The thing is, most of the contradictions between TCW and the Multimedia Project are not even Filoni’s fault, but Lucas’ fault. TCW was Lucas’ pet project, he had complete creative control over it, and decided whatever something was good enough as to be shown in the series, or not. He decided everything, so he’s the only responsible for the contradictions between TCW and the EU. In fact, from what I’ve come to understand, Filoni’s original plan for TCW was very different from the show we got. He initially planned to create a circumscribed story that would have revolved around a specific group of characters. The group he had in mind was supposed to be the crew of a ship going on various adventures during the Clone Wars. Apparently he didn’t want Anakin and Obi-Wan to be part of the show, precisely in order to avoid contradicting the Clone Wars Multimedia Project. But it seems that George rejected the idea and wanted Anakin and Obi-Wan to be part of the show, so Filoni agreed, accepted George’s conditions and started working on TCW by following George’s desire of having Anakin and Obi-Wan is prominent characters in the show. Don’t get me wrong, nowadays Filoni acts like a hack, who doesn’t respect the work of other people and doesn’t mind contradicting it. But I don’t think he always had this behavior. I believe that he was initially a genuine EU fan who didn’t want to contradict the established continuity, until George taught him that continuity doesn’t really matter, with the result that Filoni took this attitude from George and started saying to himself: “Well, if George doesn’t respect continuity, then why should I respect it? You know what? I don’t want to care about anyone else’s story, I just want to do my own thing.” So, if anyone is to blame for TCW’s faults in terms of continuity, then it’s Lucas, not Filoni. At least not entirely.
The issue is Ahsoka. I like her, but Vader’s line, “when I left you I was a learner, now I am the Master,” indicates Vader was never a Jedi Master as Anakin.
Or a full knight for that matter. Just another bit of OT continuity Lucas either forgot or ignored when writing the prequels.
I’ve always been of the mindset that we fans can often take dialogue too literally. This is a case of that for me. After 20 years of experience, a medical doctor would certainly acknowledge that they were still a learner in their first few years out of med school, even though they may still hold the same title. The line is just meant to establish the dynamic of the characters in the scene, it’s not meant to be expository.
To make the case for this particular topic, you’d be better off using Obi-Wan’s line to Luke that Vader “was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil.” Because that IS meant to be expository. But for me personally, even that is vague enough to allow for some wiggle room, as many young (and even older) professionals in the real world have pupil/mentor relationships with others in their field who simply have more experience.
I think we often need to give character dialogue the freedom of having been generalized, abbreviated, obfuscated, etc… because that’s just how humans communicate. We use shorthand, we leave out unnecessary details, we avoid painful discussions. And it doesn’t always paint an accurate picture of our experiences. Just my 2 cents.
If Filoni contradicts the Clone Wars multimedia project, it’s a great sin. But if Lucas contradicts the EU, or the OT novelizations, or the OT itself, in roll the appeals to ad hoc retcons, headcanon, and George’s Vision™. After so many years of this crap, I’m at the end of my rope with it.
I too have the kind of behavior that you are talking about, but I’m not as hypocritical as the people you described. I have two main reasons of why I complain about certain contradictions while ignoring others:
Firstly, my personal taste. I don’t try to hide my personal taste behind “George’s vision” and bulshit like that. I’m intellectually honest, so I admit that one of the reasons of why I don’t care about the contradictions between the Prequels and the pre-1999 EU, while complaining about the contradictions between TCW and the Multimedia Project, is because I like the Prequels and dislike TCW in the first place. I vastly prefer Georgia’s version of the Clone Wars over what Timothy Zhan had in mind, and I generally don’t even care about the post-ROTJ EU anyway, so I’m more than willing to ignore those contradictions. I’m not afraid to say it, I don’t want to make up any excuse for it, and I don’t want to hide my personal taste behind someone else’s vision.
Secondly, I don’t think that the contradictions between the Prequels and the EU were as deep as the contradictions between TCW and the EU.
Before the de-canonization of the EU, the authors and those that were in charge of continuity managed to solve the contradictions between the EU and the Prequels in a way that is more than convincing for me. They made up pretty sensible explanations for those contradictions, they even created entire comics just to solve contradictions, and I’m fine with the explanations they gave. On the other hand, they never managed to solve the contradictions between TCW and the EU, simply because they were so deep that they couldn’t be solved in the first place. So much so, that a couple of years ago Leland Chee himself said on Instagram that solving those contradictions is literally impossible, and that he himself sees the Clone Wars Multimedia Project as the real version of the Clone Wars.
And don’t get me wrong guys, I’m not saying that the explanations they gave to solve the contradictions between the Prequels and the EU make sense from an objective point of view. I’m simply saying that they make sense FOR ME, and that this (other than my personal taste) is the reason of why I don’t complain much about these contradictions.