if it’s 1993 or whatever and you’re trying to write the Prequels from scratch, what would you focus on? Suppose your goal is to generate the maximum amount of drama and audience emotional investment possible. What is the most effective way to achieve that?
If I were in 1993 and I had to rewrite the Prequels from scratch, then I’d keep the actual story, but I wouldn’t develop it in a movie trilogy. Rather, I would just make the Prequels to be part of the EU, because the Prequels have an incredible amount of story to tell, and three simple movies are not enough to tell it. So, I would basically create a whole multimedia project similar to the already existing Clone Wars Multimedia Project, but starting from the early PT era when Obi-Wan was still a Padawan. I would tell Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon’s adventures, until we get to the events of The Phantom Menace and the discovery of Anakin, then going forward and forward until the Clone Wars start. Then I would explore the Clone Wars in detail, like in the CWMMP, and then I would end everything with the events of Revenge of the Sith and Order 66. The story would remain the same, but it would just be more developed and explored better, since it would be developed in comics, books and video games instead of movies.
Being italian and having watched the PT for many years in italian only, i can safely say he comes out a bit better than the original, it’s by no extent of the imagination a perfect dubbing, mostly because the voice actor still needs to emulate at least sometimes his tone, unfortunately we traded a better performance for Anakin for the clearly superior acting that Ewan McGregor gave for Obi-Wan in original language, not to mention McDiarmid’s priceless Palpatine acting.
I’m Italian too, and I love Francesco Pezzulli’s performance better, for sure. I love Hayden’s too, though. I never had any great problem with Hayden’s performance.
“I know that all of you like to dream about space and are a little bit of envious of us. But you know what? We’re also envious of you. We are exploring space, but it’s only the beginning. Planets and unknown worlds are awaiting you. You will continue to storm the Universe.”
— Yuri Gagarin
Honestly i dont like Anakin Version of TCW Show i dont feel that Anakin is Hayden i think TCW is a Reinterpretation of the Prequels for the OT Fans that didnt like the Original Prequels Movies in the Original Prequels Movies Anakin dont have a Padawan, Darth Maul dont survive and Anakin is more introverted personally i do not consider the Cartoons to be Canon with the 6 Original Movies the Cartoons are just an Alternate Universe to me
TCW Version of Anakin Skywalker was just a Bad Clone of Han Solo
‘George Lucas should get more credit for “saving Anakin Skywalker” in Star Wars: The Clone Wars’?
I believe credit should also go to Genndy Tartakovsky for his 2003 Clone Wars series.
He was the original guy who showed an actual credible and authentic friendship and brotherhood between Anakin and Obi-Wan on screen. From Obi-Wan suggesting to the Jedi Council that Anakin be made a Master and then arguing for him vs the Council Members. Their fighting together as a team, both their contrasting approaches working as an effective duo is also showcased well. And despite Anakin’s issues with the Jedi’s ‘overbearing’ approach at times, their confiding to each other they both miss Qui-Gon is a heart warming emotional moment. Obi-Wan preparing Anakin for his mission on Nelvan too showed how much he cared for Anakin and wanted him to succeed:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1XDh-MW5ug - despite the series being a fast-paced action orientated series, it still showcased that.
Anakin also comes across as more more caring and compassionate for others around him. An all round more likeable, charismatic, and believable Jedi, than we saw in the PT films themselves.
Yes, these were all things Lucas and Filoni showed more often and in more detail in their 2008 Clone Wars projects, but Genndy should also be credited too. Perhaps even more so given he was the original creative to highlight that believable and evolving relationship on screen, showing that it could be accomplished, and perhaps even inspiring Lucas to do more of that for his later 2008 project?
So credit to Lucas for trying to fix his mistakes and issues with the PT in the 2008 TCW, but these were problems of his own making. And the initial “fixes” were based on someone else’s attempt to show Anakin in a far batter light than previously seen, despite them being were later retconned and rewritten so Lucas & Filoni could do it their way for the 2008 TCW.
That’s not ignoring there being a writers’ room for TCW. People often think Filoni wrote much of TCW, yet he didn’t (he directed around twice as many episodes than he wrote). Christian Taylor, Henry Gilroy, Drew Greenberg, Scott Murphy, Katie Lucas, and Steven Melching all feature in writing a lot of the episodes.
The Clone Wars messes up continuity or how Lucas is still destroying Star Wars - 2011 OT thread
Clone Wars (2003 animated series by Genndy Tartakovsky) - a general discussion thread - 2005 OT thread
2003 Clone Wars vs 2008 The Clone Wars - 2014 OT thread
“In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be “replaced” by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten.” - George Lucas
Like others who have posted in here, I too would rather more screen time given to highlighting Anakin and Obi-Wan’s friendship in the PT films themselves, in build-up for a more satisfying and impactful and payoff for their eventual duel in ROTS, than some dumb needless droid factory scene that ran for 5 uninterrupted minutes in AOTC.
A 5 minute scene which in itself was filmed in post-production to correct some perceived issues, and yet offered little impact to the story or characters.
“In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be “replaced” by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten.” - George Lucas
TCW Version of Anakin Skywalker was just a Bad Clone of Han Solo
and without the charm or warmth of Han Solo.
I thought the 2003 Clone Wars gave us a better Anakin as a character than the AOTC did, even better than early 2008 TCW did. There wasn’t many scenes of them, it wasn’t that type of show, but what there was, was very well done.
I need to give the 2003 Clone Wars another watch through.
“Don’t tell anyone… but when ‘Star Wars’ first came out, I didn’t know where it was going either. The trick is to pretend you’ve planned the whole thing out in advance. Throw in some father issues and references to other stories - let’s call them homages - and you’ve got a series.” - George Lucas
I watched it recently and it is short but sweet. Anakin’s journey when told visually (the Ventress fight and the cave vision) is good stuff.
As for the CG series I enjoy it best when it’s not about Anakin and Obiwan, so there it is.
TCW Anakin is great at points, when he got to be a kind of ruthlessly heroic character. He wouldn’t hesitate when a friend was in danger, which was an interesting way to foreshadow his eventual turn.
It seems pretty fair to me that Lucas doesn’t get much credit for ‘saving’ Anakin though. It would only be balancing out the ruining he did already. I’d have much preferred to just have a decent Anakin in the films, and not scattered throughout 7 seasons of a cartoon spin-off. TCW is fairly overrated by the fanbase too. The good stuff is remembered fondly, but there was LOADS of average to outright bad material too. It’s a worse hit rate than the movies.
Not even the worst of TCW did the same irreversible damage to Star Wars that the prequels and Rise of Skywalker did.
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My Star Wars Fan-Edits
Not even the worst of TCW did the same irreversible damage to Star Wars that the prequels and Rise of Skywalker did.
Yeah probably wouldn’t argue with that. TCW doesn’t do much to alter anything significant, and is basically entirely supplementary. The lazy cowardice of TROS’s story ripples back through everything unfortunately.
I don’t think this show saved Anakin, yet alone the prequels. This show is too silly. I find it ironically amusing when people say this show saved the prequels, when it has the exact same issues. Awful droid humor, jar jar episodes, Anakin is still excessively obsessive and weird with Padme (think about that one episode where he gives Padme his lightsaber in the office and his demanding and immature attitude), the tone is all over the place, Anakin is easily duped to evil ( think about Mortis trilogy, he becomes evil because the evil son showed him in the future that he will be evil and thinks being evil in the present will stop him from being evil in the future, RIDICULOUS). And even the parts of the show that are good like Maul, are ridiculous when you think about it… Maul literally parades around with no genitalia. It’s absolutely absurd and I wish this wasn’t considered “canon.” Even though I only really count the OT as canon since SW has been retconned into oblivion.
Nothing can save the prequels. They are done. They exist. If you don’t like them then try to focus on the original prequel ideas that exist in the ROTJ novel and Thrawn trilogy, as rare as the details are.
That being said if Ihad to revisit Lucas’ prequels I read Darth Plagueis and ROTS NOVEL…
I used to be a lot more charitable to TCW, because it was better than the prequels. But “better” =/= “good”, and in hindsight, it’s helluvalot clearer just how much of a hack Filoni is. I’m not all that motivated to ever rewatch the series, but if I do, I’ll probably end up dropping my rating down to a 5/10, placing it right alongside ROTJ and TFA.
Gods for some, miniature libertarian socialist flags for others.
I’ve only watched the part of the video linked to in the opening post, and this is an interesting subject to me in that it also highlights what George failed to do or show onscreen in the Prequel films. And the continuing attempts since to fix, repair, or explain the shortcomings or problems with the Prequels in the ancillary series and material since. Whether that is 2003 Clone Wars (to an extent), the 2008 film, The Clone Wars series, Rebels, or Tales Of The Jedi and so on. Or official articles and interviews, and the slew of fan-made “George is a secret genius” or “Prequel deeper meaning” material such as Ring Theory or visual symmetry, or overlong and videos pieces on fans simply “failing to understand the Prequel films”. None of which changes anything onscreen in the Prequels themselves.
For example, I really enjoyed the Dooku segments of 2022’s Tales Of The Jedi. But I could not help but question just why we were not shown such material in the Prequels themselves, which would have made his character and story arc far more compelling. 20 years on from AOTC and we finally got some enticing onscreen content about Dooku and his motivations, instead of what we saw in AOTC & ROTS; a 2D disappointing mustache twirling throwaway villain.
We really could do with a Special Edition of the Prequels, such a thing would be fascinating to see, along with the reactions and thoughts of many Prequel fans.
Though I still don’t understand why Obi-Wan and Anakin’s friendship, them becoming a team, and then closer like “brothers”, wasn’t shown in the Prequel films themselves; that it needed “a footnote” such as TCW to explain or show this.
According to George, the Anakin character was “very one-sided” in ROTS, perhaps this was why George felt the need to show that more charming heroic side of Anakin, “his settling down and maturing a little bit which is what happens when you become a parent or teacher”. But this takes place shortly before his fall to the dark side, betraying the Jedi, killing the children again (and the men and the women too!), choking his pregnant wife, and fighting Obi-Wan. Then finding out it was all for nothing, that he was lied to and misled by Palpatine, but still continuing on to become Space Hitler. To me it is all quite uneven, and jarring.
If George Lucas worked on and had significant input on TCW along with Dave Filoni, then George should likely deserve more credit for “saving Anakin Skywalker”, with any others who worked on that side of creativity for the film or series. Is the video posted by SWOTFAN25 about 2008’s The Clone Wars film, or the series? But anyway, we should also remember and acknowledge why Anakin needed “saving” in the first place, going on what was shown or portrayed in the Prequels. Or not shown, in this case.
100%
I don’t think this show saved Anakin, yet alone the prequels. This show is too silly. I find it ironically amusing when people say this show saved the prequels, when it has the exact same issues. Awful droid humor, jar jar episodes, Anakin is still excessively obsessive and weird with Padme (think about that one episode where he gives Padme his lightsaber in the office and his demanding and immature attitude), the tone is all over the place, Anakin is easily duped to evil ( think about Mortis trilogy, he becomes evil because the evil son showed him in the future that he will be evil and thinks being evil in the present will stop him from being evil in the future, RIDICULOUS). And even the parts of the show that are good like Maul, are ridiculous when you think about it… Maul literally parades around with no genitalia. It’s absolutely absurd and I wish this wasn’t considered “canon.” Even though I only really count the OT as canon since SW has been retconned into oblivion.
Nothing can save the prequels. They are done. They exist. If you don’t like them then try to focus on the original prequel ideas that exist in the ROTJ novel and Thrawn trilogy, as rare as the details are.
That being said if Ihad to revisit Lucas’ prequels I read Darth Plagueis and ROTS NOVEL…
Yeah it’s overrated even by itself. The animation style has this weird floaty, weightless quality that keeps any of the action from having impact.
When you watch the show people have these charts where they tell you what episodes to skip and which arcs are good because they’re so hit or miss. It seems like a lot of the popularity comes from memes about “heh wow this is so dark for a kids show, they’re doing war crimes right now.” Okay, it’s dark for a kid’s show. You showed very light, bloodless versions of people getting tortured and soldiers dying in combat. And? Does that make it good?
Not to mention nothing matters. The show was created after everyone had already seen Revenge of the Sith. There is no tension at all because we know how everything ends already and we know exactly who lives and who dies, even down to the minor background characters and almost every villain. Oh no, our heroes are captured for the 30th time, just like every other episode! Will they make it to the movies to do all the stuff we already saw them do?
The closest it goes to patching the prequels somewhat is adding a little bit of information about Sifo Dyas that goes nowhere, and adding the brain chips to the clones to further explain Order 66. But the chips are only patching a problem that the show itself introduced, making the clones all sympathetic characters that wouldn’t betray the Jedi on their own.
Speaking of that, I feel like I’ve heard enough Temuera Morrison impression style dialogue to last a life time. I think that’s why I had trouble watching The Bad Batch…I’m just really over “the clones” and going through soo many ins and outs with them as a fan. I’ve got a couple of friends who grew up with the prequel era and they loved clones individually with a passion. You ever met a Star Wars fan who’s all time favorite SW character was Commander Cody?? I have…and even he said The Bad Batch was nauseating with the all-out “New Zealand variant” Clone stuff.
But yeah, just getting to know soo many clones and the Jedi emphasizing that they be individuals made it hard to just accept order 66. The whole “chip” thing is the only story device that works…but that still doesn’t make it good at all. I mean, that chip could have been used WAY earlier on and with alot more effect than just shooting Jedi Generals. And why would you bother with dimwit volunteer Stormtroopers after having your own fully bred robot reacting army? The Bad Batch didn’t sell me on why they were replaced…or why Clones aren’t seen all over the galaxy after those events. You’d think you’d see one of those guys every week on any planet. Oh well.
I don’t think this show saved Anakin, yet alone the prequels. This show is too silly. I find it ironically amusing when people say this show saved the prequels, when it has the exact same issues. Awful droid humor, jar jar episodes, Anakin is still excessively obsessive and weird with Padme (think about that one episode where he gives Padme his lightsaber in the office and his demanding and immature attitude), the tone is all over the place, Anakin is easily duped to evil ( think about Mortis trilogy, he becomes evil because the evil son showed him in the future that he will be evil and thinks being evil in the present will stop him from being evil in the future, RIDICULOUS). And even the parts of the show that are good like Maul, are ridiculous when you think about it… Maul literally parades around with no genitalia. It’s absolutely absurd and I wish this wasn’t considered “canon.” Even though I only really count the OT as canon since SW has been retconned into oblivion.
Nothing can save the prequels. They are done. They exist. If you don’t like them then try to focus on the original prequel ideas that exist in the ROTJ novel and Thrawn trilogy, as rare as the details are.
That being said if Ihad to revisit Lucas’ prequels I read Darth Plagueis and ROTS NOVEL…
Yeah it’s overrated even by itself. The animation style has this weird floaty, weightless quality that keeps any of the action from having impact.
When you watch the show people have these charts where they tell you what episodes to skip and which arcs are good because they’re so hit or miss. It seems like a lot of the popularity comes from memes about “heh wow this is so dark for a kids show, they’re doing war crimes right now.” Okay, it’s dark for a kid’s show. You showed very light, bloodless versions of people getting tortured and soldiers dying in combat. And? Does that make it good?
Not to mention nothing matters. The show was created after everyone had already seen Revenge of the Sith. There is no tension at all because we know how everything ends already and we know exactly who lives and who dies, even down to the minor background characters and almost every villain. Oh no, our heroes are captured for the 30th time, just like every other episode! Will they make it to the movies to do all the stuff we already saw them do?
The closest it goes to patching the prequels somewhat is adding a little bit of information about Sifo Dyas that goes nowhere, and adding the brain chips to the clones to further explain Order 66. But the chips are only patching a problem that the show itself introduced, making the clones all sympathetic characters that wouldn’t betray the Jedi on their own.
I don’t know about you but for me, if I have to skip episodes in order to enjoy a show, that means it’s not a very good show. No one says to skip Breaking Bad episodes, Sopranos episodes, Game of Thrones episodes, Avatar Last Airbender episodes, etc. etc.
If you were to tell someone to watch this show starting from Season 1 I’ll wager more than half would quit just based off the first episode with Yoda and the clones and that insufferable droid humor.
I don’t think this show saved Anakin, yet alone the prequels. This show is too silly. I find it ironically amusing when people say this show saved the prequels, when it has the exact same issues. Awful droid humor, jar jar episodes, Anakin is still excessively obsessive and weird with Padme (think about that one episode where he gives Padme his lightsaber in the office and his demanding and immature attitude), the tone is all over the place, Anakin is easily duped to evil ( think about Mortis trilogy, he becomes evil because the evil son showed him in the future that he will be evil and thinks being evil in the present will stop him from being evil in the future, RIDICULOUS). And even the parts of the show that are good like Maul, are ridiculous when you think about it… Maul literally parades around with no genitalia. It’s absolutely absurd and I wish this wasn’t considered “canon.” Even though I only really count the OT as canon since SW has been retconned into oblivion.
Nothing can save the prequels. They are done. They exist. If you don’t like them then try to focus on the original prequel ideas that exist in the ROTJ novel and Thrawn trilogy, as rare as the details are.
That being said if Ihad to revisit Lucas’ prequels I read Darth Plagueis and ROTS NOVEL…
Yeah it’s overrated even by itself. The animation style has this weird floaty, weightless quality that keeps any of the action from having impact.
When you watch the show people have these charts where they tell you what episodes to skip and which arcs are good because they’re so hit or miss. It seems like a lot of the popularity comes from memes about “heh wow this is so dark for a kids show, they’re doing war crimes right now.” Okay, it’s dark for a kid’s show. You showed very light, bloodless versions of people getting tortured and soldiers dying in combat. And? Does that make it good?
Not to mention nothing matters. The show was created after everyone had already seen Revenge of the Sith. There is no tension at all because we know how everything ends already and we know exactly who lives and who dies, even down to the minor background characters and almost every villain. Oh no, our heroes are captured for the 30th time, just like every other episode! Will they make it to the movies to do all the stuff we already saw them do?
The closest it goes to patching the prequels somewhat is adding a little bit of information about Sifo Dyas that goes nowhere, and adding the brain chips to the clones to further explain Order 66. But the chips are only patching a problem that the show itself introduced, making the clones all sympathetic characters that wouldn’t betray the Jedi on their own.
I don’t know about you but for me, if I have to skip episodes in order to enjoy a show, that means it’s not a very good show. No one says to skip Breaking Bad episodes, Sopranos episodes, Game of Thrones episodes, Avatar Last Airbender episodes, etc. etc.
If you were to tell someone to watch this show starting from Season 1 I’ll wager more than half would quit just based off the first episode with Yoda and the clones and that insufferable droid humor.
To be fair there are a lot of hit or miss shows that are still really good, especially when they have full TV seasons of 20 or so episodes. There are watch orders for Star Trek TNG or Deep Space Nine for example, and TNG season 1 is considered really rough. There are episodes of Avatar that people hate that they probably skip on rewatches. Game of Thrones famously ended poorly in its later seasons.
However I think with The Clone Wars it’s just worse overall. The story is all divided up into arcs and it’s a sort of anthology show that jumps around in the timeline and doesn’t focus on any particular narrative thread. If you have a bad arc then it’s a string of 3-4 episodes that all go down. If you have a good arc it can get ruined by a boring episode in the middle. You don’t just skip episodes, you skip whole characters like Jar Jar and Padme. There are a bunch of episodes that focus on side characters who aren’t particularly interesting, and you’re just waiting for Obi Wan and Anakin to come back.
Everything in the Prequels is like a bare-bones, skeleton of a story. All the details - all the “connective tissue” - was all filled in later by people who are not George Lucas.
What was Palpatine’s plan in the Phantom Menace? Who knows! He was doing some shady shit with some Trade company to get elected President, that’s all that mattered. Why did the Separatists want to leave the Republic? Who cares! Taxes maybe! Or something! Maybe they were sick of Palpatine’s tacky office furnishings. What about Anakin’s great friendship with Obi-Wan? You know, basically the entire dramatic basis for making these movies? Who cares! It happens mostly off screen. We’ll fill it later with some EU “multi-media” projects or whatever. What really matters is General Grievous has enough screen-time to justify all those ILM man-hours and electricity cost of 3D rendering, and to meet projected sales figures for Grievous toys.
Everything in the Prequels is like a bare-bones, skeleton of a story. All the details - all the “connective tissue” - was all filled in later by people who are not George Lucas.
What was Palpatine’s plan in the Phantom Menace? Who knows! He was doing some shady shit with some Trade company to get elected President, that’s all that mattered. Why did the Separatists want to leave the Republic? Who cares! Taxes maybe! Or something! Maybe they were sick of Palpatine’s tacky office furnishings. What about Anakin’s great friendship with Obi-Wan? You know, basically the entire dramatic basis for making these movies? Who cares! It happens mostly off screen. We’ll fill it later with some EU “multi-media” projects or whatever. What really matters is General Grievous has enough screen-time to justify all those ILM man-hours and electricity cost of 3D rendering, and to meet projected sales figures for Grievous toys.
I agree. It’s such a shame. I wish instead of having to rely on books like Darth Plagueis and the ROTS novelization that these were the actual movies…written by competent writers. Instead we got live action movies that feel like cartoons and that don’t feel like they even belong in the same universe as the OT
However I think with The Clone Wars it’s just worse overall. The story is all divided up into arcs and it’s a sort of anthology show that jumps around in the timeline and doesn’t focus on any particular narrative thread. If you have a bad arc then it’s a string of 3-4 episodes that all go down. If you have a good arc it can get ruined by a boring episode in the middle. You don’t just skip episodes, you skip whole characters like Jar Jar and Padme. There are a bunch of episodes that focus on side characters who aren’t particularly interesting, and you’re just waiting for Obi Wan and Anakin to come back.
I didn’t see all of TCW, but what I did see was basically an above-average Saturday morning cartoon. I can’t understand how people say things like “it fixes the Prequels” when the show is not even targeting the same demographics necessarily. And the Anakin character is basically a completely different character.
I have mostly negative things to say about TCW. I never really appreciated the animation style. The show’s quality is frustratingly inconsistent. However, one major positive thing I can say is that in the final season (released under Disney ironically) there is a 4 episode arc at the end that is just really high quality writing, in my opinion. We see Order 66 from Ahsoka’s isolated POV on a malfunctioning Star Destroyer. It was really well done, even if it does go off the rails a little bit at the end. I was actually surprised at how good it was, and this made we wish that Order 66 was depicted more like this in Revenge of the Sith, focusing on the isolated POV of a single Jedi (probably Obi Wan) as the clones around him suddenly turn on him, and later he makes the horrifying realization that it’s a Galaxy-wide phenomenon happening off-screen.
I think if there’s one, individual Clone Wars arc worth watching, it’s The Wrong Jedi arc (season 5 finale arc). Written by a real crime TV writer - Charles Murray - it’s genuinely just good TV and has the chops to pull off its ambitions. When Ventress talks about turning Ahsoka in to “the bondsman”, I popped. It’s good stuff - just solid procedural genre fiction.
And so much of what the show nails is distilled into these four episodes. If you hadn’t watched previous seasons, it catches you up to the character dynamics at the top, and pays them off (for once) in a single taut plotline. Every other episode tables the character development for ROTS, and this is the only one to offer a new dimension to it.
I think what a lot of people (and myself) like about Clone Wars Anakin in general is how he matches personality-wise to “The Good Friend” Ben describes in A New Hope. He’s given moments of charm and swashbuckling as a pilot and warrior that feel more believable to that end; more than the deeply troubled young man Hayden mostly portrayed. Luke aspires to this image of his father. The shades of darkness Anakin’s character gets to show, then work as compelling “foreshadowing”. It’s mirroring the OT arc in earnest, which I think is what a lot of people wanted out of the prequels in the first place. That’s the “fix”. It’s not a deconstruction of Vader’s mythos, it’s Luke gone bad.
But yeah, 2/3 of TCW isn’t actually good, and only the aforementioned four episodes are truly great. I will always have a lot of fondness for its insanity, but it’s not a show worth recommending broadly anymore. It used to be the container for a lot of Star Wars’ potential, but all of that has since been met or squashed by the various things released post-acquisition.
not a Jedi apologist or a Jedi hater but a secret third thing
I liked the Umbara arc…it showed the gritty combat of the war with General Skywalker in the thick of it. Plus the human Umbarans with their “fighting gas” pumping through their helmets was WAY more captivating to see in battle than the idiotic battle droids. Battle droids in general kinda ruin the idea of the Clone Wars to me…especially with how stupid they are. It’s just ridiculous to think the SW galaxy was being threatened by spindly robots who were programmed to think and talk like the 3 stooges. When George decides he needs humor he NEVER knows where or how to put it in. 🙄
TCW’s commando droids are what the PT’s battle droids should’ve been.
Gods for some, miniature libertarian socialist flags for others.
I think if there’s one, individual Clone Wars arc worth watching, it’s The Wrong Jedi arc (season 5 finale arc). Written by a real crime TV writer - Charles Murray - it’s genuinely just good TV and has the chops to pull off its ambitions. When Ventress talks about turning Ahsoka in to “the bondsman”, I popped. It’s good stuff - just solid procedural genre fiction.
And so much of what the show nails is distilled into these four episodes. If you hadn’t watched previous seasons, it catches you up to the character dynamics at the top, and pays them off (for once) in a single taut plotline. Every other episode tables the character development for ROTS, and this is the only one to offer a new dimension to it.
I would agree if Baris’ plan made a lick of sense.
In order for her to have to have done everything she does in the prison, she would’ve either had to have an invisibility power or the ability to phase in and out of corporeal existence. And clairvoyance.
How did she know the exact second to choke Letta? How the hell does a Jedi run around a heavily guarded prison complex with troopers moving everywhere and literally kill some with lightsabers and not get noticed by anybody or caught on the CCTV? Tarkin literally says, “We don’t just have anybody running around in here”. In ANH, our heroes take over the control room (where the cameras likely feed to), disguise as troopers, blow up the cameras in the prison bay, and it’s also part of Vader’s plan for them to escape. Baris couldn’t disguise in trooper armor because her proportions don’t match. The prison is shown to have tip-top security, any Jedi entering immediately have their lightsabers confiscated, and are surrounded by troopers every second. They also can’t enter unless they’re asked there, so how did she get clearance to be in there, and why did her trooper escorts leave her alone?
The arc wants me to be mad at the Jedi and Tarkin, but like, it’s literally physically impossible for it to be anybody but Ahsoka. From their perspective, they did nothing wrong.
Even if Baris’ plan made any sense, Ahsoka’s only argument is, “But they should trust me!”… like they trusted Count Dooku, who Mundi and Windu stood up for, someone who was like a brother to them, only to then get betrayed on Geonosis? They gave him the benefit of the doubt and got their back stabbed, and you’re actually gonna pull that? What a complete lack of empathy. Almost as if we’re just supposed to see Jedi Masters as blocks of wood and not human beings. She expects them to just throw all evidence out the window, I guess. Guess they should’ve also trusted Vader even after those security holograms.
The logical inconsistencies have a ripple effect on every character (which is why, yes, plot holes do matter).
Peak TCW08 is the Umbara arc, Maul + Death Watch, and Fives Inhibitor Chip arc.
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My Star Wars Fan-Edits
TCW’s commando droids are what the PT’s battle droids should’ve been.
That would absolutely have been better than the B1 droids. Still…it’s why I like the Umbara arc, it showed the Seperatists doing their own fighting against Republic armies and gave it more stakes. When every other Separatist planet just uses battle droids it makes the whole conflict just feel like The Terminator. Defeat the machines!