the Clone Wars Finale, but I wonder if it would have been more satisfying to see the Clones struggle with the moral dilemma of following orders or doing what they thought was right. Especially Rex since he was seen as a very dogmatic character who took his service to the republic seriously.

I would have preferred to have seen that too, more a focus on them trained to follow orders, instead of being chipped.

I’ve been watching the Prequels for years and only recently noticed that Obi-Wan sees the doner of the Clone DNA (Jango) at Kamino and then sees Jango standing right next to Dooku, the guy who started the Clone Wars in the first place. It’s confusing to think about how they didn’t connect the dots there. This ruins the episodes where Anakin and Obi-Wan investigate the death of Syfo Dias and then find out that way that Dooku ordered the clones when they should have realized he had something to do with it when they saw him and Jango together, especially since they didn’t know where the Clones came from. The more I think about it, the more glaring this plot hole seems.

This old meme sprung to my mind reading the first part of your post:

 
And also this similar point too, but this one likely fits a different discussion. Sorry to Kyp_Astaar for the shitpost:

Ha! Nice memes.

Was it ever explained why the Clones did not kill Anakin, a Jedi as far as they are concerned. Or the Jedi who later became Inquisitors? Was it something in the inhibitor chip, or something else?

Ah, thanks Emre. I saw that final season and felt that it was glossed over, almost like they didn’t want to dwell on it. I’m starting to watch Rebels from the start soon and was hoping for something in there. Maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised?

AhsokatheChosenOne said:
Anyways, I agree with you. Sorry for ranting.

MTFBWY

Don’t be sorry man, this whole post is a rant.

Marooned Biker Scout said:

AhsokatheChosenOne said:

Yeah, I agree. I liked it better when I thought they were just that bent on following orders. The chips seem like lazy writing. What’s funny, though, is that in the Bad Batch, they seem like they’re trying to backtrack on it. What with some clones acting like people instead of microchipped zombies inexplicably? I liked the Clone Wars Finale, but I wonder if it would have been more satisfying to see the Clones struggle with the moral dilemma of following orders or doing what they thought was right. Especially Rex since he was seen as a very dogmatic character who took his service to the republic seriously.

I would have preferred to have seen that too, more a focus on them trained to follow orders, instead of being chipped.

I’ve been watching the Prequels for years and only recently noticed that Obi-Wan sees the doner of the Clone DNA (Jango) at Kamino and then sees Jango standing right next to Dooku, the guy who started the Clone Wars in the first place. It’s confusing to think about how they didn’t connect the dots there. This ruins the episodes where Anakin and Obi-Wan investigate the death of Syfo Dias and then find out that way that Dooku ordered the clones when they should have realized he had something to do with it when they saw him and Jango together, especially since they didn’t know where the Clones came from. The more I think about it, the more glaring this plot hole seems.

This old meme sprung to my mind reading the first part of your post:

 
And also this similar point too, but this one likely fits a different discussion. Sorry to Kyp_Astaar for the shitpost:

On this note, what’s even worse is Dooku openly saying to Obi-Wan that the whole senate was controlled by his master.
I can rationalize Jango being there, simply because he’s a bounty hunter, and he was bought 10 or so years ago to be the donor for the clone army and recently took a job from the separatists, that’s “tolerable”, i’d go out on a limb and say that, even if it’s a big stretch, the separatists were ready to declare war to the republic, so they literally had no choice but make use of the army (Palpatine organized it so that they were forcibly put into a corner without any way of escaping outside of employing the clones) but that Dooku line breaks everything, especially what’s been pointed out with those excellent memes.
If anything, they should make a cut without that goddamn line.
If ep.II was a tv series instead of a movie, it would actually be interesting if for a couple of episodes Yoda has to weigh in the moral and ethical implications of using an army that’s being conveniently handed to them right by the time of need and actually sending the republic to war, but it’s a moot point to imagine such things.

I’m glad I’m not the only one who hates Attack of the Clones for this reason (as well as other reasons.) Pretty much every problem people have with the Jedi or anything in the prequels is related to something established or fumbled in AotC.
The Jedi look absolutely idiotic and don’t do the most basic investigation you would see on a hack police procedural on TV. Nothing makes any sense and there’s no follow up. Okay, the Kaminoans made the clones - who’s paying them? How are they getting the money? How did Sifo Dyas, or whoever it was that ordered the army, have enough money to do it? Were they really working for 10 years without any contact with anyone whatsoever? Who is building all the ships and weapons and armor and combat training? How does none of this have any kind of paper trail?

There is one little exchange between Obi Wan and Mace Windu and Yoda, something like
“Hey do you think there’s a connection between Jango Fett trying to kill Padme and him also being the template of the clone army?”
"No there appears to be no motive 😃 "
“Do not assume anything, Obi Wan.”

And then nothing happens. Apparently Yoda can figure it out but he doesn’t. They’re just stupid, and everything gets plastered over with “the dark side is clouding their vision.” No one needed the Force or premonitions or anything supernatural to figure any of this out! It’s obvious!

Well… they’re dumb. Like real people. Which means that this is all a very clever comment on bureaucracy and government oversight within the military industrial complex.

Mocata said:

Well… they’re dumb. Like real people. Which means that this is all a very clever comment on bureaucracy and government oversight within the military industrial complex.

It’s not a good comparison because of what’s involved. As incompetent as the US and its intelligence agencies are, they are extremely paranoid when it comes to anything to do with extremism or separatism or a big enemy like Russia. If the Jedi are standing in for the FBI or something, if anything they would be overzealous in following leads and conducting sting operations to find treasonous behavior and enemy agents. They might take the free army or the missiles or whatever weapon it is (like the scientists from Operation Paperclip) but they would be absolutely sure of where they came from. They wouldn’t ignore that part.

If they were just dumb (which still wouldn’t be a good, satisfying story) there wouldn’t be so much dialogue about the dark side clouding everything and the Sith knowing the Jedi’s secret weakness.

I remember like 15 years ago or something, before “Prequel memes” were all the rage with the kids today, I was arguing on the Internet about the Prequels (as one does circa 2010), and I basically created a very similar “meme” (I didn’t call it that), showing one screenshot of Kenobi and Anakin chained up, and another shot of Jango Fett just standing out in the open, next to Dooku. I didn’t add captions or anything, but I just posted the screenshots to make the point.

The responses I got from Prequel fans were something like: “Well… Jango is a bounty hunter. Lots of people hire him! Nothing suspicious there!!” Or “That’s the POINT you idiot - the whole POINT is the Jedi are blinded by their arrogance. Didn’t you pay attention when Yoda complained about arrogance later??? You’re so stupid, George Lucas is a genius.” Or “Well the Jedi had no choice! They HAD to use the clone army! etc.”

Sigh…

The only point that has any merit is the last one. But that doesn’t explain why apparently NO investigation was done after Geonosis. I mean, it’s not like the Jedi/Republic are incapable of fighting a war while ALSO investigating some stuff. If the Allies can fight the Nazis while ALSO working on decoding Enigma, the Jedi can fight the Separatists while ALSO investigating the suspicious circumstances surrounding the clones.

I mean seriously, how hard is it? Go to Kamino. Ask them: “Hey do you have any logs or video footage of your conversation with Sifo Diyas? Do you have any video of him or a picture of him? Do you have the routing number of the bank used to transfer you the money? etc. etc.” Maybe Sifo Diyas paid them in crypto.