Full Series The Clone Wars retained my interest in Star Wars

Now that the show has been cancelled, I'll just get my 2c on the subject. If people are allowed to post their whine threads about how they hate the show, I'm going to squeeze a thread in about the shows impact on me.

May 19th, 2005: My dad was overseas fighting in Afghanistan, I was ten years old and I spent my time after school glossing over news about Star Wars Episode III, which is how I stumbled across TFN. I'm a member of the generation who grew up watching the prequels as nothing lesser than the originals (still do, matter of fact) - Star Wars had a universal resonance with my generation. I never got into the comics, I wasn't very interested in them though the novels retained some of my interest.

Revenge of the Sith came out in a huge woop-de-doo, I delayed going to see it so I could go to the theaters to see it when my dad came home from deployment on June 1st. Then that was it. To me and everyone else it seemed - Star Wars was over. There were no plans at the time for the sequel trilogy, so I stopped paying attention to the news about Star Wars once Revenge of the Sith came out on DVD. I was huge into NASA, around that time the space shuttles were coming back after the loss of Columbia (I actually got to see the Return To Flight of Discovery in July 2005 - one of the perks of living in Florida)

I found out about The Clone Wars when they announced plans for the theatrical release (I think it was February 2008, not entirely sure - but I was in 8th grade at the time) and I went to see it when it came out in August 2008.. I feel like I can't entirely blame people who only saw the theatrical release and say "yea, this show sucks".. but still, I decided to give the series a chance when it came out in my first semester of High School. Ambush hooked me, it's still one of my favorite of the series. Yoda was awesome, the clones were awesome - and it really felt like I was sucked back into this great fantasy world.

Since then, I watched every last episode of the show and watched as it seemed to grow in maturity and development as I grew up through my teenage years, especially with characters like Ahsoka. I never once saw any of the complaints that fans though it warranted - corny dialogue? So what. Bad scripts? I'd rather watch the worst written episode of TCW over some of the complete trash on television like Jersey Shore and pretty much anything else on Cartoon Network. Still, I got to thinking - this show is probably going to end soon, we're getting close to Revenge of the Sith. The Live Action series is getting put off, there's 1313, and that was pretty much it. Sure enough though.. October 30th, 2012 came.

Disney bought LucasFilm.

Star Wars Episode VII, VIII, and IX are coming out.

Star Wars is back in my mind as much as it was as I was a kid. I'm incredibly elated with joy at the prospect of new Star Wars movies. But I feel though if it wasn't for this show, I wouldn't be. I would have viewed Star Wars as something I was into as a kid - nothing more. Sure I would have gone seen Episode VII, and have been somewhat excited, but I wouldn't be as poured into it as I am now. Now, when I go see all of the next Star Wars movies, I'll feel exactly as I did on May 19th, 2005.. I'm going as a fan instead of just a general moviegoer.

Thank you Clone Wars for 5 years of awesome.

 

Awesome thread and nice post. I guess I'll share my two cents.... I'm the same age as you, I was 10 when ROTS came out. I was raised with Star Wars from birth pretty much, In fact ROTJ in theaters was one of my Mom & Dad's first dates. I saw TPM as a 4 year old kid and fell in love instantly. I forced my parents to take me to the toy store immediately after the movie so I could get an obiwan, qui gon, and Maul action figures (and lots more)... I had the same hype for AOTC, even had my own little "Jedi order" with my friends who lived on the block, good times. Once ROTS came out I was big into SW. For me that was still the pre-internet days, I would never usually go online. But ROTS was the first one I went to at midnight, it was so awesome.

After ROTS, the SW flame was alive for a few months, but it kinda died out a bit. I lost interest in the series, and got more into video games. I remember when the clone wars movie came out... I was soo stuborn, I REFUSED to see it. My family rented it to watch at home but I even refused to see it then, and went to play video games instead. Eventually I came around to watching the clone wars movie, as well as the first half of Season 1. Eventually, i forgot about the series... I just lost interest and stopped watching. The Force Unleashed series kept me into Star Wars from like 2008-2010. Then I lost interest yet again until 2012. TPM in 3D got me back into star wars, and one of my old buddies (who was in my "jedi order") convinced me to check out TCW. He got me to get back into it due to him going crazy over maul returning.... I HAD to see maul back... I got back into the clone wars in may 2012, and watched all of S1-4 with my brother and sister while we were on vacation. I loved the series, and was soo hyped for season 5.

I feel betrayed at this point, and in a way robbed. I got into TCW too late, It would have been a great show to follow every week from 2008-2012. But I started too late and now I feel like the series is new stuff for me, since i only first got into it less than a year ago.

 

Sharing life stories, are we?

Alright, I've always loved Star Wars, I think. My father is a huge OT fan, but he despises the PT. I myself have somehow managed to make up my own mind on things, and am a lover of 5 out of 6 of the Star Wars films (stupid TPM is stupid).

I don't think my love for this franchise has ever waned, at least not so far. I got into the novels and the games fairly early on - I read Heir to the Empire (actually, I read the Star Wars trilogy omnibus first) when I was 6 or 7, I believe - so there has never been a drought of content.

In 2008, I went to the cinema to watch a brand new SW film, The Clone Wars. A promising new avenue for SW content, it was going full 3D CG animation! Then... it sucked. I mean, it's worse than TPM. Instead of being a clear bridge from AOTC to ROTS, it covers a non-plot concerning Jabba's... son. Oh, and they introduced a 14-year old character who speaks, and acts, like a 9-year old.

Suffice it to say that I was not looking forward to the series. Being the SW fan that I am, I decided, however, to give it a second chance. Maybe the 22-minute format will somehow improve it, I thought. The premiere of Ambush/Rising Malevolence was certainly better than the film, but it wasn't to the quality I expected.

I was just about to give up when Rookies aired. That episode single-handedly retained my viewership. Hevy, Echo, Fives, Cutup (and Droidbait too, I guess). These were clones that this show had successfully made me care about in a mere 22 minutes. The potential had been revealed.

4 seasons later, I'm glad I kept watching, as the show most certainly improved after it's first season. Is there bad here? Sure. Gascon and Jar Jar are two characters that I really would like to somehow murder throughout all of the fictional timeline, so they can never appear again.

But great stuff such as the Second Battle of Geonosis, the reveal of Satine, the TV portrayal of the Nightsisters, the harrowing experience of Umbara, Obi-Wan's fun with Cad Bane, the return of Maul... it's been a good ride.

I'm sad to see the show cancelled before dealing with Rex and their original clone characters mainly, as Ahsoka's story was wrapped up. I remain optimistic though, and hope that Episode VII will be great.

I concur, thank you for 5 years of Star Wars on the small screen.

 

I'll join in... I'm in the same age group pretty much around 14 when ROTS came out which was obviously the last SW release for a long time. I remember growing up with the OT and getting the VHS box set when I was little and watching each one a hundred times. Then of course the PT followed which for my age at the time I loved and still do. ROTS was a little dark on my young self watching our loved hero fall so far from the light but that was to be expected.

Well that was pretty much it with star wars for me... I played TFU games when they came out but I didn't really think to much about the SW universe after watching Anakin fall. I don't know if that was specifically the reason but it certainly didn't help. After that I was getting older, reaching that age where cartoons were I don't want to say frowned upon really but they weren't really the thing to watch. I had heard about TCW coming out and saw bits and pieces when channel surfing but never really gave it too much thought aside from a passing "oh that looks kinda cool."

Then it happened... about 4 weeks ago wednesday, i ruptured a tendon in my ankle and partially ruptured two others leaving me bed ridden for my senior year's spring break... Yuck!! With boredom threatening to snuff out my life force I picked up TCW and started watching. Well lets just say that five seasons wasn't enough to fill a week of time I fell in love with the show on a level I wouldn't have imagined. It opened a new world of SW to me and gave us deeper insight into characters we previously new so little about. It gave us literally hundreds of hours of new footage on subjects that may have only gotten minutes in the PT.

Like CaptainRex above me I am sad I started so late and didn't give the show a chance when I was younger. I feel let down now that I've finally started loving the show only to get the finger from Disney. What could have been I guess...

 

I feel so old now...

 

Throws rotten Ahsokas at Anakinfan! I saw ANH in college, but it was ROTS along with the internet that got me on the boards.

 

I'm the opposite. TCW made me want to hate Star Wars.

 

Nothing wrong with sharing some life stories! We're all people after all, and most of us I would hope universally like Star Wars a lot.

 

I always thought the OT was some good movies in about the same light I think of Independence Day as a good movie. I was a tomboy growing up and hung out mainly with boys (one of the guysl) so I picked up a little extra knowledge playing with action figures when I was kid. When TPM came out I went through a short Star Wars phase mainly because it was the 'in' thing to RP in chatrooms on AOL at that time. I actually preferred to piss everyone off with crossover characters there. That phase passed. I was 20 when ROTS came out. I saw it twice. The rest of the PT maybe once each.

Then one sleepless night I gave up trying and decided to just watch something. Earlier I had found Netflix sleeves at my parents' house ordered by my little brother that contained The Clone Wars season 1 and brought them home. As an animation buff I'll give about anything animated a shot. A couple friends had discouraged me from watching the movie. I even have an ebuddy who was against the Anakin getting a Padawan thing who ranted to me back in the day when I didn't really get it. Wish I'd given TCW a shot earlier. When I popped that first Blu-ray into my PS3 by the time I got to Rookies I was hooked. I owned the first two seasons shortly after that and caught up.

I can't say why I never got very into Star Wars before. I normally like fantasy, fairytales, sci-fi, good vs evil, super heroes, armor, and soaps. I like it more with a side of camp. SW has all that stuff. I think its because I tend to get into stuff on a mythology level. The movies really only offer a taste of the mythology, IMO. That wasn't enough to get me to seek out comics and novels. Its the franchises with my favorite mythos no matter how lame they may be on the surface in some cases that always pull me back or keep me interested. Also, I am a nostalgia head as well as an animation buff. I often go through phases with my interests and move on after a while.

Seasons 1 and 2 of TCW are very much like a 90s action cartoon with 3D animation. Its full of awesome campy, cheesy goodness. Episodes go in a perfect circle most of the time. Familiar faces like Obi-wan who was always one of my favorite SW characters and Anakin were enigmatic enough to me I liked following them on adventures. It was cool to meet new Jedi. It was either in Jedi Crash or Cargo of Doom where I first really noticed Rex. He became my favorite in the main cast. At first for shallow reasons but "The Deserter" deepened him and turned him into one of my favorite fictional characters out there for more that just being a cool looking badass. I had also really liked Waxer and Boil which coupled with my love of armored characters and cool helmets made me into a fan of the clone troopers. Something I never would of suspected from my memories of AOTC and ROTS. TCW even gave me a TV dad clone. I love TV dads.

Season 3 tested my lame filter a bit, that's something I picked up as an animation fan. However come the second half and the large part of season 4 and 5 the series moved away from that 90s feel. It became something much darker and more complex which I enjoyed even more because I was invested by then. Stuff like the Umbara and Rako Hardeen raised the bar and broke the mold. The series moved away from the villain of the day formula. It became much more linear. It started to pick up plot strands left dangling and move them. That movement was slow and it was subtle at times. Season 5's final two arcs really did this although there were some cool call backs the entire way through.

TCW explored much more of the mythos and spent more time with the characters which finally captured my interest. I've rewatched all the movies a few times since and enjoy them much more. It really increased my enjoyment of the PT, its kinda cool I can name most of the background Jedi now. TCW even enhances the OT for me, particularly ROTJ. My favorite was always 'Return of the Jedi' which I guess is the first clue I'm not the typical SW fan. Pretty much because I wasn't much of one before. Heh... to wrap this up TCW brought me to SW. It has helped me through some difficult stuff over the last couple years of my life and gave me some great escapism. That's why its been a little hard for me to let go.

 

lol..... I got the clip used on me, now the shoes on the other foot.

 

TCW, along with the post-NJO, is killing my interest in Star Wars. The old multimedia project timeline is the Clone Wars to me. The post-NJO angered me to the point that particular era is dead to me, because I utterly despise every major plot point, and I am pretty sure Troy Denning's leadershipin that era had a lot to do with why I hate it.

 

I was 11 when ANH came to movie theaters, but because my uncle had brought the novelization from the States before the flick hit theaters here, I was forced to read it with the help of a dictionary (English classes had started a few months before I got the book). I was hooked ever since.
I watched the movies, bought the posters, read the books, the comics, the visual guides, collected the action figures and played the video games. The Star Wars pen & paper RPG by WEG still is my favorite roleplaying game, and I played many ... in short, my interest in the franchise never waned.
Then came the PT. I thought the first movie was okay, the second one suffered from horrible pacing (but it had clones), and I thought the third one was great. Some of my old SW-loving friends hated the PT, but it didn't turn me off the franchise ... but a novel nearly killed the EU for me.
I had read pretty much all of the EU novels up to Traitor, and I had enjoyed them all - some more, some less (Crystal Star's Waru, anyone?). Traitor, however ... I found it such a horrible, incredibly boring read that it became one of the very few books I never finished, and I never wanted to read a SW novel again. I turned my interest to the animated CW series instead but I found it hard to stay interested. While I found the over-the-top action funny (and thought Fordo was cool), I didn't like the artistic style.
Then a friend of mine committed a grave error: He bought me RC:Hard Contact for my birthday. While I was very sceptic, to say the least, I was positively surprised, and RC:HC still is one of my favorite SW novels along with the Zahn books. It didn't manage to get me back into SW novel reading mode, however, even though I tried- I was rather disappointed by the next book in the series. While I liked some of the ideas and basic notions, there was too much Mando-fanaticism for my taste, and while I've never been a fan of Jedi in general, their depiction in the book really turned me off. The third book finally did it - once again I swore never to read another SW novel. Childish me.
But RC:HC had achieved something quite positive as well: it brought me back into SW gaming.
Then came TCW.
We had an admittedly bad start, we two: The same friend who had brought me RC:HC gave me the TCW novelization for my birthday. And I didn't like the novelization much: The same amount of Mando-fanaticism, the same level of Jedi hatred, one-track minded protagonists. But - I actually liked the pictures from the movie, plus my son had just begun to show interest in SW, so I caved in rather quickly and bought the DVD.
And there was *the* Star Wars I hadn't even known I had been missing for such a long time. I grew very fond of TCW as it gave me what I had been missing over the course of the last years: sympathetic and/or cool original characters, an Anakin I could relate to, an art style I could adore and stories for all age categories - stories I could enjoy together with sonny.
TCW even managed to make me read SW novels again: it had made me love the Clone Wars era so much that I dared to buy the Medstar books.
I didn't like them.

But anyway, TCW has given me and my family a blast of a Star Wars time - a 'thank you, TCW' is perfectly in order. Sonny and I still enjoy watching the DVDs and blu-rays on a weekly base.

 

Well...

I fell in love with Star Wars when I was 9, back in 1998 when my brother forced me to watch ANH. I enjoyed it - a lot. Swiftly followed that was my viewing of ESB and ROTJ. I was hooked. Then the prequels came out and up until about 2005 I was a fan of Star Wars (though I had quite a few phases with other fandoms - Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter) and then I left the Star Wars fandom and I moved into Doctor Who fandom which nearly 8 years later I am still a major part of.

I came back into Star Wars fandom through one simple reason: TCW. This happened last March. I was revising for one of my retakes for an exam I had failed and I got bored and decided to have a break. Switched on the tv and saw TCW airing on Cartoon Network here. It was already half-way through but I thought what the hell? I put it on and it was Landing at Point Rain episode. I only intended on taking a 15 minute break from my revision but I ended up watching Weapons Factory which was airing straight after it. I was hooked.

And within a week I had researched the show, bought the movie and blu-rays of Season 1-3 and devoured them all.

And then I came crawling back to TFN!

So though I was a fan of Star Wars prior to TCW, it was thanks to TCW that brought me back and I'm glad it did!

For the last year it has been a fantastic ride and I hope that my enthusiasm for Star Wars doesn't disappear again.

So for that, thank you to TCW for making a wonderful (though not without its faults) show and for bringing me back into the fold!

 

I don't know when I saw the OT. After 1986, but before 1993. I was probably 4 or 5, so around 1990-1991. My dad would watch them on VHS and I'd catch glimpses of things like the cantina or Jabba's Palace or the Battle of Hoth and it would just be amazing to me. ROTJ was my favorite as a kid because I think it appealed to more of what the child in me wanted to see - space battle, evil sorcerer, fantastic aliens, funny ewoks, etc. ESB was just soooooo boring. But then as I got older I appreciated ESB and ANH more and ROTJ became less interesting.

I saw the SE of ANH in theaters, but it didn't really do anything for me and I didn't see the other two.

When I saw TPM I absolutely loved it. Later I got it on VHS, watched it again, and couldn't understand how I thought it was so amazing.

I saw AOTC four times in theaters - I think the novelty of the big battle at the end filled with Jedi took a long time to wear off - but like TPM when I saw the DVD and watched it a few more times, it quickly became my least favorite SW film.

I loved the microseries.

I went to the midnight showing of ROTS with my brother and felt kind of burned out on the prequels after TPM and AOTC. If he had not wanted to go, I probably would have been in no rush to see the midnight showing, but I absolutely loved it. On repeated viewings I still love it, and it's easily one of my favorite SW films.

When the announcement came that there would be another Clone Wars show, I could not have been more disappointed that they were staying in the prequel era and going backwards to re-fill in an era covered by the microseries. That era was so fascinating to me back when I was actually between films in 2002-2005, but after ROTS, I couldn't have cared less about getting a lead in to ROTS. And Anakin had an apprentice? What the hell was that about?

My brother and I were on the fence about going to see the TCW film, it looked like a kiddy movie, but hey, it was Star Wars. Ultimately we didn't see it on account of many bad reviews, and I feel like had I seen the TCW film in theaters, I NEVER would have watched the show (I saw the film a couple years later and thought it was TERRIBLE).

I felt embarrassed to watch TCW at first and remember being at college and waiting until my roommate went home for the weekend to watch it. I saw Ambush and thought it was decent. Not great, but not as terrible as I was expecting. Then came the Malevolence arc and again it surpassed my expectations and it just kept on going like that until it became regular enough that I never missed an episode. The Blue Shadow Virus arc were the only episodes that I thought were outright bad from S1. S2 was OK. S3 was half good, half crap. S4 was consistently good but I was disappointed in the focus on Obi-Wan and Anakin. And S5 completely dropped the ball.

I remain optimistic for Episode 7 and a future series set in another era. Had TCW been cancelled with neither of those things on the horizon, I'd be sad. But now I'm getting what I had hoped for back in 2005 and so don't really feel like I'm going to miss TCW in the long run or that anything will remain special about it. It was a decent SW TV show and had some pretty good animation (towards the end anyway), but from a saga POV it was insignificant.

I would have remained a SW fan with or without TCW. If I can go from 1990-1999 as a Star Wars fan in a vacuum without new Star Wars material (there was EU out there, I just didn't partake), I could go from 2005-2015.

It's not like I would cease to be a fan without a weekly fix of Star Wars. I enjoyed TCW while it lasted, but it did not blow my mind, I have only seen every episodes once or twice (once on initial run and then again at StarWars.com), I have no intention of getting the DVDs/Blu-rays and will likely never watch the show again upon conclusion of the "bonus material."

 

What the heck, I might as well join this little thread too with my Star Wars story (time to go into my 'reminiscing mode'):

I got into Star Wars during the mid 1990's (I think it's latter half, at least before TPM) when I watched the OOT version of ANH with my family at home; it was quite an experience and this led to me growing up with renting the OOT VHSversions of the trilogy and I also started collecting SW figures. ROTJ was my favorite and I remember getting to rent that one several times and watching it with my brother; nowadays it's my second favorite and prolly the one I feel the most nostalgic about. I recall then wanting to see the SE versions and later on I got to buy an used SE VHS box (the fullscreen version in the golden Vader box which I still have). TPM then came out as the hyped new movie when I was around 10-11 and I saw it in the theaters twice (actually saw each PT movie twice in theaters) and despite being quite different from the OT, I thought it was great, the same with AOTC and ROTS. Despite that the OT being better, I still consider the PT to be a batch of really enjoyable movies and I'd almost put TPM in my nostalgia category (together with the tie-in video game Episode 1 Racer). As for the Ewok movies, I recorded them from TV on a VHS tape back in 2001 and have watched them several times (still got that tape, too). When it comes to books, I read quite a few and one series of books that I still hold dear and remember very well is the Young Jedi Knights series; I also read books like 'Tales From Jabba's Palace' and 'Tales From The Mos Eisley Cantina'.

I remember watching Genndy Tartakovsky's original Clone Wars series on TV, one episode every week, and while I liked them and thought they had some great moments and is memorable, I felt that they were a bit too short (when I think of it, one 2-3 minute episode every week was pretty weak, at least in my opinion). I think I watched the second season online and saw it on TV when it aired, prior to seeing ROTS. Speaking some more of SW animation, I got the Droids and Ewoks cartoon DVDs (I remember watching some Ewok episodes on a tape a long before time I really got into Star Wars and we had this tape where among other cartoons, the last episode of Droids was recorded). After ROTS there was a SW drought and in 2007-08 I saw that really old trailer for TCW and I didn't like the character designs or the stiffness so I was sort of disappointed in the look of the new Clone Wars series so I didn't have much faith in the show. Then later, the TCW movie came out but I didn't see it in the theaters, not because I told myself I'd never see it but because I wasn't in the mood to see it (I guess the fact that the trailer didn't impress me turned me off a bit); I just rented it on DVD when it came out and I thought it was okay but it wasn't so great; it was and still is rather disjointed, but there was some stuff I definitely liked. The show on the other hand is a different story:

The show started airing some months after the movie; I watched the first 10-12 episodes and thought the show was really good, an improvement when compared to the movie (the animation still grew onto me and I think 'Rookies' was my favorite; me and my best friend thought it was great episode and it still is); the rest of the season I watched sporadically and it got better and better, leading up to the Ryloth arc and 'Hostage Crisis'; I didn't get it this season on DVD until a year ago or so. I never watched Season 2 on TV, but I caught two episodes on StarWars.com and later, I got the season DVD and watched it all, whereupon I found that the show had improved a lot; it had a really good balance and the animation had also improved so all in all, this is where the show really started to me. I watched the more part of Season 3 on a TV airing (I think it was starting with 'Evil Plans' or 'Hunt For Ziro') and that second half of the season really impressed me so I got the DVD when it was released and watched the whole thing; even though the first half wasn't fantastic, I enjoyed it. Of Season 4, I watched the Water War arc & the second half of the season and I definitely enjoyed the episodes greatly; I got the DVD last year and watched every episode, including those stories I never saw before like the Umbara quadrilogy; by now the show had gotten quite impressive. I watched all of Season 5 and it had many solid episodes; those last arcs were great.

An end of an SW animation era comes to a close with the cancellation of The Clone Wars, but it's given us five memorable seasons with many great, entertaining and enjoyable stories as well as increasingly good animation and design. It took some risks, had some less than great stuff and isn't appreciated by everyone, but I think it's overall been a great show and has added quite a bit to the saga, especially the PT, and it definitely gave us some really good and memorable characters and other stuff that has expanded the SW universe. Even though the show could have went on to get better and better, It's been a great five year run and I have to thank the TCW crew for the very fine job they did with this show that has earned a place in my personal Star Wars library.

 

Idk, I feel Star Wars as a franchise has really spiralled downwards since 2007. Legacy and Dark Times are the only outstanding pieces out there for me since then. I think the ST is a terrible, terrible idea focussed on miling the saga of all its profits. Ugh. If the EU dies, I think I will move on. So this is how one's fandom dies:...with disinterest and a regrettable pang of sadness.

 

1999-2005: Star Wars for me was the films and the Jedi Knight and KOTOR video games.
After 2005, I can't recall being interested in anything Star Wars related until I saw Season One of TCW come out on DVD. Even then, I was only going to give TCW a chance to grab my interest in the first few episodes and if I didn't like it that would be it.
Little did I realize that this series would re-ignite my interest in the SW universe like never before, getting me to buy EU novels/Dark Horse comics, learn more of the EU history, and produce one of my most favorite characters in all of Star Wars second only to Darth Vader of the OT.

 

Apples and oranges imo.

 

Can't say it has since I've followed the EU and only watched season 1 and parts of season 2 when they came out and and only watched the whole series this year.

 

I would go into my full "Star Wars life story" as I have in the past, but listening to all of you do it has made me realize how lame doing that is.



So here's the much, much less lame abbreviated version.

There was a time in the 90's before Shadows of the Empire, the THX remasters, and the Special Editions where if you were a kid a in young grade, you had to have been shown Star Wars by your parents to know what it was. I was one of those lucky kids. Star Wars was one of the biggest deals to me throughout my childhood. Ep. I came out when I was almost 11 and I loved it. When Ep. II came out I wasn't paying attention because I was going through "them changes" and had other stimulants on the brain. But when I saw the Clone Wars micro series I was thrilled and it got me back into it. I started reading the novels and comics again. When Ep. III came out I was 18 and I could not have been more excited, to this day I've never been more excited for a film than that. I loved it. Seeing the Tantive IV lookalike gave me goosebumps. My eyes welled up when Anakin was being burned alive. But a lack of new on-screen material caused my interest to decrease over time. I'd still categorize it as one of my favorite franchises, but with higher (mostly non-fiction) priorities on my reading list, the only active involvement was the occasional video game replay or film rewatch. I didn't take The Clone Wars seriously when it first came out, but after catching some of it on TV I was hooked. The environments feeling like the OT is something that pulled me in immediately. My interest in The Clone Wars got me buying more Star Wars stuff than I have in a long time. Not only did I have to get every TCW video game and even bought my first action figures in years but I was also buying older Star Wars video games and comics too. It even got me to buy all the OT novelizations and some Marvel Star Wars comics because I wanted to find every decades-old reference to the Clone Wars and the Old Republic I could to see how and whether it still fit.

The Clone Wars didn't retain my interest in Star Wars, it got me back into it and as intrigued as I had been since I was a little kid for the first time in a long time.

And then there's the fun of getting other people who love Star Wars but at one point or another lost interest into The Clone Wars. There have been a number of people I know including family, friends, acquaintances, friends' family members, and clients who hate the PT so much that they don't consider it part of Star Wars who I was able to show some of The Clone Wars and, without exception, they all thought it was leaps and bounds better than the PT and asked, "Why couldn't the PT be like that?" Well, without getting into all that, let it suffice to say at least we got TCW to make up for what the PT lacked.

 

I am glad that TCW kept people interested in Star Wars. I hope that the new animated series is far enough along in development so it comes out soon. Then hopefully it can keep people interested in Star Wars between now and Episode VII.